The Agency, a Los Angeles-based brokerage with more than 350 agents, is opening an outpost in Miami, The Real Deal has learned.
Sources familiar with the deal said the luxe brokerage will open an office in the coastal city later this year, bringing its total number of offices up to 20.
Mauricio Umansky, Billy Rose and Blair Chang founded the Beverly Hills-based firm in 2011. Since then, the company has been on an expansion tear, hiring new agents and opening new locations in almost every major residential market in the country.
In an interview with The Real Deal on Monday, Umansky, the Agency CEO, acknowledged plans were in the works for a South Florida office to open soon.
“As long as everything keeps going in the right direction that is the plan,” he said. “But we are not done yet.”
He said that the company was still working out some major details, including “office space, who is going to be running it, who is going to be joining it.”
Umansky is scheduled to be a panelist at TRD’s Miami showcase and forum in October.
In addition to its home base in Beverly Hills, the firm has offices in Brentwood, Calabasas, Danville, Malibu, Noe Valley, Venice, Orange County, Pacific Palisades, Palm Desert, Park City, Scottsdale, Sherman Oaks, Turks and Caicos, Los Cabos and Punta de Mita.
Umansky said the firm has sought to retain its boutique feel as it moves into new markets, and caps the number of agent teams at all its offices.
Industry professionals say a launch in Miami makes sense, considering Umansky’s reach within the Latin American community. Umansky is a Mexican-American immigrant who has risen to be a household name thanks to his wife Kyle Richards, a star of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
Jay Parker, CEO of Douglas Elliman Florida, said he thinks the move is “great,” saying he welcomed “the healthy opportunity to work together with the Agency.”
The Agency is entering the South Florida market at a time where a number of brokerages, including Compass, Elliman and the Keyes Company, are acquiring smaller firms due to shrinking profit margins and increased competition. Ron Shuffield, CEO of EWM Realty International in Coral Gables, said that competition in South Florida is difficult enough for established firms.
“I think it’s always hard to start a company from scratch because nobody knows you,” he said.
Some of the the Agency’s biggest deals include co-brokering the $100 million sale of the Playboy Mansion to Hostess heir Daren Metropoulos, and snagging the listing for Greenland USA’s $1 billion, 1,500-condo project in Downtown Los Angeles. Its new division team sold 80 percent of the 308-unit Tower 1, and is currently handling sales at Tower 2, the firm previously said.