Mauricio Umansky's The Agency real estate brokerage to open Bay Shore office, second on Long Island

The Agency, a real estate brokerage founded by reality TV star Mauricio Umansky, plans to open its second Long Island office in December, planting its South Shore flag on Main Street in Bay Shore.

The opening will mark the 65th office for The Agency, which was founded in 2011, after it first came to Long Island last year with a North Shore franchise office in Huntington.

The Los Angeles-based company has gained exposure from Umansky’s TV appearances on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” with his wife, Kyle Richards, a main cast member on the show. The Agency is getting a close-up of its own on a new Netflix show, “Buying Beverly Hills,” which premieres Friday and will feature some of the company’s real estate agents, including Umansky’s daughters.

Umansky said, "We follow young professionals … Do they have what it takes to be an agent at The Agency or an agent, period?"

The Agency entered the New York City market in May by acquiring the Manhattan brokerage and technology company Triplemint in an all-stock deal.

“We’re excited to continue to grow our East Coast presence, which is important for us,” Umansky said in an interview.

On Long Island, Nick Campasano and Ricardo Pena, managing directors at the Bay Shore office, will be tasked with capitalizing on that publicity to land Suffolk County listings. Michael Smith and Donald Mastroianni serve as managing partners for Long Island.

Campasano said the new office will open with about 10 agents and plans to target the segment of the South Shore from Babylon to Sayville, with its geographic reach growing as it adds more agents. The company has 33 local agents so far.

He said The Agency focuses on agent empowerment and branding, helping its salespeople create social media content on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to market their properties and themselves as real estate experts.

“We really feel each individual real estate agent is their own brand,” said Campasano, 34, who lives in West Islip, where he was raised. “By putting out professional-looking videos that are educational, it helps you enhance that brand.”

Campasano said The Agency picked Bay Shore for its vibrant downtown, with restaurants and shops, and its proximity to Fire Island, where he also hopes to market homes. “If you drive down Main Street, you can just see the revitalization, the energy in the town,” Campasano said.

The Agency will have plenty of competition. Last year, Douglas Elliman led all firms with 973 real estate agents in Suffolk County, Signature Premier Properties had 711 and Coldwell Banker American Homes had 566 as of December, according to data published by The Real Deal.

Jackie Viard, a Signature Premier spokeswoman, said that data doesn’t fully account for her company’s Suffolk head count, which she said was 962 as of Dec. 31. Signature Premier also is planning to open an office on Main Street in Bay Shore later this fall, she said.

Umansky's company is expanding as the Long Island housing market is shifting toward greater balance after several years in which negotiations have been heavily stacked in sellers’ favor. Now, with the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate loan above 7%, the number of transactions are falling, and some buyers can no longer afford to make a purchase.

Campasano said he’s still confident in the strength of real estate on the South Shore, asserting the shift has made the home-search process less stressful for buyers. Last year, they were wrapped around the block at open houses and needed to make rapid-fire decisions on a life-changing purchase, he said.

“The fact that the chaos has come down is reassuring,” Campasano said. “They can actually look at a house and go home and make a decision, instead of sit on the driveway and say, ‘Do I want it or not?’ … It’s giving people time to think.”

Umansky said The Agency won’t shy away from helping sell less glamorous properties — ones that won’t be featured on Bravo or Netflix any time soon.

He said the median price point of the company’s listings is $895,000. The median price of homes sold on Long Island, excluding the Hamptons and North Fork, was a record $620,000 in the third quarter this year, according to data from Douglas Elliman and appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

“What we consider luxury is the service that the client receives,” Umansky said. "If a client wants that level of service, we don't care what house they have. If a client wants a discount brokerage, they're not going to go to us."

Another Long Island office might not be far off, Umansky said. “The Hamptons — we want brick and mortar out there," he said.

By Jonathan LaMantia

jonathan.lamantia@newsday.com@jonlamantia

Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.