Cristiano Ronaldo is among the world’s wealthiest people. But to a real estate agent, does that simply make him another ultra-high-net-worth client—or does the life of a pro athlete change the job in ways money alone doesn’t?
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When Terry Sprague, one of Oregon’s top luxury real estate agents, walked his client through a house last week, he didn’t lead with the view. He went straight to the interior doors. Not to show off the American Black Walnut gleam. It was the hinge-count that mattered: four. Because the client was Donovan Clingan, the 7-foot-2 center for the Portland Trail Blazers.
“He’s had to duck through doorways for pretty much his whole life,” says Sprague, CEO of boutique brokerage LUXE and something of a go-to for the Trail Blazers’ treetops. “I knew how important it was to find him a home he could actually move through.”
Representing athletes in real estate is a game of extremes, be it budgets, timelines, logistics or anatomical dimensions. In practice, it means living in two worlds that don’t naturally sync. Luxury transactions usually move at a measured pace, sometimes glacially slowly. Pro-sports careers force decisions at full speed, often mid-season and with an entourage of stakeholders.
The protocol of privacy
Fandom is part of the bag every professional athlete carries. Great inside the arena, but outside your garden gate? Privacy is paramount from day one, says Sprague.
Two years ago, at just 19 years old, Donovan Clingan arrived in Portland as a newly drafted Trail Blazer. Guiding him through real estate, Sprague says, was as much about his age as his new profession.
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Realtor NDAs are common. The shortlist of viewing addresses is, well, short—and highly vetted. Every new handoff is a chance for location information to drift. Inspectors, contractors, photographers, movers, even the person quoting window treatments can turn into an accidental broadcast channel.
To keep things hush-hush, agents lean on the luxury world’s usual playbook of discretion. That includes off-market routing and private networks. Yet in most markets, the moment a deed records, the buyer’s name becomes public and pulled quickly into databases scraped by people-search sites. That’s why many realtors advise athletes to make vesting decisions upfront. Personal name versus an LLC or trust? Once on the record, you don’t get to take it back.
On the selling side, as with any notable seller, when an athlete lists a home there’s a natural assumption the name itself adds marketing stardust, that a bit of provenance can carry some of the load. But Chris O’Neill, a fellow LUXE agent currently representing former Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons’ listing in Lake Oswego, says the “pedigree” factor rarely moves the needle at these price points. “The buyer pool up here is sophisticated,” O’Neill says. “They’re not paying a premium for a previous owner’s name on the deed. They’re paying for the the quality of the home.”
Trade deadlines and deadline trades
A sudden pro-sports trade can turn a broker’s usual pace into a sprint. An all-at-once scramble to secure housing in the new city or prepare a home in the old one for sale or lease.
When National Basketball Association players are moved midseason, they typically have two days to report, take a physical and begin relocating their entire life. In Major League Baseball, the Uniform Player Contract offers the luxury of 72 hours.
When Anfernee Simons’ Portland Trail Blazers chapter ended with a trade to the Celtics, the move triggered a second one: finding a new buyer for his $6.5 million Lake Oswego home.
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Nancy Almodóvar, CEO and co-founder of Nan & Company Properties, has represented many pro players in sports-saturated Houston. She knows how abruptly that clock can start. “I was at lunch with a pro-athlete client—and the TV behind the bar announced he’d been traded. He hadn’t been told yet. And just like that we were talking about relocation.”
It’s not only the athlete who gets moved. Families come with calendars that don’t respect the trade market. That’s why the first solution is often a rental. Terry Sprague calls it the entry point to trust. “Even if you don’t normally work rentals, it’s a great way to earn your client’s confidence,” he says. “And if they stay with the team, you want to be the person they call when it’s time to find a permanent home.”
Everyone has an opinion
Athletes rarely buy alone. Even younger players signing their first major contract tend to arrive with a small village in tow: spouse or partner, parents, a business manager, an attorney, an agent or manager, a security team. “Early on, I’m mapping who needs to weigh in on what,” says Sprague. “Who’s approving lifestyle, who’s tracking numbers, who’s handling legal? I try to set a single lane for communication. If you don’t, the transaction doesn’t just get slower, it gets noisier. And noise is why mistakes can happen.”
Easier in theory than in practice. O’Neill says that sometimes the biggest friction often comes from off-site decision-makers calling the shots from markets with totally different rules. “A lot of the agents and financial advisors are based in places like Los Angeles or Miami,” he says. “So they’ll apply that lens to smaller markets like here in Portland without really understanding how it works here. So it’s your job to calibrate that perspective.”
Placing a pro athlete can be a puzzle of logistics and discretion—easy runs to the arena and airport, spaces that support training and recovery and enough privacy to keep daily life out of the spotlight.
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The work is equal parts persuasion and governance, translating the same house into different languages. The partner speaks neighborhood and livability. The business manager speaks clean numbers and low drama. Security speaks sightlines, ingress and cameras.
Veterans usually know their non-negotiables. Younger pros often don’t, says Sprague. “A lot of these guys are in their early twenties, making real money for the first time. It’s exciting, but it’s also pressure. They haven’t bought a home before, and they’re still learning the city. You have to guide the purchase and the landing.”
Nancy Almodóvar agrees. “You’re often one of their first reliable contacts in a new market,” she says. “So when something comes up at the house, they call you. I’ve had a player ask if we could help set up Wi-Fi. So we did. Their job is exceptional, so the service has to match.”
Performance living, not just luxury living
So what makes a house home for your average pro athlete? It’s performance-adjacent. Home gyms, sport courts, dedicated recovery zones built around cold plunges and saunas. Layout matters too, says Sprague. “No-friction circulation” becomes a real spec when you’re 7-foot-2, rehabbing an injured knee. Then there’s the routine around the routine. Proximity to the training facility, clean parking and an entry sequence that keeps attention off the driveway are also essentials.
Athletes often bring the job home, too. That is why their must-haves tend to include serious gyms, recovery staples like plunge pools and saunas and a chef-ready kitchen built to support private cooking day after day.
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Of course, some amenities live well outside the usual athlete playbook. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles built a dedicated dog room into her custom Texas home. Shaquille O’Neal has been reported to keep a recording studio on-site, and Cristiano Ronaldo has reportedly brought sports recovery home with a cryotherapy chamber (and, one suspects, an impressive inventory of mirrors?).
As exceptional as pro athletes can be, they’re still individuals. A realtor’s approach should be as tailored as it would be for any client, solving for the person, not the persona. As any athlete will tell you, sometimes it’s all about the fundamentals.
LUXE and Nan & Company Properties are members of Forbes Global Properties, an invitation-only network of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes.
