O’Connor Estates Launches Design-Focused Listing Platform

A small Santa Monica-based real estate team is betting that good taste can help create a new business model.

O’Connor Estates, a Berkshire Hathaway franchisee, launched “The O’List,” a curated residential platform the firm says was formed to cut through the “clutter and chaos” of traditional listing sites, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported.

Claire and Sam O’Connor, the sisters behind the firm, are pulling from multiple listing service and off-market deals across Los Angeles to create what they call a “design destination.”

“There’s a lot of real estate agents in this business that we really respect and admire, and they do a great job, so it’s an opportunity for them to get more eyeballs on their listings,” Sam O’Connor told the Business Journal.

The O’List features about 20 “design-forward” homes across Los Angeles County priced from $1.3 million to $35 million, according to the Business Journal. Listings are updated weekly and remain until sold. The goal is to “get everyone to skip Zillow and go to The O’List if they’re the kind of buyer that appreciates what we appreciate and would align with our aesthetic,” Sam said.

O’Connor Estates focuses on buying homes priced at $3 million or less, pouring roughly $1 million into renovations over about a year and selling near the $5.3 million transfer tax threshold for Measure ULA, Los Angeles’ so-called mansion tax that has scared away developers and investors outside L.A.’s city limits.

“Measure ULA has really changed the way we look at development and sort of stunted us a little bit because it takes such a big chunk of any potential profit,” Claire O’Connor said. If O’Connor Estates looks at any properties above the Measure ULA threshold, the firm “would just have to make sure that the profit margins could absorb that ULA tax and also be a strong enough return on investment.”

O’Connor Estates focuses on flipping houses, but the firm is open to getting into ground-up projects in the future.

“We also see a market for high-designed spec builds — spec builds that infuse the soul of a home and character into the design,” Claire said. The company is also looking to continue its streaming of doubling its annual sales volume from the past three years. Last year marked $100 million in sales for the brokerage.

The independent residential platform arrives as Compass and Redfin join forces to create an off-MLS platform to share Compass’ exclusive listings. T3 Sixty’s Real Estate Almanac reported this week that the number of multiple listing services and local Realtor associations operating in the U.S. declined again last year, continuing the trend of structural consolidation amid rising legal compliance pressures.

— Chris Malone Méndez