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Boutique luxury brokerage Nest Seekers International is expanding its brand with a new division devoted to art called Nest Collections.
The exclusive affiliate art brokerage is being launched in partnership with Studio Kasa founder Josh Kasper, who will also serve as managing director of Nest Collections. Studio Kasa is an art curation and acquisitions platform Kasper launched in 2018, which will continue to operate in its current iteration for the time being.
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With Collections, Nest Seekers will be able to provide a bridge for clients seeking art acquisition and management services, whether for decorative, investment or collections purposes, Kasper said.
Nest Seekers International CEO Eddie Shapiro told Inman the move is part of an ongoing horizontal and vertical expansion of the luxury firm’s business, which includes its launch of a yachting division about two years ago. They also trade private airplanes and now are moving further into collectible assets, including art, automobiles, precious gems and more, which will be folded into the Collections division.
Eddie Shapiro | Nest Seekers International
“It’s the next natural step for us, as clients would engage us in helping them with some of their other assets, what we call our collection division,” Shapiro said. “We really love the space, mostly because it’s a lot less regulated than our core business — real estate — and the commission standards are much higher than they are in the core real estate business, so we decided to get organized behind it and make it more official.”
Art dealer commissions can vary widely depending on factors like the piece of artwork and artist, and if the artist is living, whether or not they are exclusively represented by a studio or gallery. But at the high end, commissions can be up to about 10 percent, Kasper said.
Prior to entering the luxury art space, Kasper worked in investment banking, growing portfolios at firms like Fidelity and Goldman Sachs. Once he started to grow in his career and diversify his own assets, Kasper became interested in investing in art, among other alternative assets.
Similarly minded high-net-worth individuals who are already investing in real estate also may seek to diversify by collecting or investing in art, Shapiro and Kasper said, and now they can go to Nest Seekers to meet both needs.
Josh Kasper | Nest Collections
“Even though someone may come to us and say, ‘We’re looking for rental properties,’ that doesn’t mean we’re going to place fine artwork in those rental properties, but what it does mean is that we can have a conversation with them about what it means to invest in art,” Kasper said.
“So they get their rental properties, and then we could also get them art that maybe goes in a temperature-controlled storage unit, and they could see some appreciation there. There’s different ways that this comes together, but what Nest Seekers, via Nest Collections, really brings to the table here is the juice because people want to work with us, and then the distribution mechanism through all of our 2,000-plus agents makes this a reality.”
With Nest Seekers’ roughly 30 locations globally, the firm can also easily facilitate transport of art to minimize clients having to travel long distances to view pieces. Shapiro said the firm is also slowly training real estate sales agents to become certified art ambassadors for the brand, so that they can facilitate additional art dealing services to clients. (Nest Collections experts who have previously worked with major auction houses will handle the heavy lifting, like authentication and appraisal of artwork.)
“The more successful you are, the more interested you are in beautiful things,” Shapiro said. “So it’s really just a natural progression, also, of wealth diversification and management; hence, bringing some investment banking background into this made a lot of sense to us.”
The firm is celebrating its launch on May 1 with an exclusive gallery opening event at Nest Collections’ gallery space in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood at 44 West 24th Street. The event will include appearances by viral contemporary artist Kevin Champeny and influencer Juliet Rofé, known through her social media channels as Girl Who Eats Art.
Dolce & Gabbana Residences, a luxury condo development at 888 Brickell Miami, is co-sponsoring the event to further emphasize the symbiosis between art and real estate.
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