Job title: Celebrity Real Estate Broker

Companies that hire them: Boutique real estate firms selling high-end luxury estates and properties, with a reputation for discretion.  

How to find out about openings: Establish a reputation as a proven moneymaker, with a long list of contacts. Then the top firms will make space for you. Maybe.

How much can you earn: $500,000 to the mid seven figures.

Useful skills: Sales skills and knowledge of the market are key. But charisma, connections, and style count for plenty too.  

Number of jobs in the U.S.: The number of brokers who consistently get celebrity business is well under 100.  

---

Anyone who thinks that selling celebrity real estate is like any other job in the business has clearly never had Paris Hilton as a client.

Mauricio Umansky, a broker at the exclusive Beverly Hills firm Hilton & Hyland and Paris’ mom’s brother-in-law, put Hilton’s 3,000-square-foot, 1926 Spanish-style home in the Hollywood Hills on the market shortly after Hilton’s 2007 stint in jail for drunk driving. Media interest in the harebrained heiress was at all-time high. And it soon became clear that the buzz extended to her real estate as well—more than 250 calls a day flooded Umansky’s office, and he hired extra staff just to field them all.

At the property, the paparazzi were so thick that legitimate buyers had a hard time reaching the door. Many showed up with large entourages, which Umansky forced to wait outside for fear that some visitors intended to steal items to sell on eBay.

“People really wanted to see the house,” Umansky says. “But only a fraction were real buyers.”

To weed out the “lookie loos,” as he calls them, Umansky had his staff ask callers what other properties they had already looked at, eliminating anyone who couldn’t tick off homes in a similar price range in the neighborhood. Umansky came up with the screening process after consulting with the brokers who handled the high-profile sale of Jackie Onassis’ apartment in New York City after she died in 1994. Paris’ home eventually wound up selling for just under $4 million to a Texas attorney expanding his business to Los Angeles.

In today’s age of paparazzi and blogs, celebrity fascination is buzzing higher than it’s ever been. And that extends to the real estate they own as well. Umansky is one of an elite group of brokers well versed in how to handle such challenges.

In addition to his famous nieces, Umansky helped singers Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson buy a property in Bel Air with a 360-degree view of Los Angeles for $5 million; sold an exclusive Brentwood Hills home to Arnold Schwarzenegger for an undisclosed price; and moved actor Kelsey Grammer’s 20,000 square foot Italian-style Tuscan villa in Beverly Hills for just over $20 million to a Saudi man.

Umansky, who owned his own clothing-manufacturing business in the ’90s, prides himself on his ability to put clients at ease and “play the part.” He regularly attends Oscar parties like the Vanity Fair bash, and charity events (this past weekend, he attended Prince’s Oscar party), and dines with clients about three times a week in chi-chi establishments like the Beverly Hills Hotel or the Beverly Wilshire. He also drives a new black Mercedes S63 and is a fashionable dresser.
 
“In my opinion, you have to always be super well-dressed,” he says. “You are catering to a group of people that are high net worth and you want to look good.”

Still, the most important qualification may simply come down to networks. Certainly connections played a large role in getting Umansky started. His wife, actress Kyle Richards, who has a recurring role on the TV show ER, gave him entrée into Hollywood. But it was his sister-in-law’s husband Rick Hilton, Hilton & Hyland’s chairman and the father of Paris and Nicky, who first offered Umansky a job as a real estate broker in 1997.

But a broker isn’t much without his clients. Not long after he took the gig, childhood friend and real estate developer Mauricio Oberfeld tapped Umansky to list the $17 million, 20,000-square-foot Mediterranean style home designed by Oberfeld’s firm. The deal gave Umansky instant credibility and access to some of L.A.’s wealthiest buyers.   

Ever since, it’s been a matter of building his reputation and continuing to network as much as possible.

Umansky acknowledges that showing off multimillion-dollar homes and schmoozing with the jet set is a nice life, and one that he doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

“It’s a job that I intend to keep forever,” he says.