by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 25, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
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Even as markets muddle through uncertain waters today, high-net-worth clientele remain attracted to luxury real estate as an investment.
But this year, luxury buyers have proven to be more selective and ready to take a hard-line approach to their homebuying goals with an eye on cash deals, according to Coldwell Banker Global Luxury’s 2025 Mid-Year Report released on Wednesday.
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The report analyzed market data from 120 markets in the U.S. and surveyed responses from more than 200 Coldwell Banker Luxury Property Specialists to predict luxury trends over the next six, 12 and 24 months.
Michael Altneu | Coldwell Banker Global Luxury
Out of those Coldwell Banker luxury agents surveyed, 68 percent said their clients are at least maintaining, if not increasing, their exposure to real estate. Many are also opting out of financing at a growing rate, with 51 percent of luxury agents reporting an increase in all-cash transactions.
The findings add up to a luxury real estate market in a period of adjustment, said Coldwell Banker Global Luxury Vice President Michael Altneu.
“So far in 2025, we’re seeing a luxury real estate market that isn’t fully bullish or bearish — but rather recalibrating,” Altneu said in a statement. “Affluent homebuyers still see real estate as a safe haven to grow and protect their wealth, but as the market balances and more inventory comes online, they can also be more choosy than in recent years. Practical considerations including home affordability, tax strategy, estate planning and long-term investment potential are taking precedence over aesthetics, flashy amenities or location. This could market the return of what we call ‘smart luxury’ — a mindset shift where discernment and strategic decision-making take priority.”
Different classes of luxury buyers are responding to market fluctuations in contrasting ways, Altneu added in the firm’s report. The “aspirational affluent” are reacting to financial market volatility by pulling back from real estate while the ultra-wealthy are digging their heels into the most high-end real estate assets, Altneu said, “driven in part by a desire to diversify out of equities and into real estate, which is seen as a safer, more stable asset class.”
Looking at the months ahead, luxury real estate agents can expect wealth strategy, “smart luxury,” move-up buyers, the ultra-wealthy and aspirationally wealthy divide, and cash purchases to increasingly impact the market.
Real estate remains a stable wealth strategy
Despite economic headwinds including high home prices and mortgage rates, a volatile stock market, Trump administration tariffs and more, many luxury buyers remain of the opinion that real estate is a stable investment, Coldwell Banker’s report shows.
Jessica Lautz | NAR Deputy Chief Economist
The nearly 7 in 10 luxury agents who said their clients are either upholding or growing their exposure to real estate shows the level of confidence high-net-worth individuals place on real property as an investment. Nearly 60 percent of luxury agents said they feel somewhat or extremely confident about the health of the market today.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, only about 11 percent of luxury agents said their clients are decreasing their real estate assets in favor of other investments.
“Real estate can be a place to park money, and when the world feels uncertain, we often see an interest in home and real estate purchases,” National Association of Realtors Deputy Chief Economist Jessica Lautz said in the report. “With the recent volatility in the stock market, the affluent may be looking to diversify their assets and invest in real estate since they view it as a more secure asset.”
The ‘smart luxury’ movement
Carla Rayman Kidd | Coldwell Banker
Luxury buyers today are much more keen on buying homes that are completely aligned with their ideal property features or condition — and a lot less willing to compromise on those properties that don’t fall into these categories, Coldwell Banker said in the report.
Those high standards might also be contributing to growing inventory, the report noted. Since 2023, inventory of single-family luxury homes is up 40.4 percent and inventory of attached luxury homes is up 42.6 percent. Rising inventory levels are also serving as a feedback loop of sorts, the report said, with buyers becoming more selective as more inventory becomes available.
Those “smart buyers” that Altneu mentioned are also waiting for a perceived deal.
“Many luxury buyers are trying to get a ‘deal’ on a home that may have been sitting on the market for a longer period of time — trying to take advantage of the current economic conditions of the world,” Coldwell Banker luxury agent Carla Rayman Kidd of Sarasota, Florida, said in the report.
Move-up buyers moving on in
Georgie Smigel | Coldwell Banker
With home prices continuing to climb, homeowners are gaining new levels of equity and graduating into luxury buyers, the luxury report found. The number of million-dollar homes is also increasing as a result. In the last year, almost 300,000 homes sold above the $1 million mark, up from 275,000 homes the previous year, according to data from Realtor.com.
“Prices have increased, forcing move-up buyers to now become luxury homebuyers — especially if they want a newer home,” Georgie Smigel of Coldwell Banker Realty in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, said in the report.
For every 1 percent increase in home prices, about $350 billion in home equity is generated, according to NAR data cited in Coldwell Banker’s report. “That means a gain of nearly $1.3 trillion in home value appreciation at a time when the stock market is undergoing a correction,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said during NAR’s quarterly Real Estate Forecast Summit in March.
The aspirational and ultra-wealthy buyer divide
Winston Chesterfield | Barton Consulting
While many agents with ultra-luxury buyers (those in the top 5 percent of the market) reported an increase in transactions, those with lower-tier luxury buyers reported more hesitancy as financial market remain in an uncertain place.
Ultra-high-net-worth buyers tend to be “more globally minded, with larger investments exposed to geopolitical shifts,” Barton Consulting founder Winston Chesterfield said. “High-net-worth buyers, on the other hand, are often more focused on immediate, practical concerns — like interest rates, inflation, and taxes. They’re thinking in terms of their own financial world, not the global one.”
However, looking at the data, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury found no significant performance gap between the top 5 percent and top 10 percent of the market during the first five months of 2025 compared to the same period the year prior. “When comparing the top-performing tier to the broader luxury market, differences have been marginal — except in a handful of powerhouse markets,” the report stated, pointing to top-tier sales in Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, Palm Beach and Aspen.
Cash is king
Jade Mills | Coldwell Banker
Luxury buyers are known for their use of cash in transactions to avoid those pesky interest rates that have remained elevated in recent years. And according to Coldwell Banker’s report, that isn’t changing this year.
A massive 96 percent of Coldwell Banker luxury agents reported that buyers are either maintaining or increasing their use of cash purchases.
“Ultra-high-net-worth individuals aren’t just buying one property — they’re building real estate portfolios,” Jade Mills, president of Jade Mills Estates and International Ambassador of the Coldwell Banker Global Luxury program, said in the report. “These buyers are paying all-cash specifically because they want hard assets independent of market swings. When you’re dealing with generational wealth, real estate becomes a cornerstone strategy, not just a lifestyle purchase.”
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by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 24, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
The FHFA HPI rose 3 percent on an annual basis in April, while the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index posted a 2.7 percent annual gain.
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Home prices rose modestly on an annual basis in April 2025 while continuing to slow, hinting at more relief on the horizon for homebuyers who have continued to struggle with affordability.
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Home prices rose 3 percent on an annual basis in April, according to the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI). Meanwhile, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index posted a 2.7 percent annual gain, down from the 3.4 percent annual gain seen the previous month.
Month-over-month, the FHFA HPI fell by 0.4 percent while the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Index increased by 0.6 percent.
“The housing market continued its gradual deceleration in April, with annual price gains slowing to their most modest pace in nearly two years,” Nicholas Godec, head of fixed income tradables and commodities at S&P Down Jones Indices, said in a statement. “What’s particularly striking is how this cycle has reshuffled regional leadership — markets that were pandemic darlings are now lagging, while historically steady performers in the Midwest and Northeast are setting the pace. This rotation signals a maturing market that’s increasingly driven by fundamentals rather than speculative fervor.”
By region, the South Atlantic posted the biggest monthly price gains at 1.2 percent, while the Mid-Atlantic saw the largest 12-month gains at 7.4 percent, according to the FHFA HPI. Twelve-month changes across each of the nine census divisions were all positive, with the slightest gains at 0.5 percent in the Pacific region.
The Case-Shiller 10-City Composite posted an annual increase of 4.1 percent, down from 4.8 percent the month before. The 20-City Composite was also down from the previous month’s gains at a 3.4 percent annual increase, down from 4.1 percent in March. Among the 20 cities, New York City saw the highest annual gain at a 7.9 percent increase. Chicago and Detroit were not far behind with annual gains of 6 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively.
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by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 24, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
Real estate is changing fast, and so must you. Inman Connect San Diego is where you turn uncertainty into strategy — with real talk, real tools and the connections that matter. If you’re serious about staying ahead of the game, this is where you need to be. Register now!
Luxury brokerage Douglas Elliman has had a busy few months.
Since President and CEO Michael S. Liebowitz took the helm from Howard Lorber in October, the exec has been working to improve finances by decreasing losses and focusing on some of the firm’s strengths, like its new development pipeline.
Liebowitz has also responded to luxury consumer demand by announcing the brokerage’s forthcoming private listings platform, Elliman Black Label Private Listings, and launching operations globally with Elliman International.
Next month, Liebowitz will also join a roster of elite industry players onstage at Inman Connect San Diego. In advance of the event, Inman caught up with the CEO to hear more about what Elliman is up to now, and what he’s looking forward to in San Diego. Here’s what he had to say, edited for brevity and clarity.
Inman: It seems like Elliman has been busy with a lot of projects lately. I wanted to start by getting an update on what’s happening with Elliman International, since it was recently announced. What are you excited about and what’s the current focus with the new initiative?
Michael Liebowitz: We think that our brand has worldwide scalability. Our prior deal [with Knight Frank] didn’t give us the ability to do that. So the fact that we’re in the high-end luxury market, the average person you know in that market has four or five, six homes, and they’re in places around the world.
The world is getting smaller, so to speak, and [so are] the barriers between countries. I know a lot of people who have homes in Europe and in South America and all that. So it’s just a natural progression for us as a company to build a worldwide network surrounding our name and our agents. It’ll bring a lot of inbound leads in to our agents in the U.S. It’ll create a revenue opportunity for us around the globe.
Yeah, that’s super exciting. And I wanted to touch too on just where we are with private listing networks today. I know you talked about this a little bit at our Miami event a couple of weeks ago. How do you feel about the state of private listing networks, and Zillow’s move to try and squash that?
It’s interesting. For me, that’s maybe a little bit different from our competitors. I’m new to the scene, you know. I don’t have any of the angst or bruises from battles that the industry, within itself, has had. So I look at it really from a very clear lens.
And on private listings, I look at it really clearly in the sense that I’m a big believer that the more people that look at something, the higher price you will typically get, right? I mean, there’s just no doubt about it. It’s like in the banking world — buyers never want a banker because they think the banker is going to raise the price on them and the deal will cost them more, right? Because there’s more people looking.
It’s no different than in this, right? If you know, 4,000 people see that your property is for sale [compared to] 40, you’re likely to get a better deal and create more competition. But I don’t want to ignore the fact that if consumers are saying that they would like some privacy in it, for whatever reason it may be — like I wanted privacy years ago because I didn’t want people traipsing through my house — I understand it. And when I mean understand it, I mean really understand it.
So I believe that Douglas Elliman is a business that is in the expertise business, and that’s where we want to be.
And you know, we’re doubling and tripling down on being the thought leader and the expertise leader, and training our agents and making sure that they’re the leaders in that. And that comes with everything that you do, education and disclosure. So you really need to have the conversation we’re having here. You meet a movie star or a very high-powered executive who says, “I really want privacy.” We’ll give you privacy. That’s no problem, but just please, really understand the process.
Yeah, gotcha — it’s about finding that balance.
Yeah, that’s why we’re really down the middle on this one. I think some of our competitors are using that as a way to accomplish other things, and maybe become Zillow or some of these other businesses. We are a traditional brokerage, right? That’s what we are; we’re not running away from that. We’re not trying to be something that’s different. We’re not trying to be Zillow.
We’re a traditional brokerage that has a lot of agents; we embrace our agents. We want to be an agent-centric business. And our competitors are trying, in my opinion, to take this issue — like some of our competitors are [saying], ‘Oh, we’re an urban business. We’re a technology business. Now we’re a private listing [business].’ It’s always another thing.
We’re a brokerage. That’s what we are, that’s what we want to be, that’s where we see our future.
Got it. But you guys are developing your own private listing network: Elliman Black Label Private Listings.
Yeah, it’s in addition to the other services that we provide because the clients are demanding it. That’s it — end of story.
I also wanted to follow up on something — a couple of months ago now, there were some rumors floating around about a potential Anywhere merger, or they maybe expressed an interest in buying Douglas Elliman. Just out of curiosity, do you have anything further to say about that?
Listen, the only comment I’ll make is that we don’t comment on rumors.
But the other comment that I would make is, we are not in talks with anybody about selling the company, and we love our business plan. I think that Douglas Elliman is actually in the best position as a company for the future. And we’re not looking to go and do acquisitions that are not accretive to us immediately.
So you’re not going to see us as a company buying more real estate brokerages unless they’re incredibly opportunistic. We have no plan to buy brokerages at the moment at all. I think we’re looking at it more as a strategic recruiting opportunity. So maybe it’s a smaller one or groups of agents domestically and internationally. We’re busy working on what I’ll call our infrastructure, our technology, making the company much more efficient and lean. It’s been successful so far.
We’re spending a lot of time with our existing agents. Retention is what’s important to us. We don’t spend any time recruiting — the recruiting that we do is when we hear somebody wants to leave somewhere, or if somebody calls us, obviously, we’ll get aggressive with them, because we want to bring in really quality agents. But we are not a recruiting model business like our competitors — we’re not aggregating and building the agents.
It’s no surprise that it’s been a slow market recently, and some agents are struggling right now. What kind of advice do you have for them to get through this period?
I actually did a round table two nights ago with a bunch of young professionals, and someone asked me the question of, ‘When do you think it’s time to leave a brokerage when you’re an agent?’ And I said to them, and it really kind of rang true for us, ‘The agents that we lost, were all not having a great year, and I think that agents leave a company because they get frustrated with their own business, and they think a change of scenery will shake up their environment, and it’ll give them more motivation.’
Now, listen, maybe that’s true. Maybe there’s some truth to that. I don’t really believe that. I think at the end of the day, it comes down to us all individually, and what we do is no different than us as a company.
I’m coming up with all these things to differentiate ourselves. And I think that the reality is it’s really important as an agent to focus on your own existing business and what you’re doing. Because I think that making moves just to make a move — you then go and you realize the walls may be a different color, but it’s the same business and it’s the same industry, and there’s not much of a difference between the companies.
It’s really the support you get at the company, the people who are at the company. That’s why for us, it’s really important to make sure that the right agents come in the door, and we’re not just going to hire anybody, which some of our competitors are doing. And I think that’s the one thing.
The last thing I wanted to ask you about was, since you’re going to be speaking at Inman Connect San Diego this year, is there anything in particular that you’re looking forward to at that event?
Listen, the one thing I like about those events is that I get to meet so many people. It’s like, I mentioned this round table that I did the other night, that I was really doing it as a favor. It was for this rabbi. It was at a young Jewish professionals thing in Miami, and he asked me to do — what I really thought I was doing, I’ll stick to the script of a rabbi — I thought I was doing a mitzvah for him. And you know what, I met so many young professional people that I gave my cell phone to a bunch of them, and it was great.
And I think that with the speaking engagements, I think a lot of people think it’s like, ‘Oh my God, it’s like work.’ You gotta go to this and that. But it’s where I’ve met such amazing people. And everybody who goes to those is going there because they want to learn, they want to meet people. We’re all going kind of for the same reason.
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by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 23, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
With their combined forces, the companies will have about 65 agents to serve the greater Houston real estate market, Inman has learned.
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In a first-of-its-kind deal for affiliates within the Corcoran Affiliate Network, Houston-based Corcoran Genesis is acquiring The Woodlands, Texas-based Corcoran Ferester Realty, the companies have informed Inman.
Under the Corcoran Genesis banner, the combined companies will have a strengthened foothold under which to serve the greater Houston market. Corcoran Prestige Realty is another affiliate that also operates in Houston.
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Nicole Freer | Corcoran Genesis
Corcoran Genesis, born out of the Nicole Freer Group, affiliated with Corcoran in February 2024. The roughly 35-agent affiliate also has an office in Katy, Texas, and serves communities in Cypress, Fulshear, Sugar Land and elsewhere. The Nicole Freer Group at Corcoran Genesis was the No. 1 medium-sized agent team in the country in 2024 by transaction volume, according to RealTrends. Freer runs the team with her husband, Doug Freer.
Corcoran Ferester Realty affiliated with Corcoran in December 2021. The nearly 30-agent affiliate was founded by Beth Ferester, who will now launch a team called The Ferester Team at Corcoran Genesis. Together, the firms will create a force of about 65 agents.
“Beth and her team have set a high standard in The Woodlands, and we’re honored to carry that forward,” Nicole Freer said in a statement. “Through taking the established business and infusing it with the operational management, marketing techniques and growth strategies that we have implemented at Corcoran Genesis, I’m excited to not only expand, but also succeed across The Woodlands market.”
Stephanie Anton | Corcoran Affiliate Network
The Woodlands is about 30 miles north of Houston and has become an increasingly desirable place to live for Houston metro area residents because of its green spaces, highly rated schools and well-planned neighborhoods. The housing market has seen a strong performance over the last few years, Corcoran said, also driven by professionals who move to the city for work and are drawn to the area’s nature-filled spaces.
“Bringing Corcoran Ferester Realty under the Corcoran Genesis umbrella is a powerful alignment of talent, leadership and market expertise,” Stephanie Anton, president of Corcoran Affiliates, said in a statement. “Beth has built an incredible legacy in The Woodlands, and I’m thrilled to see that legacy continue, as well as expand even further under both Nicole and Doug’s dynamic leadership.”
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by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 23, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
The communications vet and former CEO will handle government relations, events and productions functions for the company and will report to CEO Ryan Schneider, Inman has learned.
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Real estate franchisor Anywhere has named Barri Rafferty chief communications officer and head of public affairs, the company has informed Inman.
As head of all things communication, Rafferty will take the helm when it comes to government relations, events and other functions for the company, and will report directly to Anywhere President and CEO Ryan Schneider.
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“Barri is a dynamic leader with a proven record of success leading and elevating established global brands,” Schneider said in a statement. “Her expertise in delivering powerful messaging for a variety of stakeholders will be a substantial asset as we continue to strengthen our brands among broker, agent, investor and consumer audiences alike. I am extremely excited to welcome Barri to Anywhere, and look forward to leveraging her unique skill set as we embark on the next phase of our ongoing transformation and growth strategy.”
Rafferty is an experienced communications professional who comes to Anywhere from international shareholder advisory firm Sodali & Co, where she served as CEO of the Americas until March 2025. She has also served in various consulting roles, and was head of communications and brand management for Wells Fargo for two years.
Additionally, Rafferty previously served as CEO of Ketchum, a top 10 communications consulting firm.
Rafferty also held an interim CEO post for about one year for nonprofit C200, which helps to advance women in business. She is currently a board member for managed services healthcare company Guidehealth.
“I’m honored to take on a new challenge at Anywhere as it pursues its mission to provide a superior, end-to-end transaction experience for the millions of buyers and sellers following their homeownership dreams each year,” Rafferty said in a statement. “Our storied brands, coupled with a commitment to innovation, puts Anywhere in an ideal position to elevate the company’s status as the foremost leader in trust, integrity and performance for consumers and agents across the globe.”
In her new position, Rafferty will be a member of Anywhere’s executive committee.
Update: This story was updated after publication with additional information about Rafferty’s background.
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