May 12, 2026, 8:38 PM UTC<\/p>\n
Manhattan\u2019s indie brokers embrace \u201cpain in the ass\u201d status<\/p>\n
May 12, 2026, 8:38 PM UTC<\/p>\n
Compass, Corcoran and Douglas Elliman may dominate Manhattan residential sales by sheer scale, but some of the borough\u2019s priciest deals flow through independent firms with a fraction of the agents.<\/p>\n
While the city\u2019s largest brokerages closed thousands of deals across Manhattan<\/a> in 2025, independently-owned firms like Coleman Real Estate, the Modlin Group and Kleier Residential led the market in median sale price and year-over-year pricing growth, according to The Real Deal\u2019s analysis of independent brokerages with fewer than 50 agents among the city\u2019s top firms.<\/p>\n Some of the smallest firms generated outsized numbers. Coleman Real Estate had the highest median sale price amongst the top 25 firms at roughly $7 million. The Modlin Group generated $213 million in sales with just 14 Manhattan agents.<\/p>\n Others rapidly expanded their footprint. Kleier Residential and Blu Realty Group posted sharp increases in total sales volume from the prior year, with Kleier\u2019s volume jumping roughly 500 percent.<\/p>\n The boutiques say their advantage comes from staying small.<\/p>\n Michele Kleier, president of Kleier Residential, said much of the firm\u2019s business comes through repeat clients and referrals, particularly in the luxury market \u2014 relationships she argues are harder to maintain at sprawling corporate brokerages.<\/p>\n That dynamic helped smaller firms punch above their weight class in Manhattan\u2019s luxury market. Eight of the top 25 brokerages by Manhattan deal volume in 2025 were independently owned firms with fewer than 50 agents in the borough.<\/p>\n Some independents openly embrace the role of industry disruptor.<\/p>\n \u201cI really like being a pain in the ass for people like [Robert] Reffkin,\u201d said Leslie J. Garfield president Jed Garfield. \u201cIt inspires me.\u201d<\/p>\n The city\u2019s largest firms still cornered the market<\/a>. Compass, Corcoran and Douglas Elliman each employ more than 1,000 agents in Manhattan, bolstered by sprawling resale operations and lucrative new development portfolios.<\/p>\n Together, the top five firms combined for over $20.2 billion across roughly 8,400 deals in 2025. Independently-owned brokerages, by comparison, accounted for about $2.6 billion across 1,000 deals \u2014 roughly 11 percent of the top 25 firms\u2019 combined sales volume.<\/p>\n But some of the smaller firms say they are not trying to compete on scale.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t compete on volume,\u201d said Adam Modlin, founder of the Modlin Group. \u201cMost agents try to win by listing more properties. We focus on representing more important properties.\u201d<\/p>\n In practice, that means concentrating on a narrow slice of the ultra-luxury inventory where a handful of trophy deals can rival the production of much larger firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n The strategy has translated into some of Manhattan\u2019s biggest luxury deals. The Modlin Group posted the city\u2019s highest average sale price at $8.2 million, thanks to two high-end luxury resales exceeding $35 million for the Woolworth Mansion at 4 East 80th Street<\/a> townhouse and Lenox Hill\u2019s 907 5th Avenue<\/a> co-op.<\/p>\n Leslie J. Garfield, which ranked just behind Coleman in median sale price at roughly $5.7 million, leaned heavily on luxury townhouse listings. Nearly 90 percent of the firm\u2019s deals last year were sell-side transactions, according to president Jed Garfield.<\/p>\n That business produced mega deals including three townhomes at 16 East 64th Street, 235 West 11th Street and 348 West 22nd Street, fetching $21 million, $19.3 million and $13.5 million, respectively.<\/p>\n Other independents saw rapid growth. Coleman Real Estate\u2019s median sale price jumped more than 400 percent from 2024, while Kleier Residential\u2019s rose roughly 70 percent. Kleier\u2019s year included a $13 million Upper East Side townhouse deal, while Coleman averaged nearly $7 million per transaction across just eight co-op and condo sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 12, 2026, 8:38 PM UTC Manhattan\u2019s indie brokers embrace \u201cpain in the ass\u201d status May 12, 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[90122,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-229523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-independent-firms-manhattan-residential","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}