In June 2025, Gavin Swartzman stepped into the role of president at Christie’s International Real Estate following the departures of Natalie Hamrick and Kevin Van Eck.
The real estate vet has a wealth of experience from the broker-owner to the executive level, and most recently served for 11 years as CEO of Toronto-based Peerage Realty Partners, a holding company that owns and operates multiple brokerages in the U.S. and Canada, including franchise affiliates of Christie’s International Real Estate, Sotheby’s International Realty and Century 21.
Swartzman is well-versed in M&A and has managed both public and private companies over the course of his career. This month, Inman caught up with him to discuss the market, the current M&A landscape in the industry and what comes next for the luxury brand.
Here’s what he had to say, edited for brevity and clarity.
Inman: What kind of feedback are you hearing from Christie’s International Real Estate agents during this challenging market?
Gavin Swartzman: I think it’s no secret that the overall market in terms of volume at the macro level is down. What we have seen is in the luxury space, that is outpacing the market. So on a relative basis, the luxury space has been doing better.
The other piece in these markets that are slow is the better agents who make up the majority of the market under normal circumstances over-index even further versus the average. So, we’re fortunate that with our brand, we tend to attract those more productive agents so that on a relative relative basis, I would say that we outpace the market.
I think it starts with a mindset more than anything else. But then when you look at what the very best agents do, you’ll see that they have a very consistent and disciplined approach to how they market themselves. They stay extremely close to their sphere because, notwithstanding everything that’s going on in the market, life events still occur.
And so if you can stay close to them and provide them with relevant information, because I think that’s the other big thing right now — there’s so much information that’s out there and the degree which you have to elevate your interactions with your clients has really gone up.
That makes sense. In this current landscape, we’ve seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions, some of which Christie’s International Real Estate has been involved in. Who do you think are the winners and losers here, and how long will this continue?
It’s interesting. To digress a little, I think the M&A space has really evolved quite a lot over the past few years. There was a lot happening in ’21 and a bit into 2022, and then when interest rates really spiked, that obviously changed and a lot of the buyers that were out there kind of stopped. Then you had the industry litigation. So then, people kind of pulled their horns in, and it was really only one company out there that was doing any M&A, and that was Compass.
If you look at the types of transactions that were happening, there were the traditional brokerage to brokerage kinds of deals, then you saw with Compass’s big move in acquiring @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate, that was kind of a real step up in terms of the kind of strategic play that was taking place. It wasn’t just another brokerage; it was Christie’s, getting access to a whole different type of revenue stream and business model, and all of that.
Then obviously there was what I saw as a major shift — this vertical integration-type acquisition that took place. So you saw Rocket and Redfin, and that was like, OK so this is a vertical integration strategic play with a totally different strategy than just filling markets.
And then obviously you saw the big news from a couple weeks ago with Compass and Anywhere. But I still think there were a lot of independents looking at M&A activity and M&A options prior to these things slowing down in 2022, and a lot of those factors are still at play for those players — you have aging owners, you have an increasing realization that you need a certain scale to make the investments needed to compete in this industry.
So I think we’re going to start to see some of those traditional M&A activity start to open up more and more players being involved …
So that’s the backdrop. And to pick the winners and losers, I’m most focused on how to make Christie’s International Real Estate a winner. Our view is that there is always going to be a market for a full-service luxury experience, both on the client side and agent side in terms of what we produce and the kind of service we provide from technology to training, support, marketing.
Great. In terms of this most recent deal between Compass and Anywhere, were you involved in any of those talks? How much do you feel this impacts Christie’s International Real Estate?
First of all, I’d suggest you speak to the parties that are actually parties to the agreement to give the context around that.
For us, it’s business as usual. We’re focused on our clients, our agents, our affiliates, and regardless of who owns any of the other players, it doesn’t really affect what we do day to day.
But you all will gain access to a wider network of referrals with this deal, of course, which is a good thing.
Yes, that’s definitely part of the equation of what scale does and what it does bring.
Absolutely. I want to talk a bit about Christie’s International Real Estate’s strategy, too. We’re coming up on 2026 in a few months. Do you have any big goals for the new year?
The big opportunity for us, and the goal, is to become the dominant modern luxury global brand. So it’s a combination of that heritage that we have coupled with the backing that we have through our parent company that really elevates the resources we have that are available to our owners, our affiliates and their agents.
From tech to the training, we’ve brought on a new franchise and a strategic development executive named Scott Hurlock; he came to us from Engel & Völkers. So we’re taking a very strategic, measured approach to entering key markets that we still have opportunities to enter and then also work with our affiliates on how to grow their own companies through various actions we can take, from recruiting to walkovers and a variety of other avenues that are available when you have someone that’s dedicated to helping our partners grow.
Great, we’ll look forward to seeing that growth. You’ve been in your new role for a few months now. Has anything surprised you?
I would say all the surprises have been really pleasant. The people have been wonderful across the board.
What I’m really enjoying is that I get to bring all of my experience to bear. I’ve run brokerage companies, so I know what it’s like to be on the real front lines recruiting, retaining, the ups and downs of being in the business, up-down M&A and being involved in marketing … all of these things are coming together right now. So what I’m finding is that it’s been so incredibly energizing to flex all of these muscles at the same time because it’s thinking through a different lens.
Fantastic. Anything else?
The luxury buyer continues to be a very active buyer. They don’t solely look at the most immediate headlines or interest rates or tariffs — those things aren’t necessarily driving them. They are very discerning. I think sometimes when you read stuff, you think they’re just throwing money around, but they don’t. When they know what they want and the product is there, they can act decisively and they have their resources to make it happen.
I think how we treat a high-net-worth client should set the stage for how we treat any client. I use this word over and over again — ‘trusted advisor’. It’s a balance. You have to advise, but not push. Give space to the client to make the decision, but sometimes you also can gently say, if this is what you want to do, this is the right product for you …
So, I don’t see why that experience should be exclusive to people at the higher end. I would think that it’s even more applicable to people where that house is everything to them. So that’s kind of my mantra for the profession overall.
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