ASK any agent in the Costa Blanca luxury property market and they’ll say the same thing.
Plenty of demand – but not enough homes.
Spain’s shortage of properties is no secret. It was named a major factor that drove housing prices up 6.9% last year to hit record levels.
The Bank of Spain still estimates a national shortfall of 450,000 homes.
So how are valuations coming in “constantly” at The Agency Costa Blanca North?
According to Alistair Barton, the franchise’s Managing Partner, the answer lies in offering a new brand of luxury service.
“Our growth this year has been very strong,” Alistair tells the Olive Press during an interview at his office in Moraira.
“With the phone ringing constantly for valuation appointments, we’re predicting that it’s going to continue into 2026.”
He says it in an off-hand way.
But the truth is, it’s no accident – it’s the result of a luxury model developed by LA-based entrepreneur Mauricio Umansky, and which helped turn The Agency into a global powerhouse with more than $88 billion in property sales.
From Malibu to Moraira
Before we can understand the model, we need to understand the rise of Mauricio Umansky.
It was during the recession of 1991–92 that Mauricio walked away from his father’s textile business to take a gamble on California’s high-stakes property market.
His first sale was a modest $700,000 home.
His second closed at $6 million.
Mauricio quickly learned that you didn’t need degrees or experience to sell luxury real estate – instead, you need something he calls “intense hospitality”.
“Our rule number five at The Agency is ‘We’re here to serve’”, Mauricio tells the Olive Press, pointing to a collection of rules hung across from Alistair’s desk.
“Maintaining service is critical for us, and one of the things that I personally focus the most on.”
It sounds simple.
But through a focus on service, Mauricio became the top-selling estate agent in California – and third overall in the United States.
After joining Hilton & Hyland, he produced 20% of total sales all by himself.
No team.
Just Mauricio selling luxury properties, one by one.
In 2011, Mauricio left Hilton to co-found The Agency and instill it with the values that had made him so successful.
“As you grow as a company, the scariest thing is falling apart, losing culture, losing service, losing that boutique feeling,” he adds.
“For me, when I think about growth, I think first about how to maintain service.”
As he’s about to explain, that strategy has made The Agency a global success story.
Real estate “advisors” vs “agents”
Here’s some context.
Just before the Olive Press’ sit-down interview with Mauricio Umansky and Alistair Barton in Moraira, Mauricio closed a multi-million-dollar deal.
Here’s how it happened.
A client called wanting to buy a home in Aspen, offload two more in Miami and California, and then purchase one in Texas.
All in a single phone call.
Within that story lies the secret to The Agency’s success – something that Mauricio calls becoming a real estate “advisor” rather than an “agent”.
“We think of our client as a long-term investment and not just a sale,” he says.
“I’m not saying other agencies don’t do this. But at The Agency, our agents are trained to make sure we handle clients from a boutique perspective.”
Mauricio believes this is the reason clients are flocking to list properties at the Costa Blanca North office.
He believes these same kinds of client relationships can happen here too.
“When you think about luxury, you think about similar clients in multiple places, right?” he says.
“If you look at Costa Blanca North, and you look at the clientele that’s here, you have clients from Belgium, from Holland, from Germany, from Spain, from America.”
He adds that most luxury buyers he’s met during his time here own “multiple homes.”
The problem is that there isn’t a boutique service for this kind of client yet.
There are many luxury estate agencies who have seen the gap in the market, but it’s not an easy one to fill.
Alistair says that locally-based estate agents can win listings because the service of a large agency feels “impersonal”.
“The Agency’s innovation is that we remain boutique, but with more reach,” he says.
“Small isn’t such an advantage any more.”
The statistic that agencies dream of
The Agency Costa Blanca North has recently achieved a feat that most luxury estate agencies only dream of.
It’s not about sales volume – though Alistair says that’s something he’s privately “proud” of.
It’s about the division in the client base.
“In terms of the split of buyers and sellers, we’re already at about 50-50,” he says.
Mauricio chimes in that last night he checked the stats across The Agency’s global client base.
“Fifty point six per cent of them are sellers,” he says.
It’s a staggering statistic, considering the property shortfall in Spain.
But the statistic is no coincidence given the interconnected service that The Agency has brought to the Costa Blanca region.
“Nobody has the connectivity that we have here,” says Alistair.
“We’ve already used The Agency’s client base to be referred from Canada, and then refer ourselves back to Mexico, to the Netherlands, and then to Florida.”
The result, he says, is a client-focused service that keeps people coming back.
Unlike traditional agencies that treat each sale as a one-off transaction, The Agency can build long-term relationships that span continents – and years.
“Within the nearly two years we’ve been open, we’ve already had buyers come back and give us other properties to sell,” Alistair adds.
He laughs that most luxury agents “hate it” when someone walks in saying they’re looking for villas in both Moraira and the Costa del Sol.
“For us, it’s fantastic,” he says.
“We can refer the client and know they’ll get the same standard of service, and hopefully come back to us again in the future.”
So is this The Agency’s secret?
Until the opening of the Costa Blanca office, most luxury estate agencies focused on selling clients within their own patch – by any means necessary.
But the paradigm has now shifted.
Despite being here a fraction of the time of more established players, The Agency Costa Blanca has achieved feats that others could only dream of.
And with a “new tech system” set to supercharge connectivity and the speed of transactions, they may well be pointing the way to the future of the luxury real estate market.
Contact The Agency Costa Blanca North
The Agency Costa Blanca is the third office to open in Spain from the global luxury brand, The Agency.
The office is based in Moraira at Ctra. Moraira a Calpe, 142, 03724 Teulada, Alicante.
You can telephone Managing Partners Alistair Barton or Leonie ter Brugge on +34 622 882 289.
Or click here to visit their website.
Click here to read more Property News from The Olive Press.
