WHO’S WHO IN HAMPTONS REAL ESTATE SPOTLIGHT ON GARY DEPERSIA BY CHARLES BASS
Consistently ranked among the top producers in the Hamptons and a year-on-year member of The Corcoran Group President’s Council, he was also ranked as the nation’s fourth highest broker by sales volume with over $202 million worth of transactions in 2008 when the Wall Street Journal and REAL Trends listed him among the top 250 real estate professionals for the previous year. Just last month WSJ released its latest list in which he was 26th nationwide and third in the Hamptons for deals completed in 2016. Chances are you’ve seen his face on the pages of magazines like Social Life, and below is the Q & A we had with Gary about the world of real estate in the Hamptons. You’re a familiar face in the Hamptons, especially on the real estate circuit. What got you to where you are today? Twenty-one years. After this long in the business, if you’re not there, you’re never going to get there. After many years in the textile business in New York, I got to the Hamptons in 1995 and was fortunate to land at the absolutely right agency for me to launch my second career, Allan M, Schneider Associates. I had some great role models — real estate heavyweights — who exposed me to the best of the best. I saw the best houses, the best rentals, the best buyers, the best advertising. Some of the partners were generous with their referrals, helping me get my business off the ground. Then I started putting money back into advertising and those with houses to sell saw that I was spending considerable dollars on my listings, which translated into more listings. When Corcoran purchased Schneider in 2006, the synergy between the two agencies propelled my career even further.
G
ary DePersia’s name is synonymous with the best in Hamptons real estate. From Southampton to Montauk and from Sagaponack to Shelter Island, he is known as the “goto” man when looking to buy or rent a home in the Hamptons. He has participated in more than $2.5 billion in real estate transactions since his start in the business in 1995, having sold hundreds of his exclusive listings as well as finding an equal number of houses for his buyers and renters. Meanwhile he continues to add benchmark sales to his resume.
You’ve been in the business for a long time. Are there consistent themes that you have seen throughout the decades? The key to being a successful broker — for 90 percent of the successful brokers— is to have listings. As brokers we don’t own the houses we show, and we don’t own the money of the buyers who buy. But as listing brokers, for a certain amount of time, we have inventory of houses that not only are we trying to sell but that other brokers in the Hamptons have the opportunity to sell as well. So those brokers who have developed an assemblage of listings over the years and keep getting them will be prone to success. Social Life