Houston Real Estate News: Martha Turner Properties Sells to Sotheby’s

Looks like I am going to have to put Houston Real Estate on my Google alerts. Found out last night from a Martha Turner agent that one of the oldest, and most successful high-end independent real estate brokerages in Houston has been swooped up by Sotheby’s International Realty Inc. of New York. Yes, Martha Turner Properties, which closed more than $2 billion in sales volume last year, has been acquired by Sotheby’s.  The new firm will operate as Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty. All six Houston-area offices, and of course all 220 associates, are retained in the deal. According to the Houston Chronicle, MTP’s founder, Martha Turner, and biz partner Tom Anderson will stay on as co-presidents of the company.

Martha Turner Properties ranked as the No. 8 independent brokerage in the nation in 2012, with an average of more than $7 million closed sales volume per agent. That’s about $210,000 per agent in commissions, not including the broker split. Which sure beats the national real estate agent’s median income of $39,070 (though I have seen articles claiming $26,000 as a more realist figure). No wonder the Big Apple is paying attention to Texas. BlankSlate, a Brooklyn-based technology and business management platform for on-line real estate blogs, recently entered into a partnership agreement with Swamplot, Houston’s leading real estate blog.

This is Sotheby’s first tip toe in Texas as a broker. The firm operates brokerage offices in San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Barbara and Carmel, Santa Fe, NM; Greenwich, CT; Manhattan and the Hamptons. Of course, we all know our fantastic Briggs-Freeman is a franchisee of Sotheby’s, as is Fort Worth-based Williams Trew Realty.