Top-selling L.A. real-estate agent Tyrone McKillen, one of the marquee names at Compass, is leaving his perch there to join Official, the new brokerage co-founded last year by star agents Oren and Tal Alexander. McKillen’s move marks Official’s expansion into the Los Angeles real estate market; the company currently operates in South Florida, New York City and the Hamptons. McKillen, who has career sales topping $1.5 billion, joins Official as a founding broker for California; he is bringing along his Plus Real Estate Group team with him.
“Tyrone is the ultimate exemplification of Official’s vision, defined by the quality of our talent, depth of our expertise and level of transcendent service provided to clients across the most important markets in the world,” said Richard Jordan, Official’s CEO, in a statement. The new brokerage touts that one of the ways that it differentiates itself in the market is by offering clients a concierge-style, luxury level of service.
McKillen, who made THR’s 2018 list of the top real estate agents in Hollywood, is known for working on high-profile deals including Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s $88 million Bel Air mansion purchase in 2017 and Megan Ellison’s sale of a 10,000-square-foot house above the Sunset Strip for $37.5 million the same year. He was also one of the agents who sold the historic Holmby Hills estate Owlwood last year for $88 million and banked off-market deals last year in Malibu and Bel Air for $57 million and $58.5 million respectively.
Official is part of a wave of new brokerages founded by real estate agents who have struck out from big real estate companies to found their own firms, including Carolwood (co-founded by Drew Fenton) Serhant (founded by Ryan Serhant) and The Beverly Hills Estates (founded by Branden and Rayni Williams). Last year, the Alexander brothers did more than $1.2 billion in real estate sales and have plans to expand Official to more markets.
Oren and Tal Alexander at The Hollywood Reporter’s 2023 Miami Palm Beach Power Broker Awards on Jan. 17 at Faena Theater. DIANA ZAPATA/BFA.COM
In addition to working as an agent, Dublin-born McKillen is a co-founder of Plus Development, which has conceived and built residential and commercial real estate projects in Los Angeles, Mozambique (the new Kisawa Sanctuary resort), Ibiza, Orange County, Dublin and New York. McKillen comes from a real estate family. His father, hotelier Paddy McKillen, owns Chateau La Coste in France and the new Tadao Ando-designed Shinmonzen in Kyoto, Japan, and his brother, Dean McKillen, is a residential developer (who developed the Bel Air home bought by Beyoncé and Jay-Z).
McKillen’s Plus Real Estate team includes agents Megan Fatemi, Andrew Hurley, Neil Cox, Cameron Smith, Sandeep Dhariwal, Michael Piechowski and Chance Earnest.