Twenty years in a ringside seat to the greatest show on earth.
April 2003, Prospect Heights: Amir Korangy, a small-time investor in Brooklyn brownstones, had a revelation: There was nothing for him to read. Nothing on the big deals and dealmakers, nothing focused on the kind of news that people in the industry could use, nothing where developers, brokers, architects and other real estate professionals were characters in their own right.
The only thing around at the time were trade publications that basically reprinted press releases and Sunday real estate sections in the local newspapers. So you could choose between stenography or lifestyle coverage.
Amir took it upon himself to change that. He had charisma and a clear vision, and I wrote as a freelancer for that first issue. The magazine had a cool sensibility and layout, but there was room for improvement — my name was misspelled and there was a typo in the headline. I suggested to Amir that he could probably use an editor. Then we got our first advertising salesperson in Yoav Barilan, and the rest is history.
Today, we are the largest and most-respected real estate-focused publication in the U.S., following the money in a $60 trillion dollar industry. Spreading out from our roots in New York, we’ve got a staff of 100 people and cover the market from coast to coast. We’ve won more than 50 journalism awards. We’ve written books (our most recent, “The New Kings of New York,” was named one of the best books of 2022 by the New York Post) and produced documentaries for PBS.
I’m most proud that we’ve helped develop editorial talent, and we’ve sent countless reporters and editors to the most respected publications. It’s a two-way street — our staff now also hails from some of the most prominent news outlets around.
Leading up to this 20th anniversary, though, I really didn’t want to think about any of it.
The passage of time and all that. I was too busy.
And there is always the nagging feeling that we should have done more. For an industry this size, we are still pretty small. We’ve made every mistake along the way, from bad hires to (arguably) not taking financing to grow. And no Pulitzers yet.
“The only thing around at the time were trade publications that basically reprinted press releases
and Sunday real estate sections in the newspapers.
So you could choose between stenography or lifestyle coverage.”
If I slice it another way, though, that feeling of “it’s never enough” keeps driving us forward. It’s the same impulse that pushes real estate developers to build further up to the heavens each year, that causes brokerages to want to expand nationally and that compels investors to keep amassing bigger fortunes. It’s the ambition of our big cities and of the real estate industry. And it has served us well.
With time, I’ve gotten (a bit) better at realizing the main thing about what we do: It’s fun. It’s fun to get scoops, to think big-picture and write long, juicy yarns or books. It’s fun to chronicle how money and power work through the lens of real estate. The characters are outsized and (often) shameless and therefore fun to write about.
And the people I work with are simpatico. I am proud to have Amir as a partner — his mantra has always been to try to take an idea as far as we can, in the real world, and see if it works. I’m proud to have Yoav and Ross Fox as stalwart partners. I’m proud to have Hiten Samtani as the person who understands our editorial DNA as well as anyone.
And all the other veterans who have been with us: the exemplary editorial work of Katherine Kallergis, Ina Cordle, Rich Bockmann and Katie Brenzel. The design skills of Paul Dilakian and Victoria Tuturice. The sales ability of Adam Myers, Junaid Zahid, Marcus Guest, Sigalit Levi and Rob Stearns. And the programming prowess of Amir Ghaheri and Yoryi De La Rosa and administrative support of Karen Francis.
There are also many newer key players who I haven’t flagged (I didn’t mention anyone with less than five years at TRD) — I hugely appreciate their work and what they take on every day.
To the issue: There is a package of stories about our two decades recapping the crazy world of real estate. And oh yeah, there was a banking crisis this past month that has major ramifications for real estate — see “Nine Days in Hell.”
Plus, there’s our annual ranking of NYC’s top residential brokers, the new type of sprawl growing in Texas and the quiet rise of billionaire Michael Dell’s MSD Capital to become one of the biggest real estate players nationwide, leveraging his already substantial tech fortune into more money. Because it’s never enough.
Enjoy the issue! And thank you for these first two decades.