Movers & Shakers: Richard Hottinger and Team Jump to Elliman

Here’s the latest South Florida real estate hiring news.

Douglas Elliman bulked up, with Richard Hottinger and his team returning to the brokerage after a seven-year stint at Corcoran, according to a release. Hottinger’s seven-person team includes Adam Hernandez, Frank Lulgjuraj, Sari Ingerman, Gabriella Abdelnour, Melissa Au-Yueng and Sofia Rovirosa.

They will be working in Elliman’s 1111 Lincoln Road office in Miami Beach, and the brokerage’s 575 Madison Avenue office in New York, the press release states. Elliman has tapped Hottinger to lead sales for Bel Invest’s Diesel Wynwood, the release shows.

Hottinger was the number one co-broker for new development sales at Corcoran in 2019, the release says. Douglas Elliman has been beefing up its new development sales and marketing operations in South Florida since expanding the division to the tri-county region this summer.

Elliman landed another big name for its Palm Beach office: Anheuser-Busch heiress Haley Busch, according to a press release. The scion of the brewing dynasty is launching her career in real estate after first pursuing acting, including parts in “Marshall the Miracle Dog” and “Bratz: The Movie.” She also starred in the one season of her family’s reality show “The Busch Family Brewed” in 2020.

Busch’s brother, August “Gussie” Busch also recently joined South Florida’s real estate industry, partnering with Tom Assouline to buy the Red South Beach hotel for $33 million.

BH3 Management, a Fort Lauderdale-based real estate investment and development firm, named its chairman Eric Edidin to executive chairman and equity partner, according to an announcement. Co-CEOs Daniel Lebensohn and Gregory Freedman founded BH3 in 2009, and it has since invested a combined $3 billion of equity and debt into commercial real estate.

Edidin is the founder of Endo Investors, a venture capital firm that invests in life science companies based in Los Angeles. Edidin sits on the board of several of the companies Endo has invested in, including Cecelia Health in New York and IliADBiotechnologies in Fort Lauderdale, LinkedIn shows. He was also co-founder and co-managing partner of Archer Capital Management.

New York City-based commercial real estate firm Lee & Associates hired Andy Hidalgo as senior vice president in South Florida, working out of the firm’s Miami office, according to a press release. Hidalgo joins Lee & Associates from Savills in New York, where he was a corporate real estate adviser, his LinkedIn shows.

He also previously founded and ran Hidalgo Companies in Fort Lauderdale, a boutique real estate and asset management firm.

In his role at Lee & Associates, Hidalgo will develop the firm’s multifamily investment sales division in Florida and across the Southeast, the release says.

Katz & Associates hired Jennifer Houston as senior director in the firm’s Boca Raton office. Houston will focus on tenant and landlord representation for the New York-based retail brokerage, according to an announcement.

Houston joins Katz from Tricera Capital, where she spent nearly two years as an executive vice president and head of retail leasing, her LinkedIn shows.

She previously spent 10 years at Edens, handling retail leasing deals across Florida.