Mauricio Umansky on Reality Series ‘Buying Beverly Hills’: “You Actually Get to See Real Luxury Real Estate Transactions”

At first, real estate agent Farrah Brittany was unsure if she wanted to do the new Netflix series Buying Beverly Hills, which charts the inner workings of The Agency, founded by her stepfather Mauricio Umansky.

“I definitely had qualms. Because, obviously, we’re making a show about our profession,” she said at the November premiere party for the new Netflix series, held at Wheelhouse LA. “Everything you do, you’re looking through the lens of, ‘How is this going to be received by our clients, by viewers?’ We want to look professional. So, I was definitely nervous.”

However, Brittany was heartened by the fact that Buying Beverly Hills — the latest in a slew of real-estate-focused reality shows including Oppenheim Group’s Selling Sunset, Million Dollar Listing, and the new Selling the OC — actually features the intricacies of luxury real estate deals and transactions. “There’s tons of real estate,” she says. “You’ll see a lot of amazing houses, big numbers, a lot of real estate porn, so it does not lack in that.”

Her stepfather agrees. “It’s really exciting that you actually get to see real luxury real estate transactions take place,” Umansky says. “And I think that’s one of the best things about the show is that it actually has real real estate happening, which is awesome.”

Buying Beverly Hills features sellers at different points in their career — from junior agents including Joey Ben-Zvi and Melissa Platt to luxury market mainstays like Jon Grauman and Santiago Arana, a mainstay on the THR Top 30 Hollywood Real Estate Agents list. Arana had declined to be on reality shows in the past but was swayed by the concept of Buying Beverly Hills. 

“I saw this to be a better opportunity than what’s offered to me before,” says Arana (co-developer of a home recently bought for $33.5 million by Russell Westbrook). “I love the fact that I’m doing it with my friends and obviously Mauricio my partner, and it makes it more fun to be with people that I know and I’m close to that I trust.”

The familial atmosphere of The Agency may be a reason for the company’s success. Since it opened in 2011, The Agency has quickly become a power player in the world of high-end real estate. The show also gives fans a different glimpse of the Umansky family, whose matriarch Kyle Richards has starred for 12 seasons on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

“You get to see us in a different way than you’ve seen us before,” Mauricio Umansky tells THR. “You’ve been watching us on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and I can go home, and I can be a happy father and a loving husband, and now you’re going to watch us in our environment. [A] really cutthroat, intense environment, going out there and doing what we do best, which is selling luxury real estate.” (RHOBH has had its share of headline-making news of late including a feud between Richards’ and her half-sister Kathy Hilton and Umansky apologizing to Garcelle Beauvais over an incident involving her son.)

In contrast to RHOBH, Buying Beverly Hills has so far not strained familial bonds. Umansky says that inviting cameras into the family business has in many ways brought his family closer together. “I had so much fun working with my daughters. It was awesome,” says Umansky, whose daughter with Kyle, Alexia Umansky, is also a cast member and an agent at The Agency. Mauricio Umansky and Kyle Richards recently sold a home in Aspen for $7.75 million that they purchased in 2016 for $4.2 million.