Newcomer buys Engel & Völkers Florida Keys franchise, plans expansion 

The Engel & Völkers franchise in the Florida Keys has a new owner. 

Franchisee John Gallant sold the business to Stephany Duvall, an agent with Island Breeze Realty in Marathon for an undisclosed amount, according to a press release. Duvall, who is a relative newcomer to real estate, bought the Engel & Völkers Islamorada operation as well as the rights to expand the brand across the Florida Keys. She plans to open an office in Marathon later this year, and an office in Key West in the next 18 months, she said. All three offices will be under the Engel & Völkers Florida Keys banner. 

Duvall got her real estate license in 2021, when she joined Island Breeze Realty. With her acquisition of Engel & Völkers Florida Keys, she will also be switching brokerages. Prior to real estate, she worked for 15 years at Northfield, Illinois-based Medline Industries, one of the largest privately held medical supply businesses in the country, where she was vice president of corporate accounts. After leaving Medline, she ran a consulting business for eight years, she said. 

“In order to attain all the goals I wanted to in this second career, I either had to start a real estate company or join a partnership,” she said. “I think that there’s definitely room for [another] luxury brokerage in the Keys.”

Other brokerages with offices in the Florida Keys include Truman & Company, Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate, American Caribbean Real Estate and Ocean Sotheby’s International Realty.

Gallant launched Engel & Völkers Islamorada in 2020. The office currently has eight agents, Duvall confirmed. The brokerage recently approved her selection for the Marathon office, although she has not yet signed a lease. She declined to share the address, saying only that it has “great visibility from the Overseas Highway.”

Next, she will need to recruit agents for the Marathon office, which could pose a challenge, considering the region’s small population. The Florida Keys had a population of just under 83,000, according to the 2020 Census. 

“We don’t have as many agents to support the Keys,” she said. Finding agents will be about “quality over quantity,” Duvall said. 

While the Keys haven’t seen the same pace of rapid price growth as South Florida in recent years, Duvall expects pricing to remain strong in the region. She pointed to the FEMA-imposed limits on development that constrain the supply of homes in the market.

“I think that the value in the Keys is going to hold,” she said. “It’s going to stay stable.”