Well-known San Francisco real estate industry leader Paula Gold-Nocella has left her position as managing broker of Vanguard Properties to head up Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices (BHHS) Drysdale Properties’ San Francisco Bay and North Bay business. As regional partner, Gold-Nocella will be in charge of rolling out the company’s “Luxury Collection,” a luxury property division which suit the regions where she has operated over the past three decades.
As managing broker of Vanguard Properties since 2011, Gold-Nocella grew the business from one office to 12 in four regions, taking the agent count to over 400.
Through the arrangement with Gretchen Pearson, the president and CEO of BHHS Drysdale Properties, Gold-Nocella assumes a partnership in the BHHS Drysdale business, whose 41 offices are largely in San Francisco’s East Bay but reach as far as Sacramento, Modesto and the state of Nevada. The business generated $65 million in gross commission income (GCI) in 2017, a figure which, in an interview with Inman, Gold-Nocella equated to around $2.4 billion in sales volume.
“It brings me great joy to welcome Paula to the company,” said Pearson in a prepared statement today. “I’ve known and worked with Paula for decades, respect her integrity and value her business insight. She is the perfect choice to lead our expansion in San Francisco and the North Bay.”
Paula Gold-Nocella
Gold-Nocella, originally from New York, told Inman she was already getting calls from agents wanting to join her in markets where she has “deep relationships.” The regional partner currently has a temporary office in central San Francisco for around 25 agents but will be opening a brand new office in Pacific Heights in the next three months where she plans to build a home for 50 agents.
The Sonoma County luxury market is another area where Gold-Nocella plans on creating a big presence for BHHS Drysdale. She and Pearson are currently negotiating on the purchase of a North Bay brokerage in that area, which would give BHHS Drysdale an instant 75 to 80 additional agents. Gold-Nocella would also like to see a presence for the company in the Silicon Valley corridor in the future.
Pearson and Gold-Nocella have worked together before in the mid-2000s when they were both at Prudential California Realty, with Gold-Nocella based in Sonoma County.
The pair has big plans for growth.
BHHS Drysdale Properties is among the fastest-growing BHHS firms in the country, rated the 13th largest in the nation in GCI and is one of the largest woman-owned brokerages in the state.
“I’m sure we will be in the top 10 next year,” said Gold-Nocella, who believes the company could easily grow by a third in 2018.
“Drysdale Properties is a progressive, straightforward company that believes in collaboration, a service-driven mindset and creating positive change. Couple that with the magnitude of the global reach of the highly-respected Berkshire Hathaway brand, and you have a winning combination of innovation, ingenuity and an exquisite opportunity,” said Gold-Nocella in today’s press statement.
Gold-Nocella, who has been a board director on the San Francisco Association of Realtors from 2012 to 2017 among many other industry positions, said the business, which is very active in corporate philanthropy, plans to give 1 percent of its profits back to women in business.
