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The principal of a luxury real estate agency has taken some inspiration from the hospitality sector.
Alon Beran, director of Sydney Sotheby’s International Realty x Lower North Shore agency, prides himself on delivering a bespoke, high-quality service – not just to clients, but to his agents as well.
For Beran, boutique is best. “I don’t think huge benefits anybody,” the director explained.
“I would be very happy with a business that has one hub in the Lower North Shore that covers the whole [area], that has between 20 and 30 agents – I think that’s a really good size,” he said.
Instead of micromanaging the various branches of his agency, Beran compared his role to a hotelier.
“I can have people running their own businesses within my business and I service them like a hotel, where I’m here, they’re my customer, and my job is to provide them with the ancillary services to surround their business,” he said.
In his experience, this hub-based approach offers advantages over the more traditional suburb-segregated mode of real estate networks.
“Real estate agents are pigeonholed into a market: if you’re a Cammeray agent, or if you’re a Mosman agent, you’re not really seen in Willoughby,” Beran said.
“Buyers don’t look at one suburb and go, ‘That’s the suburb I want to buy in.’ They buy pretty broadly across the Lower North Shore.
“I think that there is huge value in the cross-sell that happens across Sydney as a whole,” he said.
As the director of a hub that spans the entire Lower North Shore, Beran is able to widen his reach and collaborate with other agencies in the Sotheby’s network – an approach that he believes results in stronger client service.
“What Sotheby’s does really well is broaden the market a little bit,” he said.
“I get an email a day from an agent in the eastern suburbs or an agent in the Upper North Shore who has an off-market listing for a buyer and wants to work with someone else.”
As a result of his focus on top-tier service, Beran is willing to invest time and energy into selecting the best agents for his team.
“The way I see it is anybody who I would hire as an agent within this business, I would be willing to have as a partner in the business in the future – otherwise they’re not worth hiring,” he said.
The vision of progressing towards eventual partnership is one that benefits agents too, as well as the brand.
“I think that a lot of agents finish this job or this career with no asset,” he said. “They make great money, and they spend great money […] but with a Rolex and a fancy car, you want to have an asset at the end of it.”
“I’m happy for everybody to be a part of the growth of this business. They’re going to be the growth of the business, so they should share in that,” he concluded.
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