The Foundations of a Luxury Real Estate Brand – With Damion Merry

Damion Merry’s time in the United States taught him a great deal about how to make it big in real estate. He discovered stark differences between how real estate was conducted in the UK in comparison to the US. Lessons learned from industry leaders like Ryan Serhant and Gary Vee inspired him to shake things up in his home country and become a household name in a prosperous market.?

After being in the UK for 22 years of his life, Damien went to California for eight years, setting up a luxury construction company there.?

“I had an amazing time,” he said “We were on CNBC On The Profit, kind of like a Shark Tank kind of show. I was on that show with Marcus Lemonis and got some great exposure.”

After nearly a decade in the US, he and his wife and kids decided it was time to return to their home country. He was motivated to also get into luxury real estate in UK only to discover the real estate industry is much different.

“Being over in the US, to be a real estate agent was kind of an aspiration,” he said. “You guys are true professionals over there. And unfortunately, over in the UK, it's not as highly thought of. It’s almost frowned upon.”

While many real estate agents in the US are accustomed to charging around a 5% commission rate, Damien said that in the UK “it’s almost like a race to the bottom,” with agents charging .5% to .7%, with the good agents, the high-charging agents charging about 1.5% maximum.?

Damien has been charging 2.5% since he came back to the UK and said he’s never gone lower than 2%.

His actions and the quality of his work justify it.

While many agents in the US are investing heavily in social media, almost no one in the UK is doing anything near that level — except for people like Damien.?

“What I tried to do is create content that was informative to people in the real estate world, you know, people want to know what the prices are doing in their local area,” he said. “So I did videos on that daily. I would do the top 20 streets in a certain area for properties. And I would just create content every single day that was relevant to the property industry.”

“I wanted to educate and show people that I was a professional, that I was trying to help people as well and give out free content every single day.”

Damien hired high-end video production companies because he soon realized that he needed to get the attention of the kind of people buying the luxury properties.?

“If these people have a 20, 30 million pound house with a kilometer long driveway and a helipad, why are we not landing helicopters?,” he said. “Why are we not driving luxury cars down there, getting models to swim in the pool and drink some champagne? So it was creating videos that would really set the lifestyle because I knew a lot of buyers for these properties. They're not necessarily going to be sat on the internet looking for a house.”?

For the past few years, Damien has been working as an agent for Find a Country, “a pretty established company that's got 200 offices across the UK.”

However, very recently, Damien and his team launched a new business called Luxury Property Partners.

It’s unique in that they are really the only luxury real estate company in the UK that only lists luxury properties. In their first week, they already had five listings, ranging from 1.5 million pounds to a luxury property listed for 20 million — it is 70 acres and includes a 40,000 square foot house.?

Damien knows that the kinds of clients he is focused on are willing to pay the relatively higher commission fee because they are the kind of people who have the expectation of paying for quality. And he’s not just charging more because his clients can afford it.

“I'm actually proactively out there trying to sell your house — and more importantly, get you the top number.”

To watch or listen to Damien’s full conversation with Dan Lesniak, tune into episode 360 of the HyperFast Agents podcast available at 1pm EST. So turn those notifications on.

Available Here:?Apple Podcasts?|?Spotify?|?YouTube