When it comes to drama and luxury real estate, few shows hit the highs and lows of a high-stakes transaction like Netflix’s Selling Sunset and Selling the OC, starring agents from Southern California’s Oppenheim Group.
This week, Season 4 of Selling the OC drops on the streaming platform and is poised to be the best yet, says Oppenheim Group broker and President Jason Oppenheim, in part because the market in Newport Beach is so strong.
“The luxury market in Newport Beach has arguably had the best couple of years of any city in the country,” Oppenheim told Inman, citing a recent report from PropertyShark that placed all six of the city’s ZIP codes in the country’s most expensive 100.
“The real estate is epic; the luxury market there is just impressive — that office is just crushing it. People always like to comment on wanting to see great real estate — this is the best real estate I think they’ll see of any season,” the luxury exec continued.
“Also, it’s probably the most dramatic season. I think the combination of those two makes it the best season that we’ve filmed for Selling the OC. And actually, that’s widely agreed [on] by people I’ve talked to at Netflix who have watched it, [and] the cast who have watched it.”
Renewed interest in Newport Beach
The Newport Beach market has seen a lot of influx from other areas, especially LA, as the city has faced challenges in recent years due to the wildfires last January and market complications, like the ULA or “mansion” tax.
“[There are] more clients and more high-end listings” in the market as a result, Oppenheim told Inman. “The prices have gone up 30 percent, 40 percent in Newport Beach over the last couple of years. In the luxury market, there weren’t homes selling over $10 million in Newport Beach even a few years ago, so things have changed considerably.”
The median sales price of a single-family home in Newport Beach was $4.6 million as of September, according to Redfin.
“[Newport Beach] has had a completely different run since COVID,” Oppenheim said. “LA’s gone down probably 15 percent, the luxury market, and it’s up about 50 percent in Newport Beach, so it’s had probably the best run of any area in California, and a lot of people have flocked there, and a lot of people have left, mostly Los Angeles, to go there. I’d argue in many ways it’s the opposite of a big city. It doesn’t have that big city feel either.”
The difference between LA versus the OC
They may only be about a 50-mile drive apart, but Los Angeles and Orange County couldn’t be more different, Oppenheim said, for those viewers who may not know the lay of the land in Southern California.
“It would be like saying, ‘What’s the difference between the Hamptons and New York City,'” Oppenheim explained.
He added that it’s hard to find a house in Newport Beach for less than $5 million today, but there are starter homes below that in LA.
Culturally, Newport Beach is also a lot more zipped up than LA, the broker said.
“[Newport Beach] is pro-business; it’s got a significant budget surplus, whereas LA’s dealing with a massive budget deficit,” Oppenheim said. “It’s just a really high quality of life here, and I think a lot of the locals already knew that, but it’s kind of getting on the national stage now as being arguably the best place to live in America. And now the most expensive place to live in America.”
How TV has skyrocketed Oppenheim’s business
Selling Sunset premiered in the spring of 2019, and it has had a “truly amazing” impact on Oppenheim’s business, he said, providing the firm with tens of millions of dollars worth of essentially free publicity.
“We get so many phone calls from buyers and sellers throughout Southern California, sometimes beyond, [because] the brand is a global brand. It’s a global brand in a way that, for a small, boutique brokerage, isn’t possible without a global show.”
Oppenheim argued that the Selling shows have provided his firm with a greater advantage than similar competitors who also straddle real estate and reality TV — like SERHANT. or The Agency — because the Oppenheim Group is solely focused on its existing markets, and not expending resources on market expansion and growing agent count in the same way that those firms are.
“We’re able to market a property, even a $5 million property, in a way that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to go out there in the marketplace and purchase that type of email distribution and social media following and website traffic and press and things like that,” Oppenheim said. “You’d have to go out and hire a PR company and pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars for what we can offer on a $5 million house with a few clicks of a button.”
The fact that he’s just focused on doing what he’s currently doing well and has good people behind him makes it all quite manageable, the broker said.
“I’ve got the best staff in the world, really, and people who help me run the offices, and that, I think, is why it’s so manageable,” Oppenheim said.
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