Sotheby’s International Realty has announced that top Hamptons agents Michaela Keszler and Paulina Keszler have joined the company’s Southampton Brokerage.
“With an impressive career spanning over 20 years, Michaela Keszler is a revered leader in the Hamptons real estate community, boasting over $2 billion in sales volume,” the statement from Sotheby’s reads. She has been Douglas Elliman’s No. 1 agent in the Hamptons for several years, including 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2016 and 2014. She also ranked as the No. 3 agent nationwide in 2023 and the No. 2 agent nationwide in 2017, 2015 and 2013.
Her daughter, Paulina Keszler, was named Douglas Elliman’s Hamptons Rookie of the Year in 2020 and earned the top 9% Gold Award the same year. “In 2023, Paulina’s rental business earned her the #4 agent ranking. In 2022, she was ranked among the top 5% nationwide and in 2021 ranked #16 in the Hamptons,” the statement says.
As a duo, the mother-daughter team has closed more than $200 million in the past 12 months.
“We are thrilled to welcome Michaela and Paulina to Sotheby’s International Realty,” says Nanette Hansen, who co-leads the company’s Hamptons operations alongside Kelly Canavan. “As experts in the Hamptons market, they sought an international platform to elevate their clients’ properties. The power of the Sotheby’s International Realty brand and our robust agent network will undoubtedly propel their continued success.”
“I am excited to be partnering with a company that is synonymous with excellence, refinement, and luxury, all of which connects well with my international roots. Sotheby’s International Realty is a company whose values match my own,” Michaela said in the statement.
Michaela, a native of Germany, had been in the fashion business and was raising three children when she decided to go into real estate 20 years ago. She bought her first house in Southampton in 1990, but the Keszlers have lived on the South Fork on-and-off, first full-time from 1996 to 2000 and then permanently since 2005.
Paulina was born here, spent her formative years in Germany and then attended middle and high school at the Ross School in East Hampton, from which she graduated in 2012. She got her real estate license in 2019 and started working with her mother that October. The timing couldn’t have been better. Just a few months later, in March of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began and real estate on the East End was in record demand.
Selling real estate began as “an experiment” of sorts for her, she told Hedges in 2022.. But, “I fell in love with it.”
She began by shadowing her mother. “Then COVID hit and we’re quarantining in two different houses and it just went crazy,” she says. ” I fell in love with the high stakes and the pressure and the fast pace. And I love how people live in their homes too, which is also super interesting. My phone was ringing nonstop and all of a sudden I had a career.”
In the past four years, the mother and daughter duo are frequent collaborators on major deals.
Email tvecsey@danspapers.com with further comments, questions or tips. Follow Behind The Hedges on X and Instagram.
