As the publisher of The Real Deal, Amir Korangy is the mastermind behind creating what is thought of as the bible of real estate coverage. With tectonic shifts in the market that transpired during the pandemic and its aftermath, we spoke with him to gauge his thoughts on the East End market and how he sees our standing.
Congratulations on building something that the sector really needed. How and why did you start the The Real Deal publication in 2003?
This year marks our 20-year anniversary, and since the beginning our motto at The Real Deal has always been “readers first,” so thank you for reading. There are several answers to why I started the company. One of them was that I couldn’t find a job after the tech crash. I was working for Yahoo!, when Yahoo! was the Google of the world; another reason was because there was a clear void in the market for intelligent real estate news, which seemed like a good opportunity to me since real estate is the largest asset class in the world. Real estate, no matter how large, is always local. We always believed that covering the markets locally is where our value comes in and sets us apart.
Were you in real estate yourself?
I was in Brooklyn and flipping small apartments and buildings for myself. I realized real estate is what the city revolves around. The way politics runs D.C., and Hollywood runs L.A. Real estate is the underlying industry that runs all major cities. Politics and Hollywood had a dozen news outlets covering it and real estate had a bunch of fluff. I thought it deserved a serious news outlet and thankfully I was right.
Can you tell us more about The Real Deal Annual Forum?
When you talk to people in front of an audience there is a rawness and honesty to it that you can never get in any other form of engagement. The idea behind the forum was to get the biggest names in the industry to come on stage and explain their thinking, unedited to a live audience. Each year it got bigger and now we have over 10,000 people showing up to hear what we are asking the newsmakers live.
We are a very seasonal and luxury sector of real estate that was deluged during the pandemic, and it has altered a lot of the ways we work and our numbers. Although we see the data inching back toward 2019 numbers and with sparse inventory, what do you see happening for the East End of Long Island for 2023?
Up or down, there are certain markets that will always endure, and the East End of Long Island is one of them. The pandemic has made it more of a permanent choice for a lot of people and the great testament to its endurance was that when the city came back to life, a lot of people chose to remain out east.
Is this consistent for other resort areas?
The East End is not reliant on the resort crowd, so I would consider it to be different.
Do you have insights for rentals as well?
I have insights on everything real estate and it’s all in TheRealDeal.com
You are involved in philanthropy, which we really appreciate in thought leaders. Can you tell us what you champion and why?
I think education should be the great equalizer for children, it shouldn’t matter who your parents are. All kids deserve a worthy education. So working with schools is something we take pride in as a company. We also allow our employees to pick out causes we can support. However, I think just writing a check, while appreciated, is not true charity. True charity is your effort.
What do you do in your downtime when you’re not leading the most important real estate publication in the world? Is there such a thing?
Playing the piano and singing is the most meditative thing I do and I love the sound of my own voice, to a fault. I will attend any party in any part of town that’s willing to hear me play and sing.
