Sales star Shaun Osher still on the rise.

When Shaun Osher set out from South Africa as a 19-year-old with stars in his eyes, he was the last to believe the stellar recognition he sought would come from bricks and mortar rather than his beloved saxophone.

But, in short order, his career in New York residential real estate blasted off, sending him into an orbit among the city's most prolific and respected brokers.

Now, after a decade in the industry, he's branching out on his own and there are more than a few eyes watching to see where he'll go from here.

The developers he's working with believe the only way is up. "He will last a long time in the business," said Greg Manocherian, who recruited Osher and his new CORE Group Marketing company to sell his high-end Huguenot Hill luxury town home development in Westchester.

Not only is he an excellent negotiator, but Manocherian believes Osher is among a rare breed that looks out for his developers but is also just as keenly aware that his buyers need to get what they want, too.

The pair--who worked together several times over the years--have recently been planning a development in the Hudson Square neighborhood, in which Osher has been just as active in the pre-design concepts as the marketing and selling.

"He seems to know how to make these projects work," said Manocherian. "And, as a broker, any number he has ever given me, he has always exceeded."

It seems to be a knack that the South African native was born with. Having grown up in a working class family in Johannesburg that moved no less than 14 times by the time he was 19, Osher jokes, "That was my real estate experience."

But sitting in the Fifth Avenue offices of CORE, the full service firm he launched earlier this year with Midtown Equities honcho, Jack Cayre, Osher admitted, "It is something I have always felt comfortable doing, with respect to what it took to get a deal done. It was common sense and, if I operated honestly and diligently, I felt I would be successful."

Osher's natural talent for the business came as something of a surprise to the young man who arrived on America's shores in the mid-80s with ambitions of becoming a famous jazz saxophonist.

After a brief stint at Boston's Berklee College--where he'd arrived with $500 and a backpack--Osher landed in New York, where he immediately felt right at home. He worked as a bartender to put himself through the New School and picked up gigs playing saxophone at everything from bar mitzvahs to smoky gin joints in the East Village. It was as he blended into the New York music scene that Osher met his wife, Lauren DeFranco, then a young media student, but better known today as Channel 7's Long Island news reporter.

As he began to realize the struggles of even the most accomplished musicians to earn a decent living, let alone pay rent in New York City, Osher looked for work that would allow him to study and still find time to play the occasional gig.

He landed a job at the Elias/ Burnstein rental agency downtown and the rest, as they say, is history.

The young sales agent was stunned when he collected his first commission check for $1,000. "That was more than two weeks' work at the bar for me. I couldn't believe it was that easy."

His innate ability to think creatively about his assignments soon landed him among the top producers at the firm and it wasn't long before he had the confidence to approach a bigger company.

He interviewed at Douglas Elliman--then owned by the Millstein family--and after a year working at their Tribeca office, became the number one downtown broker. It was a position he was to maintain through two changes in ownership--first by Insignia and then by Prudential--and throughout his 11-year career at PDE, as he developed a reputation for selling downtown faster than they could build the luxury condos that would help transform the neighborhood.

As first the Chelsea Atelier underwent a luxury conversion in the late 90s, followed by the Caroline on West 23rd Street--where he worked with Manocherian--and then the Capitol on Sixth Avenue, Osher took notice that New York developers were a distinctly underserved group. He said his progression to working with them "just made sense."

"I had an intimate knowledge of the buyers who were looking for the homes [the developers] were building," he said.

It was a move that allowed Osher to magnify his presence in the market slightly ahead of the curve, just as the likes of Louise Sunshine and Adrienne Albert were carving up the business.

Osher is the first to point out that PDE and his position there enabled him to absorb the nuances of the development business while maintaining his remarkably successful downtown sales team. However, he also admits that he grew to feel somewhat stifled in the corporate environment of the residential big.

"It makes it hard to be creative and effective at what you're doing," he said. "I wanted to give my clients the best level of service I could and felt I couldn't really do this under the circumstances. And it is a creative process. I am trying to create the ideal home for the buyers I know are out there. There's continuity in my knowledge and it's come from hard work, perseverance and common sense--I'm not a genius."

After a few false starts earlier this year, when even Osher wasn't clear on his future, he finally set up shop as CORE Marketing Group in April, taking his whole PDE team with him.

While they continue to operate as a force in the sales and rental world, Osher himself says he is involved in over a dozen new developments, some of which he's unable to talk about quite yet.

He said he's working on a ground-up development on West 19th Street; a 16-story building in the Bowery, "a very significant" 300,000 s/f new downtown construction and a project that's going to "blow the roof" off SoHo.

In addition to Manocherian, he's involved in projects with the Albanese corporation and with the Bishops Court development company owned by investor, John Jacobson.

As head of a boutique firm, Osher says his ability to move quickly, think creatively and deliver what the market demands is what will separate him from the crowd in the coming years.

Obviously excited about this new chapter in his life, the 38-year-old father of four-year-old daughter, Ava, seems braced to face the challenges of a start-up.

"If and when the market turns, sellers are going to need brokers who are very experienced and very good at what they do. When we are designing something, I want to make sure it's going to stand the test of time and be appealing to buyers in a strong or weak market. People are always buying or selling real estate and, in a weaker market, prices will be lower and properties will stay on the market longer.

"We will have to be more creative and work harder to sell these properties, but that's not to say nothing will ever sell again."

And the man once dubbed a real estate renegade continues to be just as determined to do things his way.

"I am not interested in market share right now, I am interested in quality. I am a very creative kind of person, not one for rules and regulations--and I like to do things that are more outside of the box."