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9.27.2019 | DIGS.NET 35 M A R K E T H elping over 100 people find permanent housing. Funding wishes for children with serious illnesses. Paying for tattoo removal for almost 200 former gang members. Funding a week of lodging for over 250 cancer patients. at's the tally since 2015, when Anthony Marguleas and his team began pledging 10 percent of their sales commissions to charity. "Everyone you talk to has a different perspective of money," says Marguleas. ere's the fear of losing it, and the fear of making it, too. Rather than pointing to the dollar amount his firm has given, he puts it this way: "It's really the thousand families we've helped." Dogs too, as they've funded the shelter of more than 220 so far at spcaLA. "It's a unique point of differentiation," Marguleas says of he and his agents' giving. "Everyone we hire is part of our core values. Part of our mission statement." Enhancing the lives of others in a direct way seems to energize Marguleas more than some other metrics of his real estate success, which is longstanding and often been premised on doing exactly what the other guy is not. Even his start was uncommon: Having never worked at a residential brokerage firm, he established his own agency, Amalfi Estates, in 1995, when such a thing was not the norm. "Most good agents are entrepreneurs, and they're running their own business," he points out. ese days there's a proliferation of independent real estate firms, and lots of teams—just two changes in an industry in flux, with power centers increasingly moving away from the blue-chip firms of yore. "Business models are changing dramatically," explains Marguleas, who welcomes this shake-up, and whose formal hand in shaping agents includes teaching, for the last 13 years, real estate contracts and negotiating at UCLA. Among the changes is a shift in the market from what Marguleas describes as a seller's market to a buyer's market. ere's been a significant uptick in inventory. A drop in home values. A 30 percent drop in home sales. "e market has seen some of the lowest number of sales this year," says Marguleas. He doesn't seem fazed. Perhaps because Amalfi Estates has been growing of late, with a dozen people now on his team, including his son Max. "We are very fortunate to get a lot of referral business," Marguleas explains. "Because of that, we needed to expand and grow our team." Referrals are no doubt fueled by his approach, which is sharply focused on the rational self-interest of clients. "We're extremely direct and transparent with our clients," he states. "We talk more people out of buying and selling homes than we've helped our clients buy and sell." "Because we do as much business as we do," he adds, "we can step back, be objective and ask: 'Is this in the client's best interest?'" Marguleas brands Amalfi Estates as a philanthropic company that specializes in selling real estate, instead of the other way around. For the five organizations that are so greatly enriched by the benevolence of his brokerage—where every sales transaction results in a donation of about $7,000— this is an excellent thing.