Douglas Elliman Inc.

Today we are joined by Frances Katzen.

She's the founder of Katzen Team at Douglas Elliman, one of the city's top producing brokers with more than 3.5 billion career sales and a spot on Douglas Elliman's top 10 list for gross volume and transactions for over a decade.

She's built a highly regarded brokerage practice representing a roster of Developers, investors, high network buyers of all shapes and sizes and international buyer markets.

We're going to be talking today about the key editor tax.

And at the same time, I put my hand up for a role, which is the US ambassador.

So they had a partnership with a company called Douglas Elliman, which is a massive brokerage in the US.

And they wanted somebody to connect the two firms.

Yeah, nice.

I am your guide and host through the show.

And today I'm really excited to talk with our guest, Frances Katzen of the Katzen Team at Douglas Elliman in New York City.

So let me tell you more about Frances.

So she leads one of the top teams in real estate in Manhattan, uh, in particular on the luxury side.

She's consistently ranked among Douglas Elliman's top 10 teams since 2010.

She's built her business representing an international clientele of financiers, investors, developers, ultra-high net worth individuals across the New York market.

Known for her candor and her data-driven approach, Frances is a frequent media commentator on luxury real estate, buyer behavior, market trends, housing policy, et cetera.

You know, you go there like, you know, no one was going to throw you a life raft.

So we wind up going to a residential firm called Douglas Elliman.

Which was, you know, respected, but the guy who owned it now was a CPA, right? You should never work for a CPA, okay? Because they always look at the spreadsheet.

They never look at the data.

You know, in fact, we used to get there where we used to beat the cleaning people.

You know, we were there so early, and we used to have dinner.

So finally I said, look, I said, I want you to know, I'm suing Douglas Elliman.

What? You know? I said, yeah.

So we kind of became partners.

And then when we transitioned to Douglas Elliman, he actually became an agent and we became like... full team status where we do everything together 100%.

Now, I know that when you're leaving your security, leaving your comfort zone where you've spent eight years of your career and now you're going off on your own, it's hard to leave that security, right? There's always doubts and there's always fears.

Did you have any doubts or fears heading into that?

Now, Lila and I were both pretty young when the attacks occurred, but Lila, you spent some time on Friday stitching together some remembrances from people in real estate who were on the ground here in New York and across the Eastern seaboard as the tragedies unfolded.

One story that stood out to me in particular came from Michael Leibowitz, now the head of Douglas Elliman, but who at the time was a big insurance broker and worked on Larry Silverstein's deal for the Twin Towers.

He, in fact, encouraged Silverstein to take out a larger policy because, as he said, what if a plane crashed into these towers? So many incredible stories of resilience and hope in the face of tragedy.

In that story, I encourage you to read it online now.

Basically, I graduated in May and I became a broker around July.

I started at a big legacy firm called Douglas Elliman, and then I moved to Compass when I was 26, so four years later.

I kind of built everything from the ground up from there.

And two and a half years ago, I started Trove.

He's helping price, study, and understand the market before a lot of it ever becomes public.

Bill Hernandez is one of the Bill and Brian team at Douglas Elliman.

They've been the number one team in Miami Beach for 10 straight years, ranking the top 1% nationally by sales volume, and have closed more than $3 billion in real estate, including transaction north of $100 million.

Their clients range from Forbes 100 billionaires and Fortune 500 executives to some of the biggest names in finance, private equity, and international business.