A residential real estate brokerage will launch operations in Newport Beach this week with an all-star cast of agents, a cash-flush local backer, and a high-tech bent behind its bid to become the go-to agency for luxury home sales in Orange County.
Villa Real Estate LLC will target homes along OC’s coast and other high-end markets, such as Shady Canyon in Irvine.
Homes priced at more than $1.5 million are expected to be the core market for Villa, whose executive team said they plan to introduce mobile applications and other technology and marketing features in a bid to stand out from competitors.
“Real estate is a very antiquated business,” said Steve High, Villa’s president, and one of the five founding equity partners at the company. “We’re going to offer (products) that nobody’s ever seen before.”
The company, whose broker roster features some of the area’s better-known real estate agents, already counts about 50 employees.
“We’re hitting the ground running,” said founding partner Jon Flagg.
Villa executives said they expect to double their number of agents within the next few months.
“We’re being selective” in the addition of brokers, said founding partner Kim Bibb, who along with Flagg comes to Villa from HÔM Real Estate Group.
High and two of the company’s other founding partners, Tim Carr and Evan Corkett, were last with Coldwell Banker Previews. The three also were principals at Newport Beach-based Strada Properties, a high-end area brokerage that was sold to Coldwell Banker in 2003.
The opportunity to start a forward-thinking brokerage company that’s debt-free—thanks to its deep-pocketed main investor—helped the founding partners decide to start Villa, according to the founders.
Jabara
Gary Jabara, chief executive of Newport Beach-based Mobilitie LLC, is the company’s main financial backer.
“A lot of investment has been put into this,” said Jabara, who set up Villa’s headquarters in the same Newport Center building that holds Mobilitie’s offices.
Mobilitie (pronounced “mobility”) is one of the country’s largest cellphone tower owners. The privately held, 7-year-old company also provides advanced enhanced cellular coverage systems and other wireless technologies.
Jabara saw a major windfall about a year ago with the $1.1 billion sale of 2,300 cell-phone towers owned by Mobilitie to Boca Raton, Fla.-based competitor SBA Communications Corp.
Jabara has since invested about $200 million in residential and commercial real estate in Newport Beach.
A few of his local buys include buildings that will serve as Villa Real Estate’s satellite offices. The company plans to have locations in Corona del Mar, the Balboa Peninsula and Mariner’s Mile to start with.
“I believe in this marketplace—I’m bullish on real estate,” said Jabara, who describes Mobilitie as a real estate company that happens to be involved in technology.
Orange County “is a real estate economy,” Jabara said.
Jabara declined to say how much money it’s taken to ramp up Villa Real Estate.
“It’s a meaningful investment,” he said.
High noted that the founders of Strada Properties put about $2 million behind the company when it launched some 13 years ago. Strada and other luxury brokerages in the area—such as HÔM Real Estate and Surterre Properties Inc., both based in Newport Beach—started with much lower headcounts than Villa Real Estate has.
The technology investments being put into Villa Real Estate also are sizable, according to company officials.
The company is planning to roll out the Villa Key, an application that will let home shoppers point a cellphone or other mobile device at any home on the market and immediately receive home information and photos, according to Derek May, director of marketing for the company.
“It’s not just an app to have an app,” High said. “Nobody has really embraced the technology part of the industry, but Gary has (had a) willingness to take on that aspect.”
Timing
The new brokerage is opening its doors amid signs that Orange County’s high-end housing market is heating up (see related Luxury Homes column, page 13). Villa executives said the Newport Beach area has seen more than $2 billion in home sales over the past year.
Local residents, buyers looking for investment properties, and foreign buyers—many from China, Russia, Canada and the U.K.—have been giving the segment a lift lately, Villa Real Estate executives said.
“It’s a destination market,” Jabara said of the OC markets Villa is targeting.
There are currently more than 600 homes on the market in OC with asking prices of more than $2 million, according to brokerage data. About 150 of those are priced at more than $5 million, and about 50 homes here count asking prices of more than $10 million.
Listings
Villa is starting operations this week with more than 50 local listings, executives said.
Jabara said he plans to maintain a low profile at Villa Real Estate and will continue to spend most of his time at Mobilitie.
“I’ll let the team fly,” he said.
Jabara said he sees himself as the type of potential customer that the new brokerage will be targeting. He said he’s seen, in his own real estate dealings, plenty of examples of what brokerages shouldn’t be doing.
“No one wants to feel like a commodity,” Jabara said. “Real estate is antiquated, but one aspect that you want to [retain] is the person-to-person relationships.”
