There’s a new residential brokerage in town, but the name might already be familiar to some.
After years of leasing and marketing luxury apartments, Luxury Living Chicago Realty is expanding its business into home and condominium sales. The River North-based firm is hoping to turn its database of renters into home-buying clients.
The expansion into home sales happened organically, company officials said. Early in 2018, the firm saw “steady traction” in clients turning to home buying and asking Luxury Living brokers to be a part of the process, said Aaron Galvin, CEO and co-founder of Luxury Living.
“We began planning a sales website and asking our brokers if they would want to add sales as a component or focus to their business,” he said.
That pitch was well received, and 25 of 35 agents on the team now do rentals and sales. In 2018, the firm handled $37 million in home sales. It hopes to double that figure this year.
Luxury Living’s strategy is to convert its rental clients into buyers, especially as Millennials are finally showing signs of warming to the housing market, said Darrell Scott, director of sales.
“Hopefully, when they make that switch [to buying] and move through that life cycle, we’ll be the first call they make,” Scott said.
Luxury Living’s expansion comes at a period of transition for the local market.
Chicago’s Downtown rental market continues to flourish, even as thousands of new units are expected to come online this year. The local housing market is expected to be one of the weakest in the country this year.
With the expansion into sales, Luxury Living will not be as susceptible to the whims of the market as firms who specialize in just rentals or sales, allowing it to easily switch its focus to which segment of the market is hotter at the time, Scott said.
“Our business ebbs and flows with the market so we can best serve our clients,” Scott said.
Luxury Living is entering an increasingly crowded and competitive brokerage market. But Scott said the firm has a leg up on the others due to the more than 10,000 renters who are already its clients..
“Everything is centered around the relationship with the client,” he said. Renting “is not the only transaction we want to be a part of.”