Compass luxury broker Aaron Kirman has launched a dedicated Orange County team, tapping former NFL cornerback Morgan Trent and his eight-person group to the expansion effort.
Trent Luxury, which formed in May, will now enter an Orange County market that has seen a surge in pricey home sales, as has much of Southern California. Kirman announced the move last week.
Trent has been with Beverly Hills-based Aaron Kirman Group since early 2018.
Kirman said the OC team doesn’t have a physical office, but plans include opening one in the next year. The team intends to scale up to around 50 brokers, Kirman said, an ambitious goal considering the Kirman Group’s total broker count now stands at around 85. “We’re expanding, but selectively,” he added.
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Kirman has closed deals before in Orange County. When his CNBC show “Listing Impossible” debuted early last year, one of the storylines featured was a property in Dana Point that had been on the market for three years. Kirman’s team sold the home for $10 million, despite likening a bedroom there to a “sex dungeon.”
Kirman said the push into Orange County was also an attempt to seize on pandemic-era housing trends. Luxury buyers, he noted, have been particularly drawn to larger properties in coastal communities.
“Covid has obviously changed the way people live,” he said, “and the OC offers a very different lifestyle than urban Los Angeles.”
Trent began his real estate career in Orange County, and jumped to Kirman’s team from Mercer Vine. At the time, Kirman was working for Pacific Union, which Compass acquired that August.