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Sonja Cullaro, executive vice president of Christies's International Real Estate in New York City and the Hamptons.
Sherri Balassone, Esq. vice president and corporate broker of record for Christies's International Real Estate in New York City and the Hamptons.
A new real estate company with a familiar name has opened an office in East Hampton, its first Hamptons office of several planned.
Its name is Christie’s International Real Estate Group, and it’s an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, a global network of independent firms. Its flagship office is in Manhattan at 1 Rockefeller Plaza, next to Christie’s Auction House, though Christie’s real estate arm and auction house are no longer under the same ownership, explained Sonja Cullaro, the executive vice president of Christie’s International Real Estate Group and the daughter of the company’s president and CEO, Ilija Pavlovic.
“Christie’s International Real Estate used to share common ownership with Christie’s Auction House and the Kering group of companies, which was a big fashion empire — Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta — and it was owned by a French billionaire, Francois-Henri Pinault,” Cullaro said during a recent interview. “And then two years ago, they decided to sell Christie’s International Real Estate, and they sold it to @properties, which is a Chicago-based, independently owned firm.”
Christie’s International Real Estate is a global network comprising 140 companies in 50 countries with 30,000 agents, Cullaro said.
The companies, called affiliates, each own their specific territories.
Brown Harris Stevens was the Christie’s affiliate in New York City and the Hamptons for a long time, but that relationship ended in 2017. Christie’s then operated a company-owned New York City brokerage, but last year @properties sold it to Brown Harris Stevens, The Real Deal reported at the time.
The Christie’s brand was available again in New York and the Hamptons for an affiliate.
“Once the brand was available for those territories, we acquired it,” Cullaro said.
“We had started our brokerage operations in the suburbs of New York City,” she said. “So we started in New Jersey, Westchester and Hudson Valley. Then we acquired New York City and now, naturally, we wanted to be in the Hamptons as well, because I think the thing that we found is wherever you go around the country around the world, you never have to explain the brand. People know and trust the brand. Christie’s was established in 1766. The brand has more than a 250-year legacy, so it’s a really powerful brand.”
The East Hampton office opened at 26 Park Place in September, led by Sherri Balassone, Christie’s International Real Estate Group’s vice president and corporate broker of record for New York City and the Hamptons.
“The amount of interest that we’ve seen so far has been extremely welcoming and uplifting,” Balassone said. “We have not just agents who stop by the office and come in and say hello and ask us what we’re doing and what our plans are, there’s been a lot of interest, both from agents and from the potential customers walking in.”
Additional Hamptons offices are planned.
“Ilija always says, if you’re not growing, you’re dying,” Cullaro said. “We’re very mindful about who we bring to our team. … We want strong producers who will really fit into our collaborative culture.”
They have brought on veteran Hamptons associate real estate broker Jane Babcook. Cullaro said other top names have also joined, but she can’t reveal their names as they are still transitioning.
“We’re kind of starting from the ground up, but not really,” Cullaro said, “because once people hear about the brand and they hear us and our story and what we have to offer them, they’re really excited.”
She said in addition to offering agents connections with top Christie’s agents globally, Christie’s International Real Estate Group is full-service to its agents with an array of support services in marketing, administration and transactions. “So they can be out there doing what they do best,” she said.
Cullaro also touted Christie’s proprietary technology program.
“It’s called The Platform, and it provides the agents with a CRM [customer relationship management], a really strong robust marketing program, [and] open house tool,” she said. “It’s really easy to use, very user friendly, very state of the art, and it’s ours. So we can change it and update it as much as we want, and our agents love it. They find it is a very helpful tool.”
Christie’s also has a proprietary lead-generation program, she said, and when customers of Christie’s Auction House want to purchase a house, they are referred to Christie’s International Real Estate.
“We had always invested in real estate, owned real estate, and at some point, we thought we would own the marketing side as well,” she said of herself and her father. “And when we looked at different brands to affiliate ourselves with, Christie’s was really the brand that we loved the most, because it had been around for such a long time and had that strength and trust embedded in it.”
