Group One signs on with Sotheby’s International Realty

Luxury living in the Treasure Valley has come to the notice of Sotheby’s International Realty, an offshoot of the renowned London art auction house.

The Boise-based Group One residential real estate firm has become an affiliate of Sotheby’s International Realty, which is based in Madison, N.J. with more than 670 offices in 49 countries.

Group One became the third Idaho affiliate of Sotheby’s on March 15 along with Tomlinson Sotheby’s International Realty in Coeur d’Alene and Sun Valley Sotheby’s International Realty in Ketchum.

The new name is Group One Sotheby’s International Realty.

Group One owner Brad Barker has resisted many franchise offers since launching the firm 34 years ago. Now he sees the Sotheby’s alliance as the ticket to enable his 150 agents to increase sales volume.

“We want to have the same number of agents and grow their ability to grow their business by doing more business,” Barker said.

The Sotheby’s affiliation will allow Group One listings to go on the Sotheby’s website and benefit from Sotheby’s marketing relationships with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Apple News, Barker said.

Barker will be stepping down, or rather up, from his current post as president to a new position of CEO. KaLinn Dishion, Group One’s vice president, will be the new company president.

“We will have more consistency in marketing materials,” Dishion said. “The $200,000 house will be marketing the same way as the $1 million house.”

Group One’s bread-and-butter business is homes ranging between $300,000 and $600,000, Dishion said. Group One in 2005 sold 1,615 homes with transactions adding up to $414 million.

Luxury home sales in the Treasure Valley started to become a sizable market in about 2003, with $500,000-plus home sales peaking in 2006 at 512 in Ada County. The economic turmoil brought that down to 110 in 2010, with luxury homes only 1.7 percent of the total market. Since then, the sale of $500,000-plus homes has rebounded to 432 in 2015, comprising 4.3 percent of total sales, according to statistics from the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service.