Dottie Herman talks bubbles, Leonard Steinberg in new interview

 In a recent interview, Douglas Elliman head Dottie Herman told Crain’s that she isn’t seeing signs of a housing bubble. And when asked how longtime Elliman broker Leonard Steinberg’s departure for Urban Compass affected her, she added that she will always remember him as a good cook.

“[The market] is strong, but you can’t borrow money like you could prerecession. You have to have skin in the game whether you’re a developer or a person buying an apartment. So people aren’t flipping like they were before,” Herman said when asked if she sensed a housing bubble building. “Everybody wants to make a return, but they aren’t looking to make 20 percent in six months or something, and that was what was happening. So that’s really good for the market. I see it rising, but even if it were to go down, this time around people have equity.”

In the same interview, Herman said she didn’t take it personally when star broker Leonard Steinberg left Elliman.

“I love Leonard, and I’m always going to love him. He worked at the company for 15 years; he was there before me. I’ll never forget when [business partner Howard Lorber] and I came to the company, [Leonard] cooked us a 17-course meal,” she said.

And apparently, it wasn’t half bad. “I could have been in the finest restaurant in the world!” she added. [Crain’s] – Christopher Cameron