As a generation's fortune changes hands, families are asking a new question: not who can sell this, but who can I trust with it. REALM Global, the invitation-only, brand-agnostic network of the world's most prolific luxury real estate advisors, has announced its answer: The Age of the Trusted (working title), a definitive guide to luxury advisory intended to be published with Greenleaf Book Group. The book will not be written by a single author but by the world's leading luxury advisors alongside wealth managers and family office principals.
The guide arrives at a consequential moment in private wealth. Cerulli projects $124 trillion will change hands through 2048, with more than half coming from high- and ultra-high-net-worth households. The ultra-wealthy population has never been larger or more global: 556,850 individuals now hold $30 million or more, up 14.4% in a single year, and Altrata expects 746,570 by 2030.
Yet these families are underserved. Only 17% of high-net-worth individuals call their advisory experience seamless and personalized, according to Capgemini's World Wealth Report 2026. Excellence is rare and concentrated: among 840,000 producing U.S. agents, the top 1% close 18% of every transaction. Real estate has its rankings and forecasts, but what has yet to be written is a shared standard for advising the family itself—across generations, borders, and every asset that shapes a life.
REALM was founded in March 2020 on the conviction that the trusted advisor is the enduring relationship at the heart of every great family's real estate decisions. The membership has spent six years proving it. Roughly 600 members across 23 countries, 40+ U.S. states, and 150+ brokerage brands close more than $50 billion a year at an average sale price of $2.5 million. Nearly one in three members appear on the RealTrends Verified rankings, and REALM's Wealth Intelligence Hub spans more than 220,000 verified clients with an average net worth of $28.9 million. Members exchange more than $10 billion in referral volume annually.
In May 2027, 250 invited participants—200 senior advisors and 50 capital gatekeepers—will gather at the Four Seasons Hotel Austin for the REALM Global Collective. Twelve councils will each take one cohort of wealth and write their chapter, with every chapter closing with practices an advisor can put to work the next morning. The Collective's findings will be shared throughout 2027, building to the published compendium, and each year's Collective will renew it.
"Every family we serve already has more information than they could ever use," said Julie Faupel, Founder and CEO of REALM Global. "What they cannot find on a screen is discernment, discretion, and the quiet confidence of an advisor who will still be beside them a decade from now. That is this profession at its best. The Age of the Trusted is our commitment to put it in writing and establish a new standard of excellence for the industry."
The book is written for three readers: the advisor, who gains a standard worth rising to; the family, who gains a clear picture of what to expect; and the gatekeeper, who gains a shared language for serving the family as one team. For brokerages, it is a shared resource written across 150+ brands and 23 countries. "The answer has never belonged to any one market or any one advisor," Faupel said. "It belongs to the room. Our role is to convene it with the right people, the right partners, the right environment, and to capture what it knows, so the entire profession rises with it."
REALM is now welcoming a select group of partners and sponsors to join the 2027 Collective. More information is available at www.realm-global.com.
