Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman is aware of all of the rumors.
She’s in Florida an excessive amount of. She’s chopping prices. She hates Compass. No, really, she’s shilling for Compass. Corcoran goes to turn out to be Compass.
Liebman is keen to begin mythbusting. “I don’t like different individuals to inform my story — to inform Corcoran’s story,” she stated.
At first look, the Florida claims appear to carry some weight, contemplating she claims residency there and doesn’t have an workplace at Corcoran’s headquarters at 590 Madison Avenue. As a substitute, she sat down with The Actual Deal final month, contemporary off a recruiting lunch with an unnamed agent, taking questions in a generically dubbed “Nook Workplace.”
However Liebman, dressed casually in her trademark leather-based outerwear — on this case, a black vest, over a black long-sleeve shirt — whips out her telephone and begins studying the texts which have rolled in during the last hour.
“Steve Gold texted me, Carrie Chiang texted me, [Deborah] Kern texted me, and Jessica Buchman and Ryan Kaplan,” she stated, itemizing a Assassin’s Row of Corcoran’s high brokers. “Okay, however I’m not concerned.”
“I assure you, different individuals’s telephones don’t seem like that,” she added.
For a lot of her tenure main Corcoran, the brokerage has held pole place amongst New York Metropolis companies jostling for offers in its uber-competitive residential market. However Liebman hasn’t misplaced her sense of competitors. (She claimed a latest rumor about Corcoran’s places of work closing got here from “their dumpy places of work,” stating the window to Douglas Elliman’s headquarters.)
She’s been on the forefront of the fights which have outlined Manhattan’s altering brokerage scene during the last decade-plus. After a techy disruptor referred to as Compass shook up town’s residential leaderboard in 2012, Liebman confronted off with the agency and its combative younger CEO, Robert Reffkin, after its poaching of high brokers from legacy brokerages like Corcoran.
Now, Compass is on the disruption path but once more. Following a large deal to accumulate Corcoran and different name-brand brokerages in January, Reffkin has set his sights on breaking the business away from platforms like Zillow and the A number of Itemizing Service infrastructure behind it.
Reffkin’s strikes have additionally spelled a metamorphosis for Liebman, from main considered one of New York Metropolis’s high brokerages for many years to taking part in a supporting function in Reffkin’s grand imaginative and prescient for residential actual property. For these in her orbit, it may be onerous to image.
“Nobody’s going to make her say one thing that she doesn’t consider in or act in a sure means,” stated Corcoran COO Gary Malin. “She’s not going to vary that.”
Deal taking place
Liebman joined Corcoran in 1984 as a fresh-faced agent at what was then an upstart agency led by Barbara Corcoran, a long time earlier than her “Shark Tank” fame. Liebman, not Corcoran, was famously the purpose individual for the sale of the corporate to NRT in 2001, pushing the deal throughout the end line from the highest of a Ferris wheel at an amusement park in California.
In Corcoran’s second go-around being bought, she didn’t discover out till the night time earlier than the take care of Compass was introduced.
“My telephone stored ringing, and I used to be ignoring it as a result of I used to be getting a therapeutic massage,” she stated. “Lastly, I checked out my telephone, and it was [Anywhere CEO] Ryan Schneider. He stated, ‘I really want to speak to you.’”
She rapidly assembled her Corcoran group for a late-night Zoom. “All of them wished to know, what did I feel? Am I strong with this?” she stated. “I stated, ‘Let’s see what occurs — let’s go for it. ‘”
That gung-ho perspective probably got here as a shock to those that have labored alongside or reverse Liebman, given her previous tete-a-tetes with Compass, which arrived in New York in 2012 and proceeded to poach a variety of high brokers from long-time companies with profitable incentive packages, together with 51 Corcoran brokers over the course of a yr.
Corcoran sued Compass in 2015, accusing it of “overtly and deliberately” raiding key Corcoran places of work and utilizing “illegal strategies” to recruit brokers and managers. It additionally revealed the job supply and wage particulars of a supervisor that left for Compass and the extremely guarded fee splits of defecting brokers. Compass responded with counterclaims calling Corcoran’s motion “malicious and retaliatory.”
“Nobody’s going to make her say one thing that she doesn’t consider in or act in a sure means. She’s not going to vary that.”
Though the swimsuit finally settled later that yr, Liebman remained irked. In a 2016 interview, she stated the lawsuits happened as a result of Corcoran wouldn’t “sit idly by once we’re wronged.”
Sources later instructed TRD that Corcoran had sought arbitration via the Actual Property Board of New York on a number of events over Compass allegedly stealing its listings.
Over a decade later, Compass has gone from recruiting from their rivals to purchasing them, capping off a wild trip that has seen it go from an unruly upstart to the biggest brokerage within the nation after its blockbuster $1.6 billion deal for Anyplace Actual Property introduced manufacturers like Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty and Corcoran below the newly-created Compass Worldwide Holdings.
Within the course of, it introduced collectively Liebman and Reffkin, who seemed to be pure enemies for a decade. Now, they discuss practically every single day.
“He’s been tremendous cool,” she stated of Reffkin. “So, if anybody ever desires to border it that there’s any rigidity or something, it doesn’t exist.”
Liebman and Reffkin first broke bread on Jan. 8, the day earlier than the deal closed, at Le Bilboquet, an influence lunch spot on East sixtieth Road, the place they “had been laughing at one another as a result of our historical past was fascinating,” Liebman stated.
“Sure, there’s the shock issue,” stated Malin. “We had been very a lot in competitors with them for fairly some time period.”
The 2 make for considerably of an odd couple. Reffkin, not often seen with out a swimsuit, is all strapping, blue-chip polish, with a pedigree that features Columbia Enterprise College and McKinsey. Though he has a repute as a little bit of a pugilist, most of his public statements have a PR-approved sheen to them.
Liebman, who is thought for eschewing basic skilled put on for leather-based jackets and denims, voices her ideas on the business in a means that appears much more off the cuff, with an accent that hints at her native Staten Island.
However earlier than Reffkin was the business’s disruptor du jour, Liebman was seen as the brand new child crashing the occasion. She and Corcoran defied the buttoned-up ladies-who-lunch crowd that tightly guarded co-op listings within the Eighties, finally turning into one of many first brokerages to launch an internet site, publish market reviews and market new developments. “We had been at all times trailblazers,” Liebman stated. “So now, being aligned and being a part of one other trailblazer, it’s a pure evolution.”
Former Douglas Elliman govt Scott Durkin, who returned to Corcoran as an agent last year, was nonetheless amazed on the obvious union.
“Did any of us assume that it will be this shut? No,” he stated. “However I feel it’s sort of magic.”
New group, similar Pam
The mixing has not been all sunshine and rainbows.
Throughout an interview on the 92nd Road Y shortly after the deal closed, Liebman appeared essential of Compass “attempting to make selections earlier than they actually dig in.”
Noble Black, who returned to Corcoran from Elliman simply weeks earlier than the deal was introduced, stated Liebman was sincere about her preliminary hesitations. “I don’t assume going into it was something she was desperate to do,” he stated. “I feel there was simply plenty of uncertainty about what was going to occur.”
Shortly after the merger, Compass instituted a five-day in-office coverage, which some at Corcoran have chafed at, sources stated. The agency was already working in tight quarters after Corcoran Sunshine, the agency’s powerhouse new growth division, closed its offices at 888 Seventh Avenue in 2024 to affix the remainder of the group at 590 Madison.
Liebman stated any rising pains got here partially because of the deal’s speedy closing, months sooner than anticipated after Compass employed a specialist lawyer to dodge a advisable antitrust evaluate interval. (Compass is now being sued by former Anyplace shareholders for allegedly misrepresenting its efforts at evading antitrust scrutiny.)
Her govt group, together with Malin and chief advertising and marketing officer Christina Panos, has remained intact. Little has modified for brokers past starting to make use of Compass’ Dwelling platform, in line with Black.
In the meantime, Liebman has taken up Reffkin’s quest for a post-Zillow world with gusto. In an inner assembly with Corcoran’s New York brokers, Liebman urged them to drag their listings off of StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned platform that serves as New York’s de facto MLS. “If we win this battle, we win the conflict,” she stated in feedback echoing those who Reffkin has made during the last a number of years. “If we lose this battle, we will likely be on the mercy of this portal for now and ceaselessly.”
Outsiders have speculated that Liebman has merely turn out to be the newest sufferer of the Compass cult. Lower than a yr earlier than the Compass acquisition, Liebman referred to as claims that off-market listings promote for extra “rubbish.” Requested about that remark, Liebman stated she “doesn’t know” if these claims are true or not, and as a substitute invoked the necessity for “vendor alternative,” a continuing Reffkin speaking level.
Nonetheless, Liebman insisted she had not fallen below Reffkin’s spell. “I didn’t drink the Kool-Assist,” she stated of her all of a sudden loud voice within the listings battle. “This has been my Kool-Assist since 2000. [Reffkin] drank my Kool-Assist.”
Liebman, who was additionally a part of a gaggle of main brokerages that attempted to type an MLS in 2000, stated she was embarrassed by Realogy signing a take care of StreetEasy in 2017, successfully ending a brokerage boycott of the platform and ushering in its dominant place within the metropolis. Liebman had beforehand lambasted StreetEasy and reduce agent reimbursements for its lead era service.
“The brand new group is permitting me to be much more forceful in my opinions,” she stated, evaluating Compass to Anyplace. “The previous group, it wasn’t that they stated ‘Don’t say something,’ however they had been very conservative.”
“They took the muzzle [off] my mouth,” she stated of working for Compass.
What’s in a model?
The looming query hanging over the present public kumbaya periods is what occurs in the long term to Corcoran’s legacy — and viability.
Competing brokerage heads have stated the deal has made it simpler to recruit brokers from the companies below the CIH umbrella, together with Corcoran. “What’s the purpose of leaving Compass for Corcoran or Sotheby’s if they’re all the identical,” Brown Harris Stevens CEO Bess Freedman beforehand instructed TRD. “You may promote it any means you need, however all of those manufacturers will share the identical tech and again finish and in the end reply to the identical shareholders.”
Critics have cheered on the notion of name dilution. Freedman has taken to utilizing the disagreeable portmanteau “Corcass” on Instagram when referring to the 2 companies, whereas Douglas Elliman CEO Michael Liebowitz has been referencing Elliman’s singular brand as a lot as potential in public statements.
When requested if she feels “slightly” protecting of the Corcoran model, Liebman was fast to right.
“That is my child,” she stated. “I’ve been right here longer than Barbara Corcoran, so I really feel rather a lot protecting over the model.”
However Serhant’s Peter Zaitzeff, who spent six years at Corcoran earlier than leaving in 2023, stated he hasn’t seen a significant change. “Pam is the Corcoran model,” he stated. “From what I see on the surface, the Corcoran model remains to be there.”
Past the tech integration, the companies have slowed down the competitors in different methods. They now not actively recruit one another’s brokers. Corcoran Sunshine, the perennial high new growth advertising and marketing operation within the metropolis, has additionally partnered with the less-accomplished Compass Growth Advertising and marketing on initiatives exterior town, and even one in New York, Liebman stated.
“The place it’s useful to the brokers and useful to the 2 corporations, we’re open to something,” she stated of working throughout borders.
Nonetheless, Liebman isn’t giving up her previous allegiances that rapidly.
“Persons are at Corcoran as a result of they’re at Corcoran and persons are at Compass as a result of they like Compass,” she stated.
