The luxury real estate industry is confronting a client it was not built to serve. In a new white paper titled Minted: Who the New Wealthy Are, and What They Expect, REALM, an invitation-only global network of luxury real estate advisors, argues that the fastest-growing class of wealth in nearly a decade is younger, more liquid, more mobile and more skeptical of inherited relationships than any cohort before it. The paper, authored by REALM Founder and Chief Executive Officer Julie Faupel, contends that this shift is not merely about more wealth but about different wealth, and that the mismatch between how the industry markets itself and how new wealth chooses advisors is the defining problem of the moment.
The scale of the shift is striking. Global personal wealth rose 10.8% in 2025, the strongest year since 2017. Nearly one million new millionaires were created, more than 2,600 every day, and a record $297.8 billion passed to billionaire heirs in a single year. A founder becomes a principal in one funding round; an engineer holding early equity becomes a decamillionaire the day the company goes public. Minted identifies six findings that flow from this structural change, including that new wealth arrives as a liquidity event and the first major real estate decision often follows within months, and that the new wealthy do not relocate but assemble residences, citizenships and properties into a portfolio designed for optionality.
The implications for advisors are profound. Loyalty is no longer inherited: 81% of next-generation inheritors plan to leave their parents' wealth firms, and only 17% of high-net-worth individuals describe their advisory experience as seamless and personalized. Permission, not price, now governs the purchase, with 52% of affluent buyers buying fewer luxury items but expecting more from each, and 47% weighing future regret before committing. Their objection is rarely affordability but uncertainty about whether they should buy at all. The paper maps four gates every prospective advisor must pass—introduction, verification, discretion and intelligence—and sets out nine practices defining what REALM calls the Trusted: present before the liquidity event, fluent across borders and generations, and leading with intelligence rather than inventory.
REALM members who contributed to the paper describe the same pattern in their own markets. "When wealth is created quickly, someone's life can change faster than their trusted circle can form," said Bridget Ramey, a luxury real estate advisor in Austin. "They often have the capital before they have the counsel. When you consistently show up for them, you become more than an advisor; you become the person they trust for whatever comes next." Jack Cotton, a luxury real estate advisor on Cape Cod, added: "You don't find these clients by becoming more visible. You find them by becoming more referable." The full paper is available at the Minted – REALM Guide.
Minted is also the opening chapter of a broader effort. On May 17–19, 2027, the REALM Global Collective 2027 will convene 250 invitation-only participants at the Four Seasons Hotel Austin, including 200 senior advisors and 50 UHNW capital gatekeepers. Working councils dedicated to single wealth cohorts will produce positions on the first 90 days after a liquidity event, covering the heir, cross-border counsel, stewardship and the role of AI. Those positions will shape REALM's definitive guide to luxury advisory, to be published with Greentree Publishing following the Collective and renewed annually. "This paper defines the client," said Faupel. "The work that follows will define the standard." For an industry built on brand, volume and visibility, the message is clear: the brand does not win this client—the advisor does, and trust is earned one relationship at a time.
