Long game: How Paradigm Advisory built a New York real estate powerhouse

“I grew up in San Diego, ended up in New York with my wife’s job. Knew four people here. Our experience was awful. This was like 2003 or 2004 buying an apartment. And I figured, ‘Hey, I can do this better than these guys,'” Jovanovic recalled.

Hustis, a Hudson Valley, Ohio, native and Virginia Tech finance graduate, came to the city after the 9/11 recession rerouted plans to be an investment banker.

The two met, quickly hit it off and began building a business — one client at a time.

“We were just hustling, trying to win,” said Jovanovic. “My wife was working 100 hours a week in consulting. So Scott and I worked 100 hours a week, and we just kind of built our business through it all.”

Their early adoption of data analysis and financial modeling stood in stark contrast to the industry standard at the time.

“We could provide data and information, model and [produce] Excel spreadsheets and pivot tables when all the people in the business couldn’t do that stuff,” said Jovanovic. “So we reached that younger banker, finance people, attorneys, money managers. They were like, ‘Wow, that’s what it should be. It should be a profession.'”

Founding roles at Compass

After nearly a decade with The Corcoran Group, Hustis and Jovanovic made a bold move. In 2014, they became founding agents at then-startup Compass.

“When we decided to leave Corcoran and move over to what was then Urban Compass, the whole concept was that if we do a professional service, we should really get paid for not just brokering a deal, but also advising on deals,” said Jovanovic.

At the time, there were fewer than 50 people at the company.

“In New York City, there were about five (founding agents),” said Hustis. “We helped the tech team build the whole tech stack. No one had built a platform to run a business through, and that’s ultimately what a brokerage is.”

The team rebranded as Paradigm Advisory several years ago to stand apart in a growing organization.

“We realized Compass is growing so much, and it was going to be one of the top brokerages nationally that so many agents were going to want to be at,” said Hustis. “We wanted to rebrand ourselves because we wanted to have a brand within the brand.

“We have nine other team members now — from operations to marketing to salespeople — and they are wonderful.”

Compass remains an essential part of their identity. “We’re very close with (Compass CEO Robert Reffkin) and leadership here,” Hustis added. “We know the top leaders in every market.”

Advisors, not just brokers

The founders emphasized the importance of putting clients first, even when it’d be easy to go in a different direction.

“We look at each individual client — whether it’s a buyer or seller — like a project. And it’s like project management where you have the rough rubric and breakdown of what it takes to get this person to finish the project,” Jovanovic said. “Our whole business is referral-based. We don’t mail buildings. We don’t sign up for Zillow or any of those leads. It just built organically over time.”

Hustis echoed the sentiment. “Doing what’s right for the client — even if it’s not right for us in that moment — is the key,” he said.

Their advice to other agents? Think long-term and act with integrity.

“It’s always day one. That’s a Bezos quote,” said Jovanovic. “Every day you have to be on it — to service your people, to get better, to understand where technology is taking you. It’s understanding you need to hire someone, or you need technology to solve that problem.

Navigating a shifting market

Despite a volatile market over the past few years, Paradigm Advisory remains steady.

In 2024 they posted $178.62 million in volume — down from pre-pandemic highs but far from the industry-wide cliff some experienced.

“A couple years prior we were in the low- to mid- two hundreds, so we dropped down like everyone else, but we didn’t fall a cliff like a lot of people,” said Hustis. There’s also a lot of amazing, successful agents that we look at.

“In the 2020 rankings in our category for medium-sized teams, there [are] only two teams in the top-75 for all of New York, where traditionally there can be 10-plus. We were shut down for many months and legally not allowed to work during Covid. And then the first three months after, it was pretty dead.”

Hustis said continued perseverance in those initial post-shutdown months eventually paid off in the form of a sizeable deal.

“We did close one of the larger sales of our career, about $61 million,” he said. “That kept us in the game. That’s somebody who didn’t waver and their $61 million home is probably worth over $90 million now. So they took a risk.

“It’s just all those times you just have to stick it and not waver.”

Politics, local housing landscape

Asked about current market dynamics, the pair were clear-eyed but optimistic.

“We had a Democratic primary here for the new mayor, and there’s a little hesitancy within the votership and with the next potential mayor,” Hustis said. “So that’s put some people on pause. But outside of that it’s been getting better this year. The numbers in New York City are up about 9%.”

While interest rates remain high and development lags, New York’s appeal endures, Jovanovic said.

“People want to be in New York City because it’s exciting. It’s where the jobs are, it’s where the energy is,” he said. “They just haven’t built enough housing. They haven’t solved the problem yet.”

Looking ahead

With two decades of experience, Paradigm Advisory continues to grow by keeping things simple — take care of clients, innovate where possible and stay grounded.

“We’re running a small business,” said Jovanovic. “People don’t think about it that way. They think it’s just someone who shows houses. That’s not what it is. There’s a lot of strategy, a lot of advising before it all happens.”

And that, they say, is the paradigm shift.