New York City’s largest residential real estate brokerage will expand to Los Angeles, The Real Deal has learned. Douglas Elliman made the announcement at a recent internal meeting, a source said, and the decision was confirmed today by the firm’s chairman, Howard Lorber.
The new location will open in Beverly Hills this year — likely by the fall — although the firm is still looking for a specific space, Lorber said. The office will hire all approximately 25 to 30 new brokers and agents locally, he said.
The move will expand services to an important portion of Elliman’s customer base: the increasingly global, high net-worth clientele who own homes in New York, Florida, the Hamptons and LA, Lorber said. The new office will also ferry business back to New York, and vice versa — the type of synergistic relationship that many brokerages build with satellite offices in tony areas across the U.S. and worldwide.
“We’ll have referrals here [for the LA office] and for them over there,” Lorber said.
In addition to the firm’s 22 offices in New York City, Elliman has 27 offices on Long Island, nine in the Hamptons, six in Westchester County and 10 in South Florida.