One of the country’s largest brokerages is expanding further into the Midwest by acquiring Kansas City, Missouri-based SunWest Real Estate Advisors.
Platinum Realty, part of the United Real Estate family of companies, combined with SunWest, forming the 11th Midwest office location for the brokerage. Together, the merged brokerage forms a new luxury division that Platinum’s director of growth, Rob Hill, said will fill a gap in the local market. Twenty agents joined from SunWest.
That gap is expected to be closed by providing curated training to luxury agents, according to Hill. The training program will be developed by SunWest founder Jerry Braklow, who opened the real estate team in 2022 to support his luxury development company, SunWest Development.
Training is to include education on working with and marketing to high-earning clients. Agents will receive a luxury certification.
“I’ve seen this throughout my 30-year career where somebody just buys a luxury sign, they’re a real estate company, and they put it in a front yard of a luxury home,” said Hill in an interview with Homes.com. “It does not mean in any way they have an understanding of the luxury market at all.”
Hill said the timing worked out to utilize Braklow’s luxury expertise and team to form the new venture at Platinum.
“I have been wanting to move into the luxury space here at Platinum Realty for quite some time, but with the luxury space, you do it right the first time or you don’t ever do it again,” said Hill.
The median sale price in Kansas City is $275,000, according to Homes.com, but Hill said new luxury construction projects have been on the rise. A Homes.com analysis found Kansas City posted a 6.1% year-over-year price increase in August, coming in as the country’s seventh-highest home price gains. The highest-priced home sale on the public market this past year in Kansas City, according to Homes.com, was $1.42 million for a five-bedroom home built in 2022.
Dallas-based United Real Estate is the country’s 10th-largest brokerage by volume, according to real estate data tracker RealTrends. It completed over $20 billion in sales last year with 46,000 closings.
Platinum now has more than 2,400 agents in its Midwest offices, according to the brokerage, and closed 7,500 sales in 2024.
More agents will join Platinum in the coming months, said Hill, who noted a draw due to United Real Estate's "low fee" model. Individual agents at Platinum pay a flat commission fee of $495 per sale with a cap of 20 transactions. Hill said on average, other brokerages have an 80-20 commission split where the brokerage receives 20% and the agent receives the remaining 80%.