Marcelo Steinmander

Much has been written about breaking into luxury real estate. Most of it is overcomplicated, and some of it is for sale as a course. This is neither.

This isn’t a guide or a seminar. It’s a campfire story of where my business was seven years ago.

I got my license in 2012. By 2019, I felt capable of what I was doing. I understood contracts, negotiations and how to get a deal to the closing table. I knew my market and had closed some difficult sales. But my numbers didn’t reflect it.

My average price point barely cracked above $500,000. The deals were steady, but too much of my time was going to work that led to nowhere. I wasn’t growing the way I thought I should. I felt capable of more, but I hadn’t figured out how to get there.

I Was Already Positioned, But Not Yet In

I already had a brand. More importantly, I believed in it and felt that it belonged in the luxury space of my market. How I presented myself, the way I worked, and how I approached clients, all of it felt aligned with where I wanted to go.

I had taken the steps, but I hadn’t broken through.

It was a very frustrating place to be. From the outside, it looks like you’re doing everything right. Internally, I knew I wasn’t living up to my potential.

I Aligned Myself with Something I Believed In

My first sale above $1 million mark was a $2 million sale that closed before Christmas in 2019. What led to this sale was not the result of a new strategy. It came from alignment.

Earlier that quarter, I found a condo building nearing completion that I believed in. I liked its location, its design and its quality. Everything about it felt right to me.

So, I started talking about that building every chance I had. To clients, to friends, to anyone that would listen. Not in a forceful way, just naturally. Over time, I didn’t just become familiar with it. I became associated with it. I made it a point to know the floor plans by heart, understand which layouts had the best views and keep them in mind even while working on other listings.

The First Deal Changes Everything

The first sale I had in the building was just before the end of 2019. The next year, I sold two more. The year after that, another. By the end of 2021, I had done over $15M in volume in that one building alone. Not much changed with my branding or how I approached deals. What changed was my focus. I started allocating as much time as I could toward that building and its surrounding market. I studied it to the point where I became a resource for others, and I made sure I was positioned in places and talking with people who would want to learn more about it.

Luxury Through the Product

Looking back, I now notice that the shift wasn’t as complicated as I thought it was. Those sales weren’t the result of trying to “get luxury clients”. I got close to a product I believed in, and I stayed there.

The building happened to be in a luxury price range, and it was a building I understood and could speak about with clarity and confidence. And people trust clarity.

So think it through: is there a community, a building or a neighborhood in your market that you love? Make yourself a list. Then home in on which one you really want to focus on.  Spend time there. That’s the key. You have to invest time and energy in learning it so you can talk about it. And then, you have to talk about it. Consistency is key here, too.

Breaking into a niche, luxury or otherwise, isn’t about learning it all and spreading yourself thin. It’s about zeroing in on where you want to be, one building, one neighborhood at a time, and investing your time and energy into learning that space as well as you can. Become the expert in that one thing. And remember that it takes time. Experts aren’t built overnight, so set your mind to play the long game. Over time, the market will start to associate you with it. Once that happens, the sales will take care of themselves.

Marcelo Steinmander is a real estate professional in Miami, Fla. His diverse background and fluency in English and Spanish made this an ideal field to build and retain long-lasting relationships. In 2020, Marcelo was recognized as a Top 20 Under 40 by the Miami and Chicago Mainstreet Organization of Realtors. He was also a Top 100 Agent in the Southern United States by NAHREP. By the end of 2021, Marcelo became the #1 individual producer in Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices EWM Realty based on the total number of homes sold, and in 2022 an honoree for the National Association of REALTORS® 30 Under 30. Find him on social on Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin.