Elizabeth Houley, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

Name: Elizabeth Houley

Title: Senior Managing Director

Company Name: Newmark Grubb Knight Frank                

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 212-372-2190

Years in real estate: 30

How did you get your start in real estate?

Quite accidentally. I was working at the front desk at Steve Rubell’s and Ian Schrager’s first hotel conversion project. They were turning the seedy Executive Hotel into the chic boutique hotel Morgan’s. They were working on a number of other projects including opening the Palladium nightclub. I ended up fielding Steve’s calls from attorneys, architects, designers and real estate professionals and found all the moving parts that went into making a deal happen incredibly interesting. Ultimately, I got my license and landed a job at Newmark in 1986. Thankfully, I also had a weekend bartending job at the Palladium to supplement my income in the beginning.

What is the best advice you have received and who was it from? 

Jay Smith, who hired me at Newmark as a canvasser in 1986, told me to never ever give up. Also not to rely only on readily available information or the same information everyone else has, but rather to find the angle or approach that no one else has thought of and differentiate yourself from the crowd.