How Two Real Estate Agents Built Business Thru Instagram DMs

Agents Weston Littlefield and Alex Howe didn’t grow up in L.A. Making inroads into the high-end residential market came one Instagram direct message at a time.

How agents are using social media to generate leads and close deals isn’t exactly new. That the duo behind the Weston James Group at Christie’s International Real Estate Southern California has predominantly relied on digital channels to amass a client list of executives, influencers and other high-profile buyers and sellers is unique.

Clients include Restoration Hardware CEO Gary Friedman, “Saw” movie franchise producer Oren Koules, DJ Marshmello (née Christopher Comstock), YouTuber David Dobrik and Rip N Dip clothing company founder Ryan O’Connor.

The two estimate more than 70 percent of their deals come from a cold call or Instagram DM.

Last year, they sold $126 million in volume, with most of the activity in Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. This year’s business includes the first sale of a Malibu beachfront property burned down by January’s Palisades fire. The home at 22050 Pacific Coast Highway on Malibu’s Billionaire’s Beach sold for $5 million, with the pair representing the buyer and the seller.

The question now is the sustainability of a business built around the fickle world of social media algorithms.

So far, it’s been key to jumpstarting the business.

As Littlefield tells it, the story begins with him using Instagram to vet potential buyers, noting who was liking what on real estate-related Instagram profiles.

“We weren’t born here, so we didn’t initially have those hometown connections,” Littlefield said. “For us, it’s been more like a hustle and really putting in the work to create leads.”

That’s how he and fellow teammate Howe landed the buyer of 320 St. Pierre Road in Bel-Air.

The connection came randomly through Instagram. Littlefield connected with a prospective buyer through the social media platform and began showing him off-market properties in Los Angeles. That lead went cold until the same prospective buyer reached out and connected Littlefield with a friend looking for homes between $30 million and $50 million.

That buyer would go on to buy St. Pierre Road for $39 million in mid-November.

“Surprisingly, this has happened multiple times,” Littlefield said.

It’s generally not common for agents using Instagram to find qualified buyers that then lead to sales, but it can happen, said Rebekah Longoria, the owner and creative director of social media and branding agency Bangin’ Creative.

“That’s not how people [in the high end] tend to buy houses, but other real estate agents and their friends seeing [a post] and doing a showing, I’ve definitely seen more of that,” she said. “I’ve seen celebrities DM and seen that follow through to a closing.”

Longoria would know. She currently counts about 20 clients across Los Angeles and Orange counties, with more than half made up of real estate agents from Compass, Keller Williams, Westside Estate Agency and Hilton & Hyland, among other brokerages. She freelanced before going in-house to serve as creative director for Branden and Rayni Williams’ Beverly Hills Estates and then swung back to freelance two years ago. She manages brokerage and agent accounts, helping create content and coaching clients on how to leverage social media.

Agents turning to social media is not new, Longoria said.

“It’s absolutely non-negotiable now for L.A. real estate agents at the high end,” Longoria said. “Instagram is an essential tool because they can market their listings and also themselves. That’s important because they’re not selling a sandwich. They are the brand. You hire them.”

Landing big fish

While the Weston James Group has been heavily reliant on social, the rest of their strategy is straight tenacity not unlike many who start out in the business with no contacts.

In fact, the first significant deal Littlefield and Howe did that solidified their partnership as a team speaks to that. That’s when they reached out to Restoration Hardware CEO Gary Friedman to say they were going to begin showing a Beverly Hills property he had for sale. They found his contact by scouring public records, testing phone numbers until there was a response.

“He didn’t seem to mind, but we never spoke to him. We were just texting back and forth,” Howe said.

“Back and forth” is generous. Friedman rarely replied, especially in the beginning. They estimated showing the property as many as 30 times — difficult to do when there’s no relationship with the seller and the lot is behind a locked gate. They never received the gate code, but Howe somehow guessed the four-digit combination by trying different permutations.

Littlefield ended up finding an overseas buyer willing to pay well over what Friedman had paid for the property and the sale of 1360 Summitridge Drive in Beverly Hills closed in 2022 for $24 million.

The two say Friedman called them “legends” within Restoration Hardware’s halls in a text following the sale.

The Real Deal was unable to obtain a copy of the text for review.

Friedman did not respond to a request for comment. A Restoration Hardware spokesperson confirmed the duo sold the property, but declined further comment.

The chase defines much of Littlefield and Howe’s business: working with sellers that don’t want to sell and buyers that don’t know they want to buy.

“We put together the pieces of the puzzle and make something happen for both ends of the deal,” Howe said.