New Model in Real Estate

A new model of real estate brokerage firm debuted in the Valley earlier this year. Local real estate entrepreneur John N. Vatistas created Launch Real Estate with, initially, a handful of personally selected top-producing real estate brokers. “While it is common among traditional real estate brokerages to house agents of varying skills sets and experiences, from novice to tenured part-timers, we’ve chosen to take a sniper’s approach in hiring vs. a shotgun approach,” he says. What began as five in January has grown to nearly 50 by mid-March.

Launch is an invite-only agency, with each of the co-founding agents involved in the decision and vetting the prospective agents with the goal of retaining what the company describes as the most cultured, reputable, skilled and professional agents in the market. The intent is to encourage agents who were once fierce competitors to collaborate, sharing the best market insights and access for the benefit of their clients. Eschewing the “franchise” model of typical brokerage firms, where, according to a Launch spokesperson, top priority was often given to corporate branding efforts, Launch allows its agents to effectively focus on marketing their clients’ listings and not the brand of the brokerage. And, in addition to compensating agents beyond the standard split, the brokerage ensures them exposure to more than 130,000 top-producing luxury professionals in more than 70 countries around the world through an affiliation with The Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate network, a global collection of the finest luxury real estate brokers in the world. Says Vatistas, “We’re building a framework that gives greatest strength to the client-broker relationship and creates an environment where the best of the best can flourish.”