Southampton Native Stars In 'Million Dollar Beach House'

“Million Dollar Beach House,” a new reality show that debuted on Netflix last month, puts the national spotlight on high-stakes Hamptons real estate. The six-episode series follows a team of young Nest Seekers agents, including Southampton’s own James “Jimmy” Giugliano, trying to secure listings and sell eight-figure homes in the competitive market.

Mr. Giugliano stands out on the show for not standing out; that is to say, he stays away from the made-for-TV drama that his colleagues find themselves in. Instead, he focuses on getting deals done. The show filmed in 2019, the same year that he had a hand in two of the top 10 Hamptons real estate sales. He now runs a team of 11 out of Nest Seekers’ Bridgehampton office and personally focuses on selling new development.

In an interview last week, Mr. Giugliano explained how he got into real estate, how he became part of the Netflix series and how his approach to the business and working with clients has paid off.

Mr. Giugliano lives in Water Mill with his wife, Kelsey, and their new son, Rocco. As a child, he lived in Southampton Village until moving to Water Mill, just outside the village, when he was 13, and he attended Southampton High School. His father, Jim, is a physician with a concierge medicine practice, and his mother, Carolyn, is the practice’s office manager.

Mr. Giugliano’s first exposure to real estate came through working for a friend of the family, a builder named Peter Callos.

“All throughout high school and throughout college, when I came home, I was working on his job sites, learning the craft of that trade,” Mr. Giugliano recalled. “Once I saw the real estate game, I was like, ‘I can do this way better than the actual real estate agents that are showing up to these properties.’”

He said he started out in the building trade as the low man on the totem pole, sweeping up job sites, peeling off window stickers for hours, and doing whatever needed to be done.

After studying business management in college, he pursued work in Manhattan, but decided that city life wasn’t for him.

“I was born and raised out here,” he said of the East End. “I fell in love with the place. I applied to a couple jobs in the city and after going on interviews — and I actually ended up getting a job — I just was like, ‘I don’t want to be here.’ So the Hamptons pulled me back.”

Looking at his options and what he was good at, he said to himself he could take over Mr. Callos’s building business or get into real estate. “These real estate agents are making six-figure checks for showing the house a couple times while my family friend Peter’s here for a whole year killing himself,” he said. “Why don’t I just do both and make double the money?”

He dropped off resumes at all the brokerages and they all offered him a job, which he attributed to everyone knowing his father. But at Nest Seekers, he spoke with Geoff Gifkins, the branch manager, whose daughter he went to high school with. Mr. Gifkins, who was a familiar face who in turn knew his family, said, “I can take you to the next level before these guys can.”

“I gave it a shot and haven’t looked back,” Mr. Giugliano said.

The idea for “Million Dollar Beach House” first arose a couple of years ago, and he was approached about appearing on the show then. The pilot and first season were finally filmed last year.

“It’s a little outside my box,” he said. “I’m not in it for the fame. If it comes, it is what it is. I’m here to do transactions. If you watch the show, I stay out of all the drama. I didn’t want to be associated with that. I’m all work — 100 percent work. I don’t need the rest of the stuff that comes with it.”

He attributes his success in real estate to being open with clients and completely honest, never telling them what they want to hear just to get a listing or to make a quick commission.

“I think this is why I’m getting so much repeat business, because I tell people not to buy houses,” he said. “I say, ‘Don’t buy this house, it’s overpriced.’

“I’m commission-based,” he continued. “If they don’t buy a house from me, I don’t make any money. But I tell the people what they should do with their money and what I would do myself if I was in their shoes. It’s rare that you’ll ever hear a salesperson tell you not to buy something from them, and that’s me. Because I do honestly believe if you tell people the truth, you’ll get 10 times the business in the future.”

The pitch book from every real estate company is 99 percent the same, and everyone has charts on why their company is better than another, Mr. Giugliano said. “We’re all going after listings, because it’s so competitive because there’s a lot of money on the line.”

In 75 to 80 percent of cases, if three agents meet with a potential client, the seller will choose the agent who promised the highest sales price, he said. But three months later, the house will still be sitting on the market and that agent who gave an outrageous number will come back to the client asking for a price reduction, which still won’t do the trick. Then as the one-year sales contract is about to expire, the agent will drop the price even more and sell it in the nick of time to collect a commission.

“When you overprice it, you end up actually getting less money and you don’t get as much traction because it gets stale,” Mr. Giugliano said. “If you price things right, you make more money. The clients get their money quicker, you make your commission quicker. And obviously, you want to optimize the most money possible.”

He went on to say: “Some of these houses have been on the market for three, four years. You think that’s normal? Obviously, something’s wrong, and 90 percent of the time, it’s the price.”

Mr. Giugliano also relies on his expertise in the region, something he believes is needed to be successful in the Hamptons. He doesn’t attempt to sell in Manhattan — he refers clients to city agents he trusts — because he believes he can’t sell in the city unless he’s living there, just like city agents can’t sell in the Hamptons unless they live there and know it entirely.

For example, he said while anyone can look up “the comps” — the recent comparable sales — to get a sense of a fair price for a home, outsiders won’t know that a $2.5 million sale included $300,000 in concessions and $200,000 in art and furnishings. That’s really a $2 million sale, he pointed out.

“There’s outliers in comps,” he said. “… Just because one person did it doesn’t mean you have to be the next dummy to do it.”

The Hamptons real estate market has made a turn for the better in 2020 due to the pandemic, as new renters and buyers looked for a place to ride out isolation in comfort.

Mr. Giugliano said the market is saturated with buyers right now and inventory is sparse, but he expects that to change post-Labor Day as summer renters vacate and the owners can list those houses.

In his experience, no one buys in the Hamptons who hasn’t stayed there before. What typically happens is they rent for two or three summers before buying. But now, many of those people who would have eventually bought in another year or two are looking to buy immediately, he said.

Since “Million Dollar Beach House” premiered August 26, fans of the show have come up to him at dinner and a bank teller even asked for his autograph for her high school-aged son. She explained to him that, having watched the show, her son wanted to get into real estate.