
Sotheby’s International Realty is making a push in San Francisco with the acquisition of the 101-year-old local giant McGuire Realty.
McGuire’s five offices will be split between Sotheby’s International Realty and its affiliate Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty, according to Inman.
McGuire has two offices in San Francisco, one north of the Golden Gate Bridge, one in Berkeley, and a fifth outside San Mateo. The brokerage had around 120 agents on its roster as of the acquisition, which brings Sotheby’s total Bay Area footprint up to 725 agents and 29 offices.
McGuire’s CEO Charles Moore told Inman that he pitched the acquisition to Sotheby’s.
“Most of the boutiques concentrate locally in the high-end space, and Sotheby’s is the number one firm in that space,” he said. “it was only a natural fit for us and thankfully they accepted our pitch to bring us onboard.”
Both Moore and Sotheby’s CEO Philip White declined to comment on the financial details of the acquisition. The deal is set to be finalized this week.
The deal marks the first large acquisition in the Bay Area since Compass acquired San Francisco-based Pacific Union in 2018. That was a much larger deal — Pacific Union at the time was the fifth-largest brokerage in the country with 1,700 agents across 54 offices. In March, an analysis of MLS data by The Real Deal found that Compass had about 30 percent market share in San Francisco, plus 20 percent in neighboring Oakland, Piedmont and Marin County. [Inman] — Dennis Lynch