The Agency, a boutique real estate firm with a powerhouse brand identity and a uniquely collaborative business culture, is poised to double its retail footprint on Long Island.
After an extremely successful launch into the North Shore market in the fourth quarter of 2021, The Agency is ready to swing open the doors of its new Bay Shore office, which will complement its existing location in Huntington.
“Our growth plan is obviously focused on greatly increasing our presence on Long Island,” says managing partner Don Mastroianni. “But as we get bigger, we know how important it is to maintain the boutique family feel of the office.”
Once the Bay Shore office is fully up and running toward the end of the first quarter of this year, the company will be ideally positioned to serve Long Island’s North and South Shores from a pair of centralized storefronts.
Over the last decade, The Agency has been steadily growing its reputation as a premier broker of upscale properties—a reputation fueled in large part by the sales and marketing savvy of the firm’s legendary founder, Mauricio Umansky.
In addition to running the business full-time, Umansky is also the principal character of the reality series, Buying Beverly Hills, which premiered last year on Netflix. But outside of the insular world of high-end real estate, he’s probably best known as the husband of Kyle Richards, who for over a decade has starred in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on Bravo.
Rather than serving as a typical puff-piece advertising vehicle for the brokerage, Buying Beverly Hills has drawn praise from critics and viewers alike for its serious, in-depth depictions of what really goes on behind the scenes of high-dollar real estate transactions between demanding buyers and sellers.
The show’s success has resulted in a measurable uptick of The Agency’s brand awareness among home buyers.
Despite its hard-earned reputation as a leader in luxe property sales, as of a year and a half ago, The Agency had virtually no presence on Long Island, one of the most lucrative and sought-after real estate markets in the country. Don Mastroianni and fellow managing partner Mike Smith knew it was time for that to change.
Mastroianni and Smith partnered with Umansky and The Agency’s corporate team to cultivate a thoughtful entrance into the Long Island business community. Consistent with its overriding business philosophy, The Agency’s introduction to the Long Island market was based on creating a symbiotic, collaborative relationship between the firm’s agents and employees and the local community.
“No matter how much we grow as a company, we want to make sure that our staff and our clients love to come here,” Mastroianni says. “And we recognize our obligation to serve the local community.”
“Both the Huntington and the Bay Shore spaces are very much designed for collaboration,” Mastroianni adds.
“We’ve only been open for a little over a year in Huntington, and we’ve already hosted over a dozen community-based events in our space. We’ll be repeating that kind of community involvement as we bring our Bay Shore office online.”
According to Mastroianni and Smith, it’s not only vital for a new agency to establish a powerful connection to the local community, it’s equally important to create an office culture where agents and support staff can thrive.
“When we bring on new agents, within the first month, they tell us how blown away they are by the support our brokerage provides,” explains Smith. “From the managing partners to our support staff to all of our agents, everyone wants to see each other succeed. We feel like we’ve built a beautiful and encouraging work environment that’s centered around collaboration.”
Another key element of the firm’s corporate philosophy centers around the idea of bringing positive intent to every business interaction.
“At The Agency, we pride ourselves in creating a culture that is collaborative, fun, and ‘intentional,’” explains managing director “Ricky” Ricardo Pena, who will be heading up operations at the new Bay Shore office with his partner Nicholas Campasano.
“We want to give our agents the tools they need to be successful while encouraging them to be intentional with their approach to their business, service and brand. We thrive on that energy, and we use it to create an atmosphere where everyone feels included and engaged. That’s the foundation of what we are trying to build here on Long Island.”
This was the cover story in Behind The Hedges inside the Long Island Press’ March 2023 issue. Read the full digital edition online. For more real estate stories on greater Long Island, click here.
