Pacifica Properties Group a New Boutique Brokerage Is Redefining Beach Cities Real Estate With an Independent, Agent-led Focus with Lynne Lear, Dan O’Connor, Chris Plank, Jeremy Shelton and Karynne Thim
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” This saying comes from none other than Phil Jackson, former coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and notorious guru of the philosophical. Together they exemplify the idea of a group adding up to much more than the sum of its individual parts.
“The beautiful thing is that the five of us have a chemistry that is undeniable,” says PACIFICA Properties Group‘s Lynne Lear. “It’s respectful and collaborative.” Lynne Lear, a local off-market specialist, is a founding partner alongside other longtime real estate figures Dan O’Connor, Jeremy Shelton, Karynne Thim, and Chris Plank—the latter of whom is the former broker of record at both Shorewood Realtors and Sotheby’s.
SCOPE OF INFLUENCE
Focused on the Beach Cities, PACIFICA’s listings range from $1 million to
$25 million.
NEW BROKERAGE, FAMILIAR FACES
The founding partners have worked together locally for decades.
…AND COUNTING
The five agents have sold over 4,000 properties collectively, netting more than $1.5 billion in sales.
There’s chemistry, yes, and differing areas of real estate expertise to create a powerful and comprehensive whole. “We have a nice blend,” Jeremy Shelton describes. “We all do everything in real estate, but each person has a tagline under their name.”
There’s a Strand expert, for instance, and an agent with a specialty in investment properties. One agent is focused on new development, while another’s forte is off-market listings. And so forth. “It makes for a really nice, inherent balance among the group,” Dan O’Connor points out.
While the agency may be new, their collaboration is not. Or as PACIFICA Properties Group puts it: Our name is new—but you’ve known these agents for years. “We all worked at the same office for years,” says Jeremy Shelton, describing how the group gelled during their many years of working together at the Shorewood Realtors office in Manhattan Beach. Each of the principals, who live and work in the Beach Cities, is distinguished by a commitment to the community and many years of experience—20 to 30 years in local real estate, respectively.
“All of our children have graduated from or are currently attending a local school,” notes Dan O’Connor. “We speak the language of the South Bay.”
The agents were inspired to form PACIFICA Properties Group in response to a changing real estate landscape that saw control at local agencies being ceded to big-name brokerages.
“We didn’t want to go to a venture capital-backed company headquartered somewhere far away, where we were only going to be built up to be sold,” Lynne Lear describes. “That type of change is very disruptive.”
Instead, the group envisioned a boutique brokerage where they could leverage their respective experience and networks in the Beach Cities, all the while holding the reins of their business to better to serve their clients.
“Boutique to us means keeping it local in terms of hands-on service,” says Karynne Thim. “We are energized by this move, to create a career home for us and to add more successful, high-integrity agents.” Though operating with a strong local touch, at PACIFICA Properties Group there’s also an emphasis on tech and global reach as it pertains to real estate.
“We have the most cutting-edge, back-office systems that create more flexibility for the agents to do what they’re good at,” she points out, “which is buying and selling real estate for clients.”
Their independence ultimately translates to PACIFICA Properties Group operating in a nimble and streamlined manner, without being beholden to higher powers, or having to charge clients extra fees to kick up to an outside brokerage. Summing it up, says Chris Plank: “We’re individual agents coming together every day with the brain trust of the five of us.”
Perhaps the biggest reward so far has come from their most crucial audience. “Every single client of ours has been proud of us, and so supportive when we told them about the new agency,” states Lynne Lear.
“It’s incredibly satisfying.” For these five agents, PACIFICA is a quest that stirred in their minds for some time. Now launched, the group reflects: “The time has presented itself for us to execute our vision of a true boutique brokerage, move to our collective next level and control our destiny.”
Photographs courtesy of Pacifica Properties Group
