Christie’s Sereno recruits Side agents for northern expansion

Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno is pushing north from its South Bay headquarters, bringing a top Side team in San Francisco on board to create its first office in the city, with plans to expand into Marin and Wine Country as well. 

Christie’s Sereno CEO Chris Trapani said San Francisco was the last county in the Greater Bay Area where the Los Gatos-based company, which has 20 offices from Pebble Beach to Lake Tahoe, did not have a presence. 

“We have always had a desire to be there, but we prioritize finding the right people and opportunity, and we recently found both,” he said via email.

The Payton + Binnings Team, which had been affiliated with Side, will rebrand its Union Street offices under the label of “Christie’s International Real Estate San Francisco | Marin | Wine Country.” The team, formerly called Artemis Real Estate, was the third-largest mid-sized group in the city in 2022, according to RealTrends, with $175 million in sales last year. 

The team’s history with Christie’s goes back to its years at Pacific Union, which had been the Christie’s affiliate for the Bay Area before it was acquired by Compass in 2018. 

“We’ve done the corporate thing, and we’ve done the virtual thing, but you just

don’t get the type of local leadership, support or global brand recognition that we’re going to get here,” Payton Stiewe, co-founder of the Payton + Binnings team, said in a statement.

The local focus is a big part of the Sereno sales pitch, especially as whales like Compass have gobbled up most of the smaller fish in the region. 

“Local industry that was very independent and spirited was corporatized,” Trapani said. “We’re here to reinforce some of that entrepreneurial, independent culture, create another quality choice for agents and raise the level of service for buyers and sellers in these markets.”

Trapani said that his agency is the largest independent brokerage in Northern California and that its affiliation with Christie’s developed through a partnership with Chicago-based @properties, which acquired the Christie’s brand under a 100-year term in late 2021. When Sereno partnered with @properties in 2022, it became part of the Christie’s ownership group, Trapani said. 

Trapani and co-founder Ryan Iwanaga “operate Sereno as we always have and oversee decisions on a daily basis,” Trapani said. “We gain the benefit of having the Christie’s International Real Estate brand as part of our company, but we are not an affiliate like other brokerages.”

To that end, Trapani said that Christie’s new northern branch will also be unique and that it will not “apply cookie-cutter logic“ to its expansion.

“We have our fundamental values as a company but respect and honor how those things are articulated by the people that matter, our Realtors and our clients,” he said. 

Now that Payton + Billings are on board — and with former Compass California Chief Marketing Officer Jessica Grimes as the new marketing and growth strategist for Christie’s San Francisco — Trapani said Sereno will continue to look out for new opportunities to the north. 

“We see this as the first page of a new chapter,” he said.

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