The Platinum List: Realtors

The numbers are astounding. Last year alone, three award-winning realtors and their hugely successful companies sold more than $930 million worth of luxury coastal real estate between them.

Jill Hertzberg and Jill Eber, the powerhouse principals of Miami Beach-based The Jills, closed more than $552 million in real estate transactions, breaking their previous record of $480.8 million in 2012.

Their extraordinary achievement set a new record for the highest sales production of any agent team in Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate’s 107-year history, and made them the top Coldwell Banker sales team worldwide for 2013.

They were also honored as the No.1 residential real estate sales team in America on the REAL Trends/”The Wall Street Journal” 2013 Top 1,000 list, and named Florida’s top real estate team for the 11th consecutive year. Their total sales since 2005 exceed $2.3 billion.

On the West Coast, Mauricio Umansky, the high-profile Chief Executive Officer of The Agency, based in Los Angeles, is breaking records of his own. “The Wall Street Journal” named him as the top-producing individual real estate agent in California in 2013 and the No.3 realtor in the U.S. with reported sales of $380 million.

The Agency has closed more than $1.5 billion in residential sales in less than two years, and has established itself as one of the leading players in the luxury real estate market representing many of the nation’s most visible and luxurious properties.

For the Jills – whose recent sales include the $41.5 million Casa Casuarina (formerly the Versace Mansion in Miami) and $47 million home at 3 Indian Creek, the highest recorded sale in Miami-Dade County to date – closing a high-profile and high-priced property is all in a day’s work.

“Jill and I share more than the same name. We have the same work ethic and goals, and we respect and trust each other implicitly,” says Jill Eber. “We both believe in providing the highest level of service to our clients and together we can do so.”

Jill Hertzberg concurs. “Working together is very motivational. We are both naturally enthusiastic people and we feed off each other which makes work fun. That’s power, the power of two.”

The Jills team, which also includes Eber’s sister Felise and Hertzberg’s younger children Danny and Hillary, uses powerful and effective marketing strategies, extensive media exposure and affluent contacts around the world to attract an unrivaled client list of celebrities, Fortune 500 executives and long-time Miami Beach residents.

The team specializes in multi-million-dollar properties in South Florida’s most exclusive enclaves such as Star Island, Fisher Island, Indian Creek Island, Golden Beach, Miami Beach and Gables Estates, among others.

Shunning the traditional brokerage model of rival agents competing against each other, Umansky’s The Agency fosters a culture of partnership with other realtors. “I believe it’s all about collaboration rather than competitiveness,” he says.

“Because of the lack of inventory, especially with prime coastal land, the more we are able to share information and supplies, the more we are able to sell, and that ultimately benefits everybody,” Umansky says.

Umansky’s unusual approach is paying off handsomely with a significant upswing in business in recent months and rapid growth in U.S. markets such as Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Venice and Marina del Rey, as well as Cabo San Lucas in Mexico and Shanghai in China.

“Global is the new local,” he adds. “The world is getting a lot smaller with the Internet allowing us to market properties not just within our own communities but to the entire world which is very exciting.”

Umansky says the coastal luxury real estate market is rebounding strongly after the ??general economic downturn. “One thing’s for sure, God is not making any more land, especially on the coast,” he says.

“It’s prime land, people love it, and they want to live by the ocean. We’re seeing a complete resurrection of the real estate market and coastal communities in the United States are coming back with a vengeance.”

Umansky is also seeing growth in vacation homes such as Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and Hacienda Beach Club and Residences in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, which The Agency represents.

Business is clearly booming for The Jills and The Agency, and they have the numbers to prove it. ?