Real Estate Leaders Who Died in 2024

Real estate lost leaders from all corners of the industry in 2024. Among them were brokers, builders and policy experts who left their marks, both on the physical environment and in the culture of the work.

The Real Deal memorializes their legacies below, in chronological order.

Alice Mason

The real estate broker and socialite died on Jan. 4 at the age of 100. She established her reputation beyond real estate deals by hosting dinners at her Upper East Side apartment, using the gatherings to connect close friends Henry Kissinger, Barbara Walters, Mike Wallace and Gloria Vanderbilt and pulling on those same connections to navigate the exclusive world of upscale buildings on Park and Fifth Avenues. Mason kept her Black heritage a secret for nearly 50 years, even from close friends.

Daniel Goodwin

The co-founder and CEO of Inland Real Estate Group died at age 80 on Jan. 19. The Chicago native established the Oak Brook-based firm and grew it into one of the nation’s largest commercial real estate, investment, and finance groups. The company raised more than $26 billion in capital, conducted more than $80 billion in commercial real estate transactions, and founded eight REITs that listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Jim Crockarell

The largest downtown property owner in St. Paul, Minnesota, died on Jan. 25 at age 79, leaving behind a portfolio of at least 32 office and residential properties through his firm, Madison Equities. A longtime — though reportedly sometimes combative — advocate for the city’s downtown and early-comer to office-to-resi conversions, he also had a stake in several retail properties and restaurants.

Joseph Mattone

A real estate developer and lawyer who owned the Jamaica Center retail complex in Queens and a retail strip at West 68th Street and Broadway, died on March 21 at his home in New York. He was 92. Mattone’s portfolio spans more than 4 million square feet of commercial, residential and industrial space.

Tibor Hollo

The developer, who helped shape Miami’s skyline, died at the age of 96 on May 1. Hollo, a Holocaust survivor, founded his family-owned Florida East Coast Realty after moving to Miami in 1956. He later served as chairman and president, building residential, commercial and mixed-use buildings including Panorama Tower in Brickell, one of the tallest buildings along the Eastern Seaboard south of New York. Hollo’s largest real estate deal was the $363 million sale of the waterfront development site at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive to billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin in 2022.

Donald R. Horton

Donald Horton

The namesake founder of the nation’s largest homebuilder, D.R. Horton, died on May 16 at age 74. Horton built his first house in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1978, and his company has been the country’s top homebuilder by volume since 2002, with more than 1 million homes closed. D.R. Horton operates in 119 markets across 33 states and has prevailed through high mortgage rates and inflation.

Laurence “Larry” Gluck

One of New York City’s biggest and, at times controversial, landlords died on June 13 after a long illness. He was 71 and had been diagnosed with ALS in 2013.

Gluck developed a love of architecture while living in Brooklyn Heights and working as a lawyer, so he decided to work for a real estate law firm where he learned the ropes and made important connections in the industry. In 1985, he founded Stellar Management with Steve Witkoff, who left in 1997. Stellar has more than 12,000 apartments across 100 multifamily buildings and 2 million square feet of offices in New York City and Miami, according to the company’s website, as well as more than 1 million square feet under development.

Frederick “Fred” J. Rudd

The prominent Manhattan real estate developer and founder of Rudd Realty Management, died of complications from heart disease on June 19 at the age of 70. Son of New York developer Philip Rudd, he founded Rudd Realty in 1984. Rudd Realty owns 15 residential and commercial properties and manages approximately 70 buildings, mostly co-ops and condos, for third parties.

Brandon Miller

The second-generation New York developer who ran into serious financial problems at work and at home, died by suicide on July 3. He was 43. Miller left behind a tangled web of unfinished real estate projects and delinquent payments both at work and at home. In 2006, the younger Miller joined Real Estate Equities Corporation, a development shop run by his father, Michael, who died in 2016, while millions in debt. In the years since, Miller tried to build office projects in residential neighborhoods, including Chelsea, Nolita and the East Village. But business problems mounted: Miller had almost $34 million in debt and just $8,000 in his bank account when he died.

Virginia Cook

The Dallas-Fort Worth real estate broker whose career coincided with the region’s rise as a metroplex of national and global standing, died at age 84 on July 13. Co-founder of Virginia Cook Realtors, Cook was known for being clever, witty and visiting all six of the offices she ran with business partner Sheila Rice until they closed in 2019.

Clark Halstead

The co-founder of Sotheby’s International Realty and Halstead Property died at age 83 on Aug. 22. After launching Sotheby’s International with Edward Lee Cave in 1976, Halstead led the company’s Manhattan division. He then sketched out the idea for Halstead Property on the back of a bar napkin and co-founded the company in 1984 alongside Diane Ramirez; they later sold the firm to Terra Holdings, the parent company of BHS. Halstead was also a longtime member and leader of the Real Estate Board of New York, where he helped start and chaired the trade group’s residential division.

Gil Neary

The fixture of Downtown Manhattan’s real estate scene and founder of gay-owned residential brokerage Bank Neary was killed Aug. 24 in a one-car accident in Maine. He was 67. The company developed a business in co-op and condo sales in Chelsea and Greenwich Village, with the motto “a castle for every queen” and sponsored floats in New York’s Gay Pride Parade. In 2023, the brokerage made $43 million in sales and $4 million in annual rents.

Neil Shekhter

The prominent Los Angeles landlord who founded WS Communities and NMS Properties, died on Nov. 23. He was in his early 60s. Shekhter founded NMS in 1988 and focused on acquiring and improving poorly performing multifamily assets; in 2022, he kicked off a push to use builder’s remedy, an old but mostly forgotten provision, to develop in California communities that had not met state housing goals. But by 2024, he had lost more than half his portfolio to lenders.

G. Joseph Cosenza

Eleven months after one Inland co-founder’s passing (see Goodwin, above), another co-founder — Cosenza — died at 81 on Dec. 25. Cosenza served as director and vice chairman of the Oak Brook-based Inland and as president of Inland Real Estate Acquisitions. He oversaw deals totaling $55 billion in acquisitions, comprising hundreds of millions of square feet in commercial real estate properties and more than 96,000 apartment units that Inland has purchased in more than 50 years of existence.