Michael Leibowitz took over as CEO of Douglas Elliman in the fall of 2024, at a time when the company was in need of serious change.
The brokerage firm has been suffering quarterly financial losses, former CEO Howard Lorber’s close ties to two brokerages have come under scrutiny, and onlookers have questioned why the misdeeds of former top agents Tal Alexander and Oren Alexander, whose federal sex-trafficking trials begin this week, seemed to have gone unnoticed.
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Mr. Leibowitz had a difficult task ahead of him, but he focused squarely on Douglas Elliman’s commitment to a high-class identity, strengthening the company’s finances, expanding ancillary services, launching an international division, Elliman International, and creating a national real estate, trust and probate division.
The CEO is scheduled to speak on a panel with other real estate leaders next week at Inman Connect New York about how the next year will unfold for the industry.
Prior to the event, Mr. Inman met with Mr. Leibowitz to get his latest thoughts on the Compass-Anywhere merger and the future of Douglas Elliman. His remarks are edited below for length and clarity.
Inman: Interestingly, there were rumors last year that Douglas Elliman might be acquired by Anywhere. And Anywhere ended up making this big deal with Compass.
Leibovitz: I think it was the other way around, right? I don’t think Anywhere did that. I think Compass did it.
Ah, maybe there’s a point. So, what do you think about the deal now that it’s done? Were you surprised that it closed so quickly, or that it even closed in the first place?
Listen, I’m definitely very surprised at how quickly it ended. From what I’ve heard, I think the government shutdown really helped. Because there was no one around to help with it, so it somehow got done.
I think this poses a major problem under antitrust law. I think they’re trying to monopolize the market by talking about private listings, and that’s not good for consumers. A strong independent competitor is going to be very important for them, because I think they’re going to do something… They’re fighting Zillow. On the other hand, they are talking about private listings and keeping it just for themselves. First of all, I don’t know how you can create a private listing that is visible to 350,000 agents. I don’t know what’s private about that.
So I think the industry needs to be very careful. Because if you’re going to basically hire all these other brokers, I mean, how big are they going to be? And I don’t think that’s very good for agents. I don’t think that’s good for consumers.
And there aren’t many alternatives, right? So we’re talking about brand dilution. I don’t know which brand to think of when I hear this. From the outside it looks like a mess.
interesting. Some industry insiders have said that this could lead to even more large-scale M&A in the industry. Do you think that will happen?
How many transactions can I make? If you think about it, there’s Century 21, Sotheby’s, ERA, Better Homes and Gardens, Compass, and Corcoran. I mean, who’s left? That’s basically us, right? In the Anywhere and Compass model, we are not a franchise, except on the franchise side. EXp is not actually the same model as those. REMAX is a total franchise business. I don’t know who is left.
That’s why I say, if you work for Compass, Sotheby’s, Corcoran, and again, the list is very long and you can go through it, but you want a high-touch, personalized company that has an upscale feel but is still large, we are the alternative.
In other words, there’s nothing else like it. I think we are the only securities company with no debt. So I think we’re unique. They’re all leveraging and trying to do whatever they’re trying to do, and we’re a premium player with one brand. I have no debt and am independent.
People talk about integration, but we don’t know who will integrate with whom, but it’s a natural pairing.
So how, if at all, will this deal change Douglas Elliman’s strategy in the coming years?
This is a huge opportunity for us because of a lot of the things I mentioned earlier. If you’re a luxury goods agent at Compass or Corcoran or Sotheby’s, and you don’t want to go into a mall — it’s a mall now, that company — and you want high fives and a lot of interaction with your agent.
We have 6,500 agents. It’s a big difference from 350,000.
We think we’re giving agents a very high-touch experience where they can actually talk to the CEO. You can talk to the highest level of leadership in your company.
Levkin will tell you how to deal with Coldwell Banker, Compass, Corcoran…you can’t do that. You can’t be everything to everyone, even if they claim to be.
As you mentioned, we have no debt at the moment, and while we have tightened our finances in recent years, we have also launched a number of new initiatives, including our own international and mortgage divisions.
We’re going to do a lot more with the title. We intend to make further efforts in the insurance field. When I first joined the company, I had a strong desire to quickly diversify our revenue sources. But you can’t do everything at the same time. So we did a lot. Our years of transition are 25 years and our years of growth are 26 years.
The transition is now complete. We are now ready to grow. Launched Elliman Capital. We are doing more titles and ancillary services. We hire people to lead that business, we hire people to do pure support work, and we’ve never done that before. We have the biggest recruiting team ever.
We didn’t have a recruiting or onboarding team to hire new agents. An agent somehow came to us, we hired them, and that was it. [But] Compass had a recruiting machine, but all they were doing was recruiting agents. They took every agent they could get and that was that.
As we continue to recruit, we want to get around 10,000 agents, and that’s our goal. We’re not aiming for 30,000 or 40,000 agents. Because we believe that at a company this large, the agent experience is not the same.
So what’s your next focus on agent growth?
Well, agent growth is big for us, but so is technology, PR, marketing, and international business. we work really hard. We hired a lot of people in the upper echelons of the company.
And, you know, we’ve got a lot going on and we’re going to continue to grow. A luxurious stay. We only want to enter the luxury market. The market we go to will be an upscale place. You won’t find us in some small town. That’s not the direction we’re heading.
I wanted to talk a little bit more about the industry as a whole. What do you think the industry needs to improve the most in 2026?
I don’t want to say too much about Anywhere-Compass, but when two companies like that merge, it’s like Coke and Pepsi. That’s how big the two companies that merged are. So I think from an industry perspective, we focus on quality and they focus on quantity. I won’t do such a transaction unless it’s there.[‘s the point]or you see a problem with your current business model.
I think Anywhere ended up having to do a deal because they had a lot of debt. I don’t think they could have gotten out from under it. Compass has been running a million miles an hour in different directions trying to hire as many agents as possible, and the merger with Anywhere may have made that easier. And they did an all-stock trade, so no one had to come up with the money. They just put together stocks.
Therefore, I think you will get a higher quality when compared to other companies in the industry. Again, it’s a much more high-end experience, a much more high-touch experience. I think it will significantly change the industry.
While we’re talking about individual agents, what do you think they need to focus on the most in 2026?
I think it’s typical fundamentals. We all try to reinvent the wheel and think there’s a silver bullet, but at the end of the day, it’s all about working hard, meeting more people, going out and networking, honing your skills, gaining more knowledge about the market, direction, trends, what people want, where you want to go, negotiation skills, and that’s what agents should be working on.
Thinking more about next week’s Inman Connect New York, do you have any messages or words of wisdom you’d like to share with attendees?
In a sense, you have to sacrifice your life. For me as the CEO of a company, my agents work seven days a week and I’m always talking to them, so I do the same thing.
So make sure you hire the right people who are truly dedicated to your business and if they’re on your team, and even if they’re not on your team, whether they’re your assistants or people who support you, make sure you hire all the right people who think like you, have the same work ethic as you, and really become experts in your business. That’s the key.
They are becoming experts and becoming known as thought leaders. When someone sits down and thinks about who that person is, they’re like, oh, they really know this business.
And it doesn’t matter what company you belong to. That’s important. At the end of the day, when choosing a company, you want to choose the one that’s likely to get noticed, the one that’s most supportive of you, and whose management team is focused on you, your business, and building that business, rather than some grander business plan.
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