Vero Beach’s amazing real estate market made national news again this month with an outsize showing on the Real Trends 1000 list, which ranks top agents and teams nationwide.
Though it’s tiny compared to most high-profile markets – Vero’s population is 17,163 according to the U.S. census, while the overlapping island population is just 15,173 – local brokers scored big, surpassing most top competitors in Miami, New York, Los Angeles and other real estate hotspots.
Matilde Sorensen, co-owner of the island’s biggest home-grown brokerage, Dale Sorensen Real Estate, made the list of the top 250 agents in the country in dollar volume, ranked No. 130, with $187,844,650 in sales in 2021.
Her success was a major part of a record-breaking year for her family’s business, which did $1.5 billion in business in 2021, up from just over a billion the year before.
The O’Dare Boga Group also had a phenomenal year, ranked No. 48 in the country for dollar volume by small teams, with $286,760,099 in sales.
That record-breaking total – the most ever sold by an island agent or team – put them just three spots down from “Million Dollar Listings Los Angeles” star Tracy Tutor, whose slightly larger team sold $300 million in and around Beverly Hills in the massive L.A. market.
The Vero group was comprised of three agents – Cindy O’Dare, Richard Boga and Kristin Dobson, along with one assistant – compared to four agents, a director of operations and a marketing director on The Tracy Tutor Team.
The O’Dare Boga group, which achieved its 2021 success at Premier Estate Properties, recently moved to ONE Sotheby’s International Realty.
Meanwhile, ONE Sotheby’s made the Real Trends cut, too, appearing high up on the list of fastest growing brokerages. With $7.62 billion in 2021 sales – more than double its 2020 total of $3.44 billion – the brokerage was ranked No. 1 in Florida and No. 16 in the country for increase in closed volume.
ONE Sotheby’s was founded in Miami in 2008 by Mayi de la Vega. In recent years, the company has marched up the coast, buying other Sotheby’s franchises – including Treasure Coast Sotheby’s in Vero in 2019 – and now employees 1,000 agents operating out of 19 offices stretching from Miami to Cocoa Village, according to the company website.
The Real Trends 1000 is the most well-known and prestigious real estate leaders list in the country. It ranks the top 500 agents and top 500 teams in the U.S., recognizing 250 agents and 250 teams for dollar volume and 250 agents and teams for highest number of transactions.
The Real Trends 500 list, which ONE Sotheby’s appeared on, ranks the top 500 brokerages by several criteria.
Brokers, agents and teams are required to authentic their sales and transaction numbers with MLS data or tax returns.
As in Vero, top agents across the country had banner years in 2021 despite historically low inventory because of robust price increases. For the first time in the ranking’s history, “individual ranked agents had an average sales price of more than $1 million,” according to Real Trends.