01/04/2025
Unique Estates Life
Evelina Kostakeva has been part of Unique Estates since 2011 and over the years has won numerous prestigious awards, establishing herself as one of the most prominent professionals in the field of luxury real estate. In 2024, she was recognized with the “Unique Estates Manager of 2024” and “Unique Estates Deal of 2024 – Sales” awards. We meet with her to tell us more about this success, what this recognition means to her and how she achieved the deal that brought her this award.
People! They have always inspired me – my colleagues in the team, the clients I meet every day and try to understand. The whole process in our work is so dynamic, colorful and interesting that there is always something new to learn and ways to develop.
Yes, I have always joked that I always win the “largest number of deals” award, which means that I run a lot. And I dreamed of “Deal of the Year” one, which means working smart. This award has eluded me several times, but this year I received it in the most grandiose and memorable way – with a great deal that will go down in history for me.
Of course, I will never get tired of talking about this epic deal.
It was different not only because of the iconic, aristocratic property, located in a key location, not only because of its record value, not only because of the long and tense negotiations between the radically different figures of the seller and the buyer, who never met – here I am especially proud of my role as a mediator and the exceptional team with whom we worked in complete harmony and dedication.
The greatest value of the deal was the meaning it brought – one of the many beautiful, but sadly forgotten, abandoned over time and self-destructing cultural monuments in our capital will be restored and preserved for future generations. My clients – young people with values and vision, dedicated themselves to this cause, and I am proud to have been part of it. I believe that without a past there can be no future, and I'm glad that there are still people who share this philosophy.
The biggest challenge is again the people - my team. Each of them is worthy in themselves to be a manager and a successful professional, and being a good leader for these people is the biggest challenge for me. I overcome it with daily work, dedication and human relations based on mutual understanding and acceptance. For me, the most important task is to have a happy team - people who come to work with a desire. I myself am like that and I am happy that I almost always manage to achieve it.
In our business, there are many twists, stress, difficult moments, but people sometimes just need a kind word, human support or even a joke to be a ray of light on a difficult day.
I try to maintain a stress-free environment and, as paradoxical as it may sound, I never put results first. For me, success is having happy, balanced and satisfied people around me, because when this is present, success comes naturally. Everyone has a different ambition, pace and approach, I learned to be tolerant and enjoy the wealth of different types in the team. The best thing is that they complement each other wonderfully and I think everyone feels good.
I don't like to give predictions, but it seems that we are in for another dynamic and record year. The supply in the luxury segment is becoming increasingly scarce, the demand is really seriously high, so trophy properties will continue to increase in value.
To put more patience and attitude into their work.
Oh, there's a lot to check off. (laughs) And travel! I'm thinking of traveling around the world in May, Japan is on the list for this spring. I'm excited about our first appearance at the Christie's conference in New York, and by the fall I plan to climb a new personal record peak - I have a few ideas in that direction as well.
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