I was featured in a Los Angeles Times article with my business partner, Stacy Gottula, discussing the “new normal” when it comes to luxury real estate marketing. From drones to helicopters and camera crews making “lifestyle films,” it certainly has been a fascinating evolution from when I first started in real estate many years ago! Technology is booming and the savviest players in the real estate industry are really learning great ways to use new technologies for marketing properties.
Read the full article below, by Tiffany Hsu:
Four decades ago, when Joyce Rey started out in real estate selling homes for the likes of Sonny and Cher, the most luxurious mansions in town would go for less than a million dollars. High-end home advertising involved a two-line notice, sans photo, in the classifieds section. Documents were hand-delivered by real estate agents who usually worked alone.
Rey now has five assistants. She and Stacy Gottula, her partner at Coldwell Banker Previews International, Estates Division, regularly deal with billionaires. Together, impeccably coiffed and fashionably dressed, they represent the currently most expensive home listing in the nation—the opulent, 25-acre, $195million Palazzo di Amore in Beverly Hills.
The estate—with its dozen bedrooms, 23 bathrooms, 27-car garage, vineyard, screening room, bowling alley and ocean views—is separated from the rest of the city by a quarter-mile of tree-lined driveway, seemingly transplanted from some magical corner of Provence. The palatial interior, aglow under glittering crystal chandeliers, is festooned with grand tapestries and gilded artwork.
Marketing such a property—where the 13,500 bottles of fine wine kept on site are considered a minor selling point—requires tact, creativity, and no small amount of capital, experts said.
Top real estate agents move in a tiny community, and image, reputation, and connections are everything. Their familiarity with extreme wealth soothes buyers, agents said. But it also allows them to screen out unwanted interest.
Rey and Gottula were given the Palazzo listing because of their previous track record, and because they had worked with its owner, real estate mogul Jeff Greene, on leasing the property to business people and prominent international families. Now, the partners open the house only to those with a private invitation or who have undergone a financial vetting process.
"You get a lot of looky-loos. A lot of these clients are very high profile and confidential," Stacy Gottula, a real estate agent of Coldwell Banker Previews International, said.
