Rankings and superlatives are probably the one thing agents and brokerages can agree they love to hate and then love again.
Most are unable to look away from perusing said rankings even if they take issue with the methodology.
With the Los Angeles County ranking for this year’s top agents and teams now complete, the list may be as close to a reflection of the high end of the market one can get. That statement doesn’t gloss over the common complaints heard each year from some in the industry, most notably that the list throws teams and solo agents into the same ring.
To be fair, it’s not an apples to apples comparison when, for example, a 15-person team’s production is going up against the business of an agent that operates solo. However, the market’s housing inventory isn’t siphoned off into buckets of what can be bought and sold by a team or a single agent.
All that said, the Williams & Williams Estate Group, helmed by Branden and Rayni Williams, took the No. 1 spot on this year’s list with about $1.3 billion in production and 197 deals.
Kurt Rappaport, co-founder of Westside Estate Agency, ranked No. 5 overall but if we were only counting single agents, he’d rank at the top with $568 million dollars closed across the 19 deals he handled, and lead on median price, too.
Lack of context
Speaking of superlatives, a Redfin report found the sale of Rick Caruso’s former home at 912 Benedict Canyon Drive to be the U.S.’s priciest deal in August.
The property sold for $47.5 million, although the designation of “priciest” lacked market context beyond the month of August, the traditional dog days for residential sales.
For example, within Los Angeles County, the most expensive home sales to date in 2025 were two properties that each sold for $110 million: 630 Nimes Road in Bel-Air and 594 South Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills.
Against the backdrop of the broader U.S. residential market, Nimes Road and Mapleton Drive are tied for second place after the $225 million sale of a three-address, 15-acre compound in Naples, Florida.
The April sale consisted of 2170, 2200 and 2340 Gordon Drive and is now the second-most expensive residential sale in U.S. history.
All that to say, awarding superlatives based on the timespan of a week or month doesn’t always offer the clearest view of much of anything.
Navigating Measure ULA
The rankings and records indicate that agents in Los Angeles are still closing deals even with what some liken to a big wet rag on business in the form of Measure ULA.
The two-tiered tax on all property — commercial and residential — went into effect in April 2023 and currently assesses a 4 percent fee on deals starting at $5.3 million or 5.5 percent on $10.6 million or more.
Rayni Williams, CEO and co-founder of the Beverly Hills Estates, called ULA the “biggest detriment” for the market currently.
That’s “more than interest rates. More than world events,” she added.
Others see things differently and have largely accepted the tax as a cost of doing business.
“You’ve got to accept it’s there, otherwise what can we do?” said David Berg of Smith & Berg Partners at Compass. “We can yell and scream about it and hope that there’s a solution that comes along. Maybe it’s repealed, but essentially, it’s a fact of life at this point for what we do.”
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TRD tagged along with Amalfi Estates founder Anthony Marguleas in the Pacific Palisades last month.
The ride along offered not only a sense of what it’s like to do business in the community, but also on the progress that’s been made in the Pacific Palisades since January’s fire.
A subsequent visit back noted a steady stream of dine-in and to-go business from construction workers and locals at the Palisades Garden Café. Construction equipment sat parked at Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village on the other side of Sunset Boulevard, where a group of suits walked around the retail center, which remains under repair in the wake of the blaze.
The split-screen along Sunset illustrated that there’s still plenty of work ahead, but construction on residential lots is becoming increasingly common as the community moves forward.
Read more
How LA’s top agents navigate Measure ULA
“Like Pompeii”: Take a tour through the Palisades with Amalfi Estates’ Anthony Marguleas
Rick Caruso’s old house notches priciest sale in US at $48M
