Horvath & Tremblay Buys B6 Real Estate Advisors

Paul Massey sold his brokerage B6 Real Estate Advisors — a new lease on life for a venture from one of the industry’s most respected veterans that struggled to live up to its expectations.

Massey folded his eight-year-old firm into Horvath & Company, a Boston-based brokerage founded a decade ago by a pair of Marcus & Millichap i-sales brokers that now has 17 offices across the country.

“Paul’s reputation is stellar. And he’s going to be able to help us from a growth standpoint and from an organizational standpoint, Horvath co-founder Bob Horvath told The Real Deal.

Horvath & Tremblay opened a New York office in 2024 and had four employees before folding in B6, which had about 20.

Horvath declined to comment on the financial details of the deal, but noted that his company has a centralized operational and technology organization, freeing up the offices in each market from having to build those functions out.

Massey said he had met with the Horvath founders around the time he and former partner Bob Knakal sold their brokerage Massey Knakal Realty Services to Cushman & Wakefield in 2014 for $100 million.

“They’re doing 1031s and have a big presence in multifamily and have an appraisal business,” he said, explaining the similarities between their business and B6.

Massey and Knakal shocked the industry when they sold their company to Cushman at a time when the brokerage industry was undergoing a wave of consolidation. But the marriage didn’t work out as planned: Knakal was fired in 2018 and Massey left around the same time after an unsuccessful bid for New York City mayor in 2017.

Massey launched his B6 (short for “Building By Building, Block By Block”) and staffed it with a handful of Massey Knakal alumni with a focus on a tech-centric brokerage. But the company struggled financially.

By 2023 Massey personally and his business owed more than $1 million in tax liens, and struggled to pay rent on the brokerage’s office. A number of the company’s stalwart brokers also left.

Massey acknowledged the company’s struggles, saying the changes to New York’s rent laws and downturns in the office and retail markets affected the business. He said he was able to stabilize the brokerage and is looking forward to growing as part of Horvath & Company.

“We enjoyed our time doing B6, but it was a challenge,” he said.