The sector of top of the range actual property is incessantly portrayed as a unbroken montage of Champagne toasts and pristine $50 million infinity swimming pools. However in line with Dusty Baker, founding father of the Dusty Baker Crew at Sotheby’s Global Realty, the truth is way more grit than glamour.
In a contemporary behind-the-scenes video interview with Realtor.com®, Baker, who covers 3 extremely high-end California markets—Santa Barbara, Montecito, and Hope Ranch—pulled again the curtain at the “duck at the water” analogy that defines his occupation: gliding easily at the floor whilst running furiously beneath to stay the whole thing shifting.
“The general public misunderstand an agent’s day, particularly within the luxurious section,” Baker admits.
Whilst the effects are gorgeous, the method is incessantly utilitarian. Baker’s automobile trunk serves as a cellular command heart, housing a device package that incorporates the whole thing from disinfectant wipes to pickaxes and shovels used to lend a hand septic contractors find tanks.
The “glamour” is additional debunked through the truth of a top-tier agent’s lunch smash.
“The typical particular person could be surprised to peer peak luxurious brokers within the again seat in their automobile, scarfing a sandwich or consuming a salad with their palms as a result of they forgot a fork,” Baker says with amusing.
That arduous paintings has paid off, alternatively, and Baker is now one of the vital go-to record brokers for premier houses in his selected spaces of center of attention. His present listings come with a sprawling $9.99 million hilltop hideaway and a $3.19 million 1-acre retreat in Hope Ranch.
For Baker, managing the chaos of a high-stakes marketplace calls for a inflexible morning regimen, explaining that it’s the handiest a part of his day that he in reality feels he can regulate sooner than the “haywire” of commercial takes over at round 9 a.m.
In spite of his good fortune, Baker does not imagine himself a conventional salesman, noting that he has labored exhausting to steadiness his occupation together with his house existence in and round Santa Barbara.
“I don’t assume I’m a just right salesman in any respect,” he says. “However I like dwelling right here. I’m no longer striking on a hat; I’m simply explaining that each and every Saturday, I’m on the seashore with my children at 9 a.m.
“If I will have dinner with my circle of relatives each and every unmarried evening and be in mattress through 8:30? Then that is a productive day.”
This authenticity is the bridge to his final function: being a depended on adviser. Baker needs his purchasers to really feel a way of aid—a “thank God Dusty is concerned” sentiment—understanding that his competence and problem-solving talents are guarding their pursuits.


