This Duo Will Find and Design Your Next Dream Home For You

Floss Barber (left) and Lisa Silveri. | Photo: Heather Sizemore

Residential and commercial clients have been turning to award-winning Philadelphia interior designer Floss Barber for years when they want to create spaces that inspire and delight.

But Barber has also been interested in another question: How can her work add value to the client’s property?

That required knowledge of the business side of working with real estate. So, about a year and a half ago, she approached real estate broker Lisa Silveri with a proposition.

Silveri, who now runs her own brokerage, Agency Real Estate Partners LLC, has been known for years as one of this city’s top brokers handling high-net-worth clients, especially those who desire discretion in acquiring or disposing of property. As Barber put it, “When I met Lisa, I was impressed with her integrity and her ways of flying under the radar.”

Site selection and design in one convenient package

Barber had an idea: She would get her own real estate agent’s license and go in with Silveri on a joint venture that could advise clients on location, acquisition and design issues surrounding any residential or commercial property. A one-stop shop, if you will.

Silveri saw the potential immediately.

“Floss and I have worked together separately,” she says. “My side being the real estate transaction, and Floss’s being the design. So when she wanted to get her license, I [thought], ‘How could I [help her] do that?”

The crucial element that would come with a license for Barber is an ability to actually put a dollar value on any interior design work.

“It’s about the site,” says Barber. “For a client, it’s the site, it’s the building, it’s the interior use. How are you going to brand it? How are you going to get it to market? Does it have value?

“Clients would come to me all the time and say, ‘If I make this capital improvement, will it improve [the value of] my real estate?’ I couldn’t really answer that in my old position, but with Lisa, I can. We can do comps and tell them yea or nay.”

A real value-added proposition

Together, Barber and Silveri offer both would-be homeowners and would-be redevelopers a seamless, one-stop experience where they can identify potential sites, assess their current value, and offer design solutions that would significantly enhance that value. And they could tell the client what the return on their investment would be.

“That’s something that no one else in our marketplace really can deliver,” says Silveri.

Given the level of clients both are used to dealing with, most of their business comes from referrals, and here too Barber and Silveri complement each other with their respective rosters of satisfied clients. But Barber notes that even someone of lesser means might be able to benefit from a start-to-finish design and assessment service depending on the property and the level of work needed.

They know how to work on the QT

Neither, however, are actively marketing their service because they don’t need to: Silveri has long been accustomed to “flying under the radar” and working with clients who demand discretion. Both offered several examples of clients who came to them looking for advice on design with an eye on the bottom line. This partnership streamlines the process while preserving the individual touch.

“I don’t sell design like a commodity,” says Barber. “Every project, every client is completely different. How I would work for you is different from how I would work for her. And Lisa’s the same way in real estate. So if you want two really smart people representing you in the marketplace and you don’t want your business out in the street, we’re the team.”

Put simply, what you get from Barber and Silveri is a bespoke marketing, acquisition and design service that saves you valuable time and can put money in your pocket if that’s what you’re after. If you think that level of attention and service is worth it, you now know who to call.