Earlier this year I was named Luxury Broker of the Year at the 2025 RED Residential Awards — widely known as the Oscars of real estate. When I took the stage to accept, I said something I want to put in writing here because it's the truest thing I know about this business:
"Luxury isn't about price tags or skyline views. Luxury is about believing in yourself — about how you present yourself, the standard you set, and the level of care you bring to every client and every deal."
I recounted a story from my early years. I was showing $2,000 apartments in Brooklyn on Saturday mornings in a suit. Every Saturday. Not because anyone told me to. Because I made a decision early on that I was going to show up like I belonged before I ever belonged. And that decision — the decision to act like the version of yourself you're trying to become — is the foundation of everything else I'm going to tell you here.
The Truth About 'Breaking In'
There is no secret door into luxury real estate. There is no shortcut, no connection, no broker you can meet that will hand you $10M listings because you seem like a nice person with good instincts.
Luxury is earned through a series of cycles. You start where you are. You close what's in front of you. You build a reputation one transaction at a time. You develop market knowledge so specific and so deep that when someone is looking for an expert, your name is the obvious answer.
What I tell every agent who comes to me saying they want to 'break into luxury': first, prove yourself at the level you're at. Close rentals with the same discipline you'd bring to a $5M sale. Prospect with the same intensity at $800K that you'd bring at $8M. Build your brand at the level you're at — because the people you need to know in five years are watching you now.
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I wore a suit every day, even when I was showing a $2,000 apartment on a Saturday. I acted like luxury before I ever sold luxury. That decision changed everything. Luxury begins in the mirror, not in the listing price. |
The Five Things I Tell Every Agent Starting Out
1. Build Your 300-Name List Today
The single most important first move in any real estate career is the one I made after my first major deal at Cooper & Cooper: write down the name and phone number of every person you have ever known. Teammates, classmates, family friends, old coworkers, neighbors, people from high school you haven't talked to in years. Push for 300 names.
Then call every single one. Not text. Call. Tell them simply: you're in real estate now. If they know anyone buying, selling, or renting — think of you. Those calls produced the referrals that built my early business. And today, every agent who joins The Lundgren Team makes those same calls on day one. This is not optional. It is the foundation.
2. Develop Hyperlocal Market Knowledge
Luxury clients hire experts, not generalists. Before you can position yourself as an expert in any market segment, you have to know it at a granular level. Not the neighborhood — the buildings. Not the buildings — the specific units. Which floor plans have the best light. Which buildings have the most dysfunctional boards. Which co-ops have maintenance assessments coming. Which new development buildings have the strongest appreciation history.
That level of knowledge doesn't come from market reports. It comes from showing up, walking through properties, talking to managing agents, attending open houses, and building relationships with the agents who are active in those buildings. Do the work before you need it.
3. Present at the Level You Want to Reach
Your presentation is your brand. How you dress, how you communicate, how fast you respond, how you write emails, how you show up to a pitch meeting — all of it is telling the market what category you belong in.
If you want to play in the luxury market, you have to present at luxury standards today. Not when you close your first $5M deal. Today. The brokers you want to co-broke with, the clients you want to attract, the developers you want to partner with — they're all watching how you show up right now.
4. Find Your Niche and Own It
The fastest path to luxury isn't to compete everywhere. It's to become the authority somewhere. A specific neighborhood. A specific building type. A specific buyer profile — corporate relocations, international buyers, first-generation wealth. Whatever niche you choose, go so deep into it that no one in your market can compete with your specific knowledge.
I saw that the New York–Miami market was wide open when most agents were treating them as separate universes. I filled the gap. I flew down. I did deals. I made it happen. Find your version of that gap.
5. Build Your Brand in Public
You can build a real estate business from zero dollars today using only your phone and social media — not by posting listings, but by documenting your process. The pitch meeting that didn't go well. The deal that fell through and what you learned. The showing where you realized something about the market you hadn't seen before.
Authenticity is the rarest thing in real estate content, and it is also the most powerful. The agents who build the deepest brand loyalty are the ones who let people watch them grow — not just celebrate when they arrive.
The Platform Question: Why Your Brokerage Matters at the Top
Here's something I wasn't fully prepared to understand when I was starting out, and I want to say it clearly to any agent who's serious about breaking into luxury:
At the top of the market, the brand behind your name matters. Not because you can't sell real estate on your own, but because the listing pitch becomes dramatically easier when the name you're walking in with is the most recognized in the industry.
When I joined SERHANT. — as one of the earliest hires — I was betting on a platform that was still being built. What Ryan was building was not just a brokerage. It was a media ecosystem. A content engine. A brand with 8 million+ followers, an in-house film studio, Netflix exposure, and a reputation for doing things in real estate that had never been done before.
That platform does not replace your individual brand. It amplifies it. It puts your work in front of audiences that would never have found you otherwise. And it signals to every developer, every seller, and every luxury buyer that when you walk in with SERHANT. behind you — you're backed by the best.
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Luxury isn't a number. It's how you make people feel. It's the confidence that comes from knowing who you are and showing up for it every day. I came to New York with $200, slept on a basement floor, and stood on a stage this year accepting the Luxury Broker of the Year award. That's what belief — backed by systems, backed by reps, backed by an unwillingness to quit — can actually do. |
About Nile Lundgren
Nile Lundgren is the founder of The Lundgren Team at SERHANT., with over $500 million in career sales across New York City and South Florida. A cast member on Netflix's Owning Manhattan, Fox News contributor, adjunct professor at Baruch College, and nationally recognized speaker. He is the creator of the Jump Cycle framework and the founder of Lundgren365, a coaching platform built for agents who are ready to stop surviving and start scaling.
Ready to build your real estate career? Connect with Nile at Lundgren365.
