FROM THE DESK OF DARRELL HOFHEINZ, Daily News Real Estate Writer
The Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service is reflecting on what could be a new relationship between Martha A. Gottfried Inc. and the Florida affiliate of Douglas Elliman, the New York powerhouse residential real estate firm.
A search today showed that few on-the-market properties are showing up in MLS as being listed by Martha A. Gottfried, a fixture on the Palm Beach real estate scene for more than 35 years.
Instead, four Palm Beach single-family homes heretofore represented by Martha A. Gottfried Inc. — and still listed for sale on the agency’s website — were posted in MLS with their “listing office” changed to Douglas Elliman. The MLS pages also showed that the Gottfried agents representing those properties were affiliated with Douglas Elliman as well.
Two other homes on the website, however, were recorded in MLS as being listed by Martha A. Gottfried Inc., and their listing agent was identified as Pamela H. Gottfried, the agency’s longtime broker and president. One of those two listings was the home she owns at 748 Hi-Mount Road, which is for sale at $22.9 million and has been on the market for several years.
Pamela Gottfried on Thursday told the Shiny Sheet that she and her agency had no comment about the changes in the MLS listings.
Reached at her office Thursday, Vanessa Grout, president and CEO of Douglas Elliman Florida, said she did not want to comment on the changes in the MLS listings.
Headquartered in New York City, Douglas Elliman does business in the Sunshine State as Douglas Elliman Florida, based in Miami Beach.
Douglas Elliman has never had an office in Palm Beach, although the company opened one in Boca Raton in December, its first in Palm Beach County. The company also has locations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Bradford J. Miller, president of the Palm Beach Board of Realtors, had not seen the Douglas Elliman changes in the MLS service when contacted Thursday morning.
“I haven’t heard anything,” Miller said, but he later confirmed that Douglas Elliman Florida this week applied to become a member of the Palm Beach Board of Realtors, which would allow the agency to participate in the island’s MLS system.
Listing information in the MLS can be changed at the listing brokerage’s request, according to MLS rules.
Douglas Elliman Florida is affiliated with Prudential Douglas Elliman, which bills itself as the largest residential real estate firm in New York City, according to its publicity department. Douglas Elliman Florida opened its first Florida office in 2010 in Miami Beach.
The Douglas Elliman companies are, in turn, owned by Vector Group Ltd. through its real estate arm, a company named New Valley, according to the Florida affiliate’s website.
Described on the website as “New York’s (No. 1) real estate firm rapidly expanding in South Florida,” the private company has about 4,000 real estate agents and more than 65 offices. Its chairman is Howard Lorber, who is also president and CEO of Vector Group Ltd.
The late Martha A. Gottfried founded her eponymous agency in 1974 with her husband, the late Palm Beach developer Robert Gottfried, to sell the homes he built on speculation, many in his signature Palm Beach Regency style.
Pamela Hoffpauer was named president of the agency in early 1992, a few months after Martha Gottfried’s death. She later married Robert Gottfried, who died in 2007, and changed her name to Pamela H. Gottfried.
Martha A. Gottfried Inc. moved its headquarters from its longtime home on Worth Avenue to Royal Poinciana Plaza early last year. Its website lists two other offices, one in Manalapan and the other in West Palm Beach.