Luxury real estate brand Engel & Völkers and second-home co-ownership platform Pacaso have formally partnered to promote the sale of homes branded as co-owned luxury properties.
Pacaso was co-founded by Austin Allison and Spencer Rascoff, both former executives at Zillow. Already in 35 markets, the company is aiming to add 30 more before the end of 2022.
Engel & Völkers, an international brokerage that’s based in Germany, will not be an exclusive listing agent for Pacaso. The union instead formalizes the marketing of Pacaso’s available home shares to qualified Engel & Völkers clients.
The partnership is also intended to push the unique form of ownership as a new way to secure property, industrywide.
Engel & Völkers operates luxury sales offices in more than 35 of the destinations in which Pacaso currently operates. It has sold co-owned luxury homes for Pacaso in Park City, Aspen, Vail and Malibu.
“Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) and its members defined the increasingly common category of co-ownership as a property type and the partnership with industry leaders such as Engel & Völkers further cements co-ownership as a mainstream buying decision,” Pacaso stated.
Pacaso encourages all agents to show its properties, and lists its homes with an array of local brokerage brands, both national and independent. It pays buyer agents 3 percent commission and offers restricted stock units of Pacaso equity upon closing. It also hires only local service providers to manage, clean and design its homes, as well as handles all aspects of communication with buyers.
Marnie Blanco heads industry relations for Pacaso, and said the partnerships with agents and brokers continue to be instrumental in the adoption of its ownership structure.
“As the category-creating pioneer in luxury second home co-ownership, we are thrilled to strategically align with Engel & Völkers,” Blanco said in a statement. The company’s global customer base will “continue to introduce more prospective buyers to the modern way to own a second home.”
Engel & Völkers sees Pacaso as a new opportunity to share with customers, something that doesn’t come around often in traditional real estate sales.
Paul Benson, co-founder and CEO of nearly 40 Engel & Völkers locations said in a statement that he “thinks we all agree that second homeownership is more desirable than ever,” and that “Pacaso has entered the market at the perfect time to offer creative options that allow homeowners to not only enter the second home market, but also to allow well-traveled homeowners options to have multiple properties around the world.”
Pacaso’s latest markets include Arizona’s Cave Creek resort community and London, England.
It also released a mobile app, Pacaso Access, to help aspiring second homeowners learn of opportunities to buy available co-owned luxury homes a day before the open market.
