2026 America’s Best Brokerages – Northeast
2026 America’s Best Brokerages – Northeast
ABB_FEAT_Northeast2026
2025 Sales: $50M–$100M
Who: A forest-resource management-and-consulting firm dedicated to helping landowners gain value and enjoyment from their forestland. We operate as F&W Forestry’s real estate division, with more than 45 years of land marketing and consulting, supported by a team of brokers educated in forestry and natural resources.
WOW! Completed a transaction totaling almost 3,000 acres, with a purchase price of more than $21 million.
What was your take on 2025? Demand remained strong throughout the year, but the dynamics shifted from a seller’s market to a more balanced one. Buyers gained significant leverage. Sellers who adjusted their prices saw strong activity and closed deals. Those who held firm saw properties lingering on the market longer.
How is 2026 shaping up? We are optimistic that it will be an excellent year for real estate. Buyer-friendly conditions are expected to continue, with land prices stabilizing and sellers becoming increasingly willing to negotiate, creating real opportunities for well-positioned buyers.
2025 Sales: $100M–$250M
Who: We have a long history of real estate in the Adirondack Mountains region of New York dating to 1943. Specializing in camps, cottages, shoreline, forest acreage, resort homes, and turnkey condominiums.
WOW! Had more than $180 million in sales, by far the most in the Adirondack Park.
What was your take on 2025? It was an interesting year. The summer had quite a lull, but the market roared back in September and October.
How is 2026 shaping up? We already eclipsed $35 million in sales during the first two months of the year and are on track to set another record in sales volume.
2025 Sales: < $50M
Who: Specializing in rural living and land.
WOW! Listed the 373-acre Legacy Ridge estate in Warren County, Pennsylvania, along the edge of the Allegheny National Forest for $7.5 million.
What was your take on 2025? Our best year to date. How-ever, the real estate market was slow overall and listings were difficult to come by.
How is 2026 shaping up? We are expecting and experiencing strong growth for our Pennsylvania market.
2025 Sales: < $50M
Who: Specializing in the sale of hunting, fishing, and recreational properties, along with farms, waterfront homes, and second homes. Many of our agents also are foresters and natural resource managers in their respective regions.
WOW! Worked with one of our sellers to create a deal with a regional conservancy to purchase his 363-acre prop-erty that has both a wetland complex known as a “floating fen” and about two-thirds of the shoreline of a local lake. The deal had been more than three years in the making before contracts were signed.
What was your take on 2025? It was a very measured marketplace. There were more buyers seeking property than sellers listing property, which would normally be viewed as a seller’s market. But that was not the case. Buyers were taking their time, with many making offers after many months. Interest rates held the market back until the fall, when things began to improve dramatically and sellers began to reenter the market space with more listings.
How is 2026 shaping up? It has all appearances of having a resurgence to a better marketplace, with more choices for buyers. The phone already has been ringing with more listing potentials in a short time than we saw across any given couple of months in 2025. There seems to be plenty of pent-up purchasers out there looking to buy.
