Competition for real estate is fierce in many places across the U.S. But the battle unfolds on an even larger scale in the country’s wealthiest cities, where luxury homes outfitted with every amenity imaginable can sell for tens — or even hundreds — of millions.
Of the 10 U.S. counties where prospective buyers need to earn the most to buy a home, 80% are in California, spanning from Marin County in the north to Orange County in the south, CNBC reported earlier this year.
Real estate agent Bre Tiesi, one of the latest to join The Oppenheim Group brokerage featured in Netflix’s Selling Sunset, knows firsthand what it takes to sell in the luxury Los Angeles-area market, where the show takes place.
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Tiesi’s transition from a modeling career to one in real estate coincided with the pandemic, but she received her license back in 2017, always knowing she’d leverage her network to put it to use. “There’s a lot of money out here [in LA] when it comes to real estate and luxury,” Tiesi tells Entrepreneur, “so it’s just who you know, honestly.”
Although Tiesi says all of her clients are “really different,” there are some similarities when it comes to what they want in a luxury property. Generally, wealthy buyers are on the hunt for a “full-service home.”
“They want to have as much as they can, where they don’t have to leave their house.”
“Everyone wants the works,” Tiesi explains. “They want the pools, the gyms, the movie theaters, all that type of stuff. So it’s all basically the same for anyone with money: They want to have as much as they can, where they don’t have to leave their house.”
In fact, luxury homes in the LA market are typically so well-equipped with all of the bells and whistles that moneyed clients don’t have any problem finding one worthy of an offer. “It’s more [an issue] of loving them all and trying to narrow it down,” Tiesi says.
And the No. 1 factor in that process of elimination? Location.
“There’s only so much real estate out here in those prime areas.”
“It’s always location,” Tiesi explains. “It just depends on where that person wants to be. If they want to be in the Hills, if they want to be in the Valley. There’s only so much real estate out here in those prime areas, so when things are flipped or come on the market, it’s always about location because it doesn’t come around all the time.”
There are a lot of new developments popping up in Encino, Tiesi adds, because just a couple of years ago “there was nothing available” — and any property that did hit the market was often gone within 24 hours.
On average, homes in Encino go for upwards of $1.4 million, with 34.2% of sales above the list price, per Zillow.
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Although a well-appointed luxury property’s prime location might be its biggest selling point, Tiesi says something else can also seal the deal: really getting to know the client.
“A lot of the time the clients think that they know what they want,” Tiesi says. “Sometimes they can even be stern on what they say they want to see, things like that. But when you know them, you’re able to move differently and see their vision and put them in different places that they may not have been open to before.”
