REAL ESTATE                    LUXURY IS ONE CAREER,          EXCEPTIONAL IS ANOTHER The job description of a real estate agent is simple: “Person responsable for selling or leasing apartments, houses, commercial or industrial property”. You can be a real estate agent and limit yourself to this description. And this is what most agents do. But in a world where specialization with in specialization has become essential, a “prestige” real estate agent plays a different role. We met a few of them.

By Bernard Van de Kerckhove

In theory, nothing distinguishes one real estate agent from another. Both must fulfill the same legal requirements and hold a Professional Card issued by the Prefecture and renewed each year. To obtain it, one needs one of several equivalent diplomas. At the secondary school level, there is a real estate vocational training certificate (BTS) or in the academic path, there are diplomas ranging from the technical university diploma (DEUST) to the Masters (LMD). Two private schools, recognized by the profession and the public authorities, also provide access to this career: The Ecole Supérieure des Professions immobilières in Paris and the Institut National Supérieur de l’Immobilier in Toulouse. A professional who has worked for several years in an agency can also be accredited. The profession also includes other obligations, such as a bank guarantee, with or without sequestration, and of course civil liability insurance. In practice, it is necessary (and even obligatory!) to have a “mandat”. It can be exclusive. In principle, it is time-limited and renewable.

“Luxury” real estate agent:
not for amateurs
Those are just the basics! However, succeeding in this world of several thousand candidates is not easy. In standard real estate it is already difficult enough to succeed without specialization, so excelling in high end is a very delicate matter. It requires a lot more than just a professional card: a solid legal and fiscal knowledge, and not just about France, a large network of relationships, good people skills, several spoken languages, the ability to demonstrate a full knowledge of the sector and one’s market, and a willingness to bet on your future, are all necessary. This is how the great names in prestige real state began to build their reputation. And for it to be real, it has to be  international. John Taylor, Zingraff, Magrey and Son (Add the names you want to mention!!!!!), understood this well and worked to build their networks, fully aware that growth in a career as a luxury real estate agent is tied to globalization. “Associated correspondents” have become a favored new form of partnership, allowing a real estate agent to be present wherever there is clientele. And, it must be added, an increase in the number of billionaires coming from new horizons: China, for example, but also Russia and Mexico, means that it is necessary to open up even further to this world with quality intermediaries located where they are.

Luxury does not mean exceptional, but the exceptional is luxurious
In prestige real estate, things are further complicated by all the discretion surrounding the transactions and the rarity of the “product”. And in the Provence Côte d’Azur region, where there is a certain amount of saturation in “overexploited” areas (Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, Cap d’Antibes, Cannes, Mougins…) you have to be even better as there are more than a hundred professionals claiming to be “specialists” in prestige real estate! Still, what’s prestige for some is not for others. A 2 million Euro property is no longer exceptional. Ten, twenty, or even thirty million € is more common in this sector. And this luxury therefore goes elsewhere, wherever it has an environment, feels spacious and presents superlative services. And it is in this spirit that the “major” real estate agents have begun to recruit from a world that is quite different from their own. Exploring the rare and the exceptional requires a lot of intelligence and performance and it is in the world of fashion, design, automobile, interior decoration, always at the very high end, with men and women sometimes born into luxury, or who at least have always rubbed elbows with it and have perfectly mastered its “codes”, that they find them. They already have the taste, and they will receive training in the real estate trade, the very best.

«Associated correspondents» have become a favored new form
of partnership, allowing a real estate agent to be present
wherever there is clientele.

The product has to give off an air of exclusivity, rarity, selection,
and of belonging to the same milieu. The real estate product becomes
a sort of prestige brand

People …and means
And the investment is not only human, it is also technological. The quick pace and the need to do business remotely requires major infrastructure using all the high tech gadgetry in the area of communications, from high-performance computer equipment to the latest generation of smart phones that are able to convert into a standalone office with no borders, limits or hours. The “marketing” of a high-end property will also be important. In direct form, it will involve classified ads: there are numerous high end publications (starting with Sun Résidence!); the publishing of luxurious brochures, personalized receptions, but the property could also be the subject of an article in a prestige magazine on its decorative or exceptional aspects, a powerful indirect suggestion. But despite everything, a sale, whatever the type, is also a matter of contact. All methods are acceptable, as long as they are legal of course! And if you play golf, that doesn’t hurt!