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Parent trap trips Corcoran

Is Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group, hobbled by her firm's parent company? (Illustration by Yishai Minkin)

From the February issue: The New Year ushered in a wave of misfortune for city real estate brokerages, as a raft of companies announced that they would shed offices or close up shop altogether. Predictably, small brokerages were hit hardest: Brooklyn Properties closed an office, Domain Properties downsized to a smaller space, and both Upside Residential and Homestead New York announced they would shutter completely. Meanwhile, medium-sized firms like Warburg Realty and Bellmarc Realty also closed branches. And, as part of that rash of closures, rentals behemoth Citi Habitats shut two branches, and its sister company, the Corcoran Group -- one of the two largest and most successful sales firms in the city -- announced late last month that it would shutter its Harlem office. Corcoran was the first of the two big brokerages in the city to close up an office. And like real estate companies throughout the city, the 35-year-old company is weathering a steep drop-off in sales due to the credit crisis and Wall Street layoffs. But unlike its chief rival, Prudential Douglas Elliman, it also faces the challenge of being linked to a parent company that's highly leveraged and drowning in debt.
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