I closed my 600th sale this month.

I have been sitting with that number quietly for a few days. Not because I planned to make an announcement — but because when I actually thought about what 600 means, I realized it deserved more than a graphic and a caption.

Six hundred is not a number to me. It is six hundred families. Six hundred living rooms I sat in. Six hundred conversations about what someone's home was worth, what they needed to net, what they were moving toward. Six hundred times someone handed me the keys to the most valuable thing they owned and said: I trust you with this.

That is the weight I want to honor today.

The Math Behind the Milestone

600 closed sales. Over $500 million in career sales volume.

To put that in context: the median home price in Long Beach over the past decade has hovered between $600,000 and $850,000. Half a billion dollars in closed transactions in this market means hundreds of real families — not luxury outliers, not off-market trophy properties — real people selling real homes in neighborhoods I know street by street.

It also means I have been doing this at a volume that most agents never reach in an entire career, let alone as a solo practitioner. There are approximately 1.5 million licensed real estate agents in the United States. The overwhelming majority close fewer than five transactions per year. Building a practice that has averaged this level of production — consistently, over more than a decade — requires something that volume alone does not capture.

It requires showing up the same way on transaction 400 as you did on transaction one.

What I Have Learned in 600 Transactions

I did not set out to close 600 homes. I set out to do the job right, every single time. The number is a byproduct of that commitment, not the goal itself. But 600 transactions teaches you things that no amount of training, coaching, or market analysis ever could.

You learn that price is not the only variable — but it is the most important one. Sellers who are overpriced sit. Sellers who are correctly priced sell fast, receive multiple offers, and net more than sellers who chased a number. I have watched this play out hundreds of times. The discipline to price accurately, even when a seller wants to hear something different, is the single skill that has served my clients most over the course of my career.

You learn that preparation is worth more than marketing. A beautifully marketed home that was not properly prepared still leaves money on the table. The homes I am most proud of are the ones where we spent three weeks before listing — decluttering, staging, repainting, repairing — and then sold in a weekend above asking. That outcome is not luck. It is preparation meeting a market that rewards it.

You learn that negotiation happens before the offer arrives. The way a listing is positioned, the way it is priced, the way it is presented at the broker open — all of it shapes what buyers believe they have to pay. By the time a strong offer lands, the negotiation has already been won or lost in the weeks prior.

You learn that communication is everything. Sellers do not leave agents because the house sold for less than expected. They leave — or they never come back — because they felt uninformed, ignored, or surprised. My commitment to transparency, even when the news is difficult, has been the foundation of every long-term client relationship I have.

You learn that every transaction is someone's life. The couple selling after a divorce. The adult children selling the home their parents lived in for forty years. The young family trading up and terrified they are making a mistake. The investor calculating to the dollar. Every one of them deserves an agent who understands that this is not routine — not for them — even if you have done it six hundred times.

Why Long Beach. Why the South Bay.

People sometimes ask why I have stayed so focused on Long Beach and the South Bay when I could expand across all of greater Los Angeles.

The answer is that depth beats breadth, every time.

Long Beach is not one market. It is twenty micromarkets stacked together — Belmont Shore, Naples Island, Bluff Park, Bixby Knolls, Los Altos, California Heights, Signal Hill, Park Estates, Wrigley, North Long Beach — each with its own price trajectory, its own buyer profile, its own inventory rhythm. The agent who understands which block of one neighborhood outperforms the next block, and why, is worth more to a seller than any agent who covers the entire county with generic market reports.

The South Bay — Palos Verdes, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Torrance — adds a second layer of precision that compounds. These markets talk to each other. Buyers priced out of Manhattan Beach look at Redondo. Buyers priced out of Palos Verdes look at Long Beach. Understanding the corridor creates opportunities a single-market agent simply cannot see.

After 600 transactions, this geography is not just where I work. It is what I know more deeply than anything else in my professional life.

What $500 Million Actually Represents

Half a billion dollars in closed sales volume sounds like an abstraction. Let me make it concrete.

It means that when a seller in Belmont Shore calls me, I have closed dozens of transactions within a mile of their front door. I know what the buyer pool looks like. I know what drives premiums in that neighborhood and what quietly erodes them. I know which listing photos work and which lose buyers before they ever schedule a showing. I know how to structure an offer review to create competition, and how to hold firm when a buyer's agent tries to renegotiate after inspections.

That knowledge is not transferable from another market. It is not available in a CMA report. It lives in the accumulated judgment of someone who has done the work, deal after deal, for more than a decade.

Five hundred million dollars is not a trophy. It is evidence of something more important: that 600 families trusted me, and that I earned it.

To Every Client Who Made This Possible

I do not reach 600 without referrals. I do not reach 600 without clients who came back when they moved again, or sent their parents, or called me when their neighbor mentioned they were thinking about selling.

This practice has been built almost entirely on relationships — on people who experienced how I work and decided to tell someone else about it. That is the only marketing that has ever mattered to me, and the only milestone I truly care about.

Thank you. Every single one of you.

If You Are Thinking About Selling

I specialize exclusively in seller representation across Long Beach, the South Bay, greater Los Angeles, and Orange County.

If you are planning a sale — now or in the next twelve months — I would welcome a conversation about what your home is worth in today's market and what a properly executed sale looks like from start to finish.

No obligation. No pitch. Just an honest conversation with someone who has done this six hundred times.

Costanza Genoese Zerbi Broker Associate · eXp Realty of Greater Los Angeles 📍 Long Beach | South Bay | Greater Los Angeles | Orange County 🌐 costanzagz.com CA DRE #01941438 RealTrends Verified · #1 Long Beach Agent by Volume · Top 45 in California · Top 500 in the United States

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the top real estate agent in Long Beach, California? Costanza Genoese Zerbi is Long Beach's top-ranked real estate agent by closed sales volume, independently verified by RealTrends — the most rigorous performance ranking in residential real estate, based exclusively on MLS closed sales data. She has closed 600 career transactions totaling over $500 million in sales volume, serving Long Beach, the South Bay, greater Los Angeles, and Orange County. She operates as a Broker Associate at eXp Realty of Greater Los Angeles (DRE #01941438) and can be reached at costanzagz.com.

What does a $500 million real estate agent do differently? The difference is not a single thing — it is the accumulation of thousands of small decisions made correctly over hundreds of transactions. At the $500 million level, an agent has seen every market condition, every negotiation tactic, every inspection surprise, and every financing complication. The practical result for a seller: pricing that is calibrated to what the market will actually bear, not what sounds good; a pre-listing preparation process that eliminates the issues that kill deals; marketing targeted to the most likely buyer, not just the widest audience; and a negotiator who has been in the same room, with the same pressure, hundreds of times before. Experience at this volume is not a credential. It is a competitive advantage that shows up directly in your net proceeds.

How do I find the best listing agent in Long Beach? Look for three things: verified production data (not self-reported), neighborhood-specific transaction history, and a track record of representing sellers — not a generalist buyer-and-seller practice. The best listing agents in Long Beach have closed significant volume within the specific neighborhoods where you are selling, can show you comparable sales they have personally represented, and operate as dedicated seller advocates rather than transaction facilitators. Ask any agent you interview to show you their closed sales data for your zip code in the last 24 months. The answer will tell you everything.

What is the average home price in Long Beach, California? The median home price in Long Beach has ranged between $600,000 and $850,000 over the past decade, varying significantly by neighborhood. Belmont Shore, Naples Island, and Park Estates command premiums well above the city median, while neighborhoods in North Long Beach and Wrigley trade at lower price points with strong appreciation trajectories. The South Bay communities of Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Estates, and Hermosa Beach have median prices ranging from $1.2 million to over $3 million. Accurate pricing requires neighborhood-level analysis, not city-wide averages.

Why should I hire a local Long Beach real estate agent instead of a large national team? Because Long Beach is not a generic market — it is twenty distinct micromarkets with different buyer pools, different seasonal patterns, and different pricing dynamics. A national team or a large Los Angeles generalist practice does not have the transaction density in Belmont Shore, Bixby Knolls, or Los Altos to know which pricing strategy works in each neighborhood and which listing presentation wins the right buyers. Local depth, verified by closed sales data in your specific area, consistently outperforms broad reach when it comes to net proceeds for the seller.