Brokers Who Bet on a Few Sales
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Some luxury real-estate brokers can afford to spend countless hours with a single client and tens of thousands of dollars on marketing a property. The payoff: commissions from two or three sales that provide a tidy six- or seven-figure annual income.
Shari Chase, a broker in Nevada's Lake Tahoe area, sold only three properties last year—including the $25.5 million lakefront Osprey Estate that was the largest sale in Lake Tahoe since 2008. Al Tarina, a 23,000-square-foot home on 72 acres at Lake Tahoe that Ms. Chase is currently marketing, is on the market for $29.5 million. The living room at Al Tarina features high ceilings and sweeping views of Lake Tahoe. Nestled in a private cove, the home is adjacent to more than a mile of U.S. Forest Service land. The Osprey Estate, which hit the market at $34 million, sold in December 2012 for $25.5 million, after it was reduced to $29.5 million. David Duffield, co-founder of Workday and PeopleSoft, purchased the property. Ms. Chase spent approximately $65,000 in marketing costs on the property.
Broker Jim Taylor at the 6,259-acre Bullis Creek Ranch, 6 miles from Livingston, Mont., that is on the market for $13.25 million. The property features a 9,000 square-foot log home that was fully remodeled and furnished in 2007. The home has views of the Absaroka mountains and the Yellowstone River corridor. Mr. Taylor's firm, Hall & Hall, has the listing. Mr. Taylor sold Dana Ranch, which was originally listed at $45 million, at the end of 2012. It was one of five sales for the Billings, Mont., broker.
Aspen broker Joshua Saslove sold six properties last year, for a total of $113 million, with two of those sales going for more than $20 million. Mr. Saslove's biggest sale was of Hala Ranch, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan's 90-acre compound in Aspen, Colo. Hedge-fund manager John Paulson bought the home for $49 million in June. It originally was listed for $135 million in 2006. Mr. Saslove and the prince's lawyers prescreened around 100 buyers who asked to tour the property. Only 12 prospective buyers got to tour the home. Mr. Saslove says the prince also asked for hardcover promotional books wrapped in Italian suede to be given to the most serious buyers. At more than $500 a pop, only 112 books were printed.
Agent Sami Hassoumi, of Brown Harris Stevens, is pictured in an Upper East Side townhouse in Manhattan he's currently representing. Mr. Hassoumi had one sale last year: a $20 million Upper East Side co-op to private-equity investor J. Christopher Flowers. Mr. Flowers bought a second-floor co-op on Park Avenue. The home has six bedrooms, 6½ bathrooms and a large library.
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