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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has snatched up a number of high-ticket properties in Miami’s Indian Creek Village in the last couple of years, staking his claim in the gated, man-made barrier island.

First, he bought a $68 million 2.8-acre property around August of 2023. Next, was a $79 million, 19,000-square-foot estate next door. This year, he bought a third property for $90 million on the island that is aptly nicknamed “billionaire bunker.”

But after negotiations were through and Bezos’ identity was made public, the homeseller of the $79 million property was not thrilled, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The seller is now suing Douglas Elliman, which double-ended the transaction, for misleading him about the buyer’s identity while allowing him to accept an offer for $6 million less than the asking price from someone whose net worth is currently just shy of $200 billion, according to Forbes.

The seller of the property was Leo Kryss, co-founder of Brazilian toy and electronics company Tectoy. He originally bought the home for $28 million in 2014 via T.A.M. Investments, records show. In May of 2023, he put the seven-bedroom home on the market for $85 million.

By June 2023, Bezos had bought the $68 million property next door to Kryss’ listing. When Kryss then received the $79 million offer, he asked his agent at Douglas Elliman if Bezos was the potential buyer.

According to a complaint filed in the circuit court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, Jay Parker, who serves as CEO of Elliman’s Florida region, told Kryss on a phone call that the buyer was not Bezos. He also said the buyer was unwilling to pay any more than $79 million. With this knowledge, Kryss accepted the offer, a 7.1 percent discount from the asking price. After closing, however, Kryss learned that the buyer was actually an entity tied to Bezos.

Kryss is suing Elliman for the $6 million he feels he should have received in the sale, knowing that Bezos could afford it. Kryss claims in the complaint that “it was highly material to his negotiations and his decision on the ultimate sales price … to know whether Bezos was … attempting to anonymously acquire the home in order to assemble it with the adjoining property.”

Douglas Elliman received a 4 percent commission, or more than $3 million on the deal, with agents Dina Goldentayer, Danilo Tavares and Celine Klepach representing the seller and buyer. The brokerage declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Kryss’ lawyer, Dana Clayton of Akerman, said in a statement, “Douglas Elliman failed to fulfill their duties to our client … They knew or should have known who the ultimate beneficial purchaser was and misrepresented that very important fact to our client.”

Parker emailed Kryss after closing to say that he had not known the buyer’s identity. In fact, he said he was misled himself into thinking that the property would be going to the family of Indian Creek Village Mayor Benny Klepach, who runs duty-free airport shops across the country.

An added complication to the case is that Klepach’s daughter, Celine Klepach, had signed onto Elliman a few weeks before closing and received a portion of the sale’s commission, according to the complaint. According to Douglas Elliman’s Miami office, Celine Klepach left the firm a few weeks ago.

The younger Klepach told The WSJ, “I wasn’t involved in the deal.” Her lawyer, Isaac Mitrani, told the news outlet she “did absolutely nothing wrong.”

It is common practice for high-net-worth individuals and celebrities to try and prevent their identities from becoming public during a real estate transaction through the use of shell companies or anonymous LLCs. The U.S. Treasury Department recently finalized new rules for reporting transaction details on all-cash residential real estate sales — including identities of sellers behind nameless shell companies — to help curb money laundering.

Bezos announced in February of 2023 that he would be relocating from Seattle, where he first launched Amazon, to Miami. On Indian Creek Island, Bezos joins other billionaires like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Tom Brady, and Carl Icahn.

Update: This story was updated to clarify the Douglas Elliman agents involved in the transaction.

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The increasing demand for affordable housing in New York has raised questions about converting part of a proposed life-science workspace into residential units, but city officials have deemed the plan unviable, The Real Deal reported on Tuesday.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is planning to redevelop eastern Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood — located between East 23rd and East 34th Street — into the Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC), a 2.19 million-square-foot hub for life sciences, healthcare and academic spaces.

Life-science workspaces are labs or workspaces housed in biotech or pharmaceutical buildings, designed to support research and development.

Located at Hunter College’s Brookdale Campus, the SPARC site will support innovation in the life-sciences sector, capitalizing on Kips Bay’s proximity to major medical institutions like NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and New York University (NYU), home to more than 44,000 jobs in science and healthcare.

During a recent hearing, City Council candidate Ben Wetzler proposed incorporating housing into the SPARC project. However, NYCEDC’s Adam Grossman Meagher responded that the focus on job creation outweighs the possibility of adding residential units.

“Space is limited, and we have to make choices,” he said, emphasizing the need for jobs to support affordable housing.

While Mayor Eric Adams has introduced initiatives like the “24-in-24” plan to advance affordable housing on public land, according to The Real Deal, the city is prioritizing the SPARC project for its potential to generate 3,100 permanent jobs and deliver a projected $42 billion economic impact over the next 30 years.

A COVID-era boom in life-science workspaces, accelerated by remote work trends during the pandemic, led developers to convert traditional office spaces into labs, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Since 2020, over 59 million square feet of new life-science spaces have been added nationwide, with another 19.1 million square feet in the pipeline. This represents a significant jump compared to the pre-pandemic average of 3.7 million square feet added annually, according to real estate firm JLL.

Post-pandemic, however, cities like San Diego, South San Francisco and Boston have seen increased vacancies due to cooling demand, driven by high interest rates and economic uncertainty, per CBRE Group.

Despite the softening demand for life-science spaces in some areas, New York City is proceeding with the SPARC Kips Bay project to address critical needs in the life sciences and healthcare sectors.

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There’s no doubt that the recent changes to broker compensation have shaken up the industry, and it’s natural to wonder how this will play out in your business over the long term, especially if a majority of your clients are buyers.  

Buyers are probably already approaching you with myriad questions based on what they’ve heard and read over the past several months. We have been encouraging our agents to lean into these questions. Use this time as an opportunity to strengthen your value as a trusted advisor with buyers as you continue to build those all-important relationships at your business’s core. 

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Here are some things to consider as you navigate this new environment.   

Don’t fear the conversation

This is new for you, and it’s also new for your clients, so it’s likely that both sides will be a bit apprehensive.

After the overwhelming amount of news on this topic in the past several months — with terms like “price fixing” and “collusion” in the headlines — it’s likely that some of your clients are feeling unsure and perhaps even a little defensive when it comes to navigating their next real estate purchase. It’s your job to stay calm and confident, remembering that one of your primary roles is education.

Let their questions open the door to productive conversations. In some of our markets, the settlement changes went into effect in early July, which let us see how the new laws would play out.

In most cases, sellers understood the new buyer-broker compensation arrangement and were willing to cover those fees as part of the terms of their purchase offer when asked by the buyer. 

Be ready to articulate your value

Hone your pitch so that when a potential buyer questions the cost of your services, you’re able to communicate your value in a way that resonates with them.

To prepare, make a list of the tangible benefits you bring to the table.

• Do you achieve a lower sales-price-to-list-price ratio for buyers?
• Does your firm hold top market share in an area?
• And what does that mean in terms of being able to access off-market listings?

A buyer simply wants to understand how working with you — your experience, your access to pre-market inventory, your strong relationships with other agents in the market — is ultimately going to benefit them. 

Ask yourself these questions to come up with talking points. Remember to keep them concise, boiling the information down to three or four things that are easy to understand. Practice until you feel confident.  

Tell a story

The above points notwithstanding, don’t try to sell yourself by reciting long lists of services you provide or explaining your market position with a laundry list of numbers. That will just confuse your clients.

Instead, tell a story that relates to your clients and help them understand that you have worked with other buyers in situations just like theirs. Perhaps you worked with a buyer who bought a home off-market that they never would have been able to see without you. Or maybe you had a seller who was concerned about a half-point commission difference, but they wound up netting several additional points because you were able to negotiate a great deal.

They want to know that you get it and that you get them. And as an added benefit: The more you tell your story, the more confident you will become.   

Lean on the data

Last year, real estate consultancy 1000Watt surveyed 1,000 consumers who bought a home in the past three years. The survey asked homeowners to consider a possible future in which they’d be required to sign an exclusive agreement with a buyer agent and pay out of pocket for their services.

The response? Seventy-five percent of those surveyed said they would still choose to have an agent represent them, which bodes very well for the future of buyer agency.

I also want to point you to a number of studies of consumer purchasing behavior that, time and time again, show that a large majority of consumers will pay more for a higher-quality experience. Keep these statistics in mind as you work with buyers.

While the settlement has changed a number of things, it has not changed the fact that your clients still need you. Stay confident, listen to potential clients, be the advisor they need, and you will thrive.  

Amy Corr is the chief brokerage officer for @properties Christie’s International Real Estate. Find her on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.