New platform aims to be “Neiman Marcus” of luxury listings

StreetEasy has another new competitor.

LX Collection is a platform that aims to sell luxury condominiums in a handful of cities to wealthy homebuyers across the globe.

Its current inventory includes 40 high-end developments in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco, with projects in London and Toronto due to launch soon. Developers that have signed on include Extell Development, Related Companies, Silverstein Properties and Lightstone. In New York, those include Extell’s Central Park Tower and HFZ Capital’s the XI; in Miami, Alex Sapir’s Arte Surfside is on the platform.

LX’s goal is to be “a Neiman Marcus of luxury development,” i.e., known for a well-curated selection of luxe brands, according to Scott Laine, a former Condé Nast and Wired executive who was hired as the company’s chief operating officer.

Developers will be able to register their listings for free on the site and can opt to pay for different services offered by the LX team for a fixed fee. Services will largely include a variety of content marketing initiatives from video to sponsored articles. LX will also publish articles written by well-known architecture and design writers.

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The platform was founded by Knightsbridge Park, a digital media marketing firm specializing in new development, and the Villani Group, a media buying and advertising agency for luxury properties. They began working on the idea two years ago and began development in earnest last year.

Justin Kitrosser, LX’s CEO and co-founder, said the company’s criteria for properties it features are based on a combination of the architect and design team behind the project, amenities and location within the city — along with a certain je ne sais quoi that the company’s founders struggled to articulate.

That said, he said the firm wasn’t going to err on the side of ultra-exclusivity because “we want to give a consumer a full breadth of the market.”

The average price of listings — not including those asking $20 million or more — in New York City is currently $4.5 million; in San Francisco, $4.1 million; and in Miami, nearly $3.5 million.

In New York City, LX enters a competitive landscape with several new platforms, such as Localize.city and BuyersList, that are vying to unseat the dominant player, Zillow Group’s StreetEasy, most recently by leveraging the long-standing animus many brokerages and agents harbor against the platform.

But Laine dismissed those competitors. He said the goal of LX is to be not just a platform for listings, but also a site where wealthy buyers can educate themselves on high-quality design features and notable trends in luxury living.

“The dominant players are everything to everybody,” said Laine.

To cultivate its consumer audience, LX will largely rely on agents to introduce clients to the platform. The firm plans to launch a suite of products for agents early next year, and is exploring a seed funding round in the first quarter of 2021.

Though LX did not disclose its monetization strategy, Laine emphasized that the goal is to become a destination and concierge service for both developers and consumers.

“We’re not here to monetize every single one of the engagements that a consumer would have,” said Laine. “This is a long game for us.”