UK property industry ‘bad for sellers, vendors and estate agents’ claims TV star
Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheimer makes derogatory comments within national newspaper interview over the weekend.
The world’s most famous estate agency owner has made cutting comments about the UK property industry and the estate agents who work within it.
Jason Oppenheim (pictured, above), a star of the US Netflix series Selling Sunset which follows his team as they compete to sell multi-million pound homes in Los Angeles, told The Sunday Times over the weekend that he ‘feels sorry for estate agents’ in the UK because “get paid a low salary and there’s not much opportunity to become successful in the way there is in the States”, he said.
“I feel absolutely sorry for the agents,” he told the paper.
Oppenheim made the comments after being asked whether he would set up an operation in London.
He went on to mock the UK estate agency model as ‘backward’ and that it’s ‘bad for the agents, bad for the buyer and bad for the seller’.
The comments are characteristic of the 44-year-old, who says his lack of ‘bullshit’ and bluntness have served him well.
Property industry
His company The Oppenheim Group, which he runs with his brother Brett, is now the world’s most famous estate agency and he says the Netflix series has helped boost his agency’s turnover by 20% since it first appeared on TV in March 2019 in the US.
It has spawned several UK copycat programmes including Channel 4 Show Selling Britain’s Most Expensive Homes featuring Sotheby’s International, and Real Housewives of Jersey, which features local Fine & Country franchisee Margaret Thompson.
Selling Sunset, which is now in its fourth series, has now been commissioned for a fifth.
Read the interview in full (requires subscription).
Where to begin, the average realtor in America earns $38,000 or £27,701, and sells two properties a month. 87% of realtors leave the industry and there is a massive churn. Yes there are some super stars who earn big money in America, but they are in their hundreds. I deal with clients over the pond in CRE and real estate, and TOGRE are seen by many over there as probably not representative of their industry.
Also how much money do the stars of Selling Sunset actually end up with in their personal bank account, giving that MLS has been around for nearly two centuries, is a moot point too. Probably not quite in the same league as those salaries generated by many top end agents in London I would wager.