Three decades building global real estate infrastructure.
This is the story behind the global real estate infrastructure that ultimately became The Alliance. What began in Warsaw in 1992 evolved into a mission to connect real estate markets, languages, professionals, and opportunities across borders. This is the journey that brought us here.
Building Global Real Estate Infrastructure Begins.
When I came to Poland in 1992, there was no real estate industry. There was little privately owned property. But as communism came to an end, foreign investors arrived in droves. I started Prime Property to serve this unique niche, and we were soon representing Citibank, Ford Motor Company, McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Maersk, LG, Auchan, the Embassy of Japan, the Embassy of the Netherlands, and other global institutions. In those days, every client was international. Virtually every transaction crossed languages.
Working with these international clients opened my eyes to the need for global infrastructure — and to the value in cross-border transactions.
The Vision Behind Global Real Estate Infrastructure
In 1997, I was in my office in Warsaw when a team member excitedly called me over to her desktop computer. There was barely internet in Poland at that time, but we had just gotten a T3 connection into our building because Citibank was our neighbor. On her desktop was Realtor.com — the first website I had ever seen. The moment I saw it, my imagination took flight: if I could look at American properties online from Warsaw, anyone should be able to see real estate anywhere, from anywhere, and in the language of their preference.
In those days, no one knew much about websites, or the internet. So I literally didn’t know any better than to assume I could make this idea real. With the help of professors from the Warsaw University of Science and Technology we built the prototype of what would become Immobel. In 1999, I sold Prime Property to CB Richard Ellis — which became CBRE — specifically to pursue this new internet venture.
Building Global Real Estate Infrastructure At Scale
When the NASDAQ collapse eliminated even the possibility of venture capital, I self-funded Immobel and we went live in March of 2000. Our first client was the Miami Association of Realtors, who fully understood the power of global visibility and language accessibility for their listings.
In 2008, Immobel powered the International IDX Alliance between Miami and Paris — the first cross-border MLS listings share, covered by The New York Times. In 2013, Century21Global.com launched with listings from 60 countries shown in 19 languages, with Immobel as the builder and host. In 2014, Sotheby’s International Realty launched their Global Referral System on the Immobel platform. In 2020, the Century 21 Global Referral Network followed.
Today, Immobel powers the referral and multilingual infrastructure supporting Sotheby’s International Realty, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA, Better Homes & Gardens, Corcoran, Engel & Völkers, and other global networks — facilitating more than $7 billion in referrals annually.
Global Real Estate Infrastructure For Independent Firms
For more than twenty-five years, my team and I built global infrastructure for some of the world’s largest real estate organizations. Sotheby’s International Realty reported nearly $7 billion in referral volume through its network in 2025. Those networks proved something important: relationships create opportunity. Visibility creates opportunity. Trusted connections across markets create opportunity. For decades, independent firms often had only one way to access those advantages — join a franchise and become part of someone else’s system.
Today, many brokerage owners are asking a different question: Can we remain independent and still compete globally? The Alliance is our answer. It brings together leading independent brokerages in a trusted professional network designed to create relationships, referrals, visibility, and opportunity across markets — without requiring firms to surrender their identity, culture, or control. Some firms have always chosen independence. Others are considering reclaiming it. And many have decided that control over their business is simply not negotiable. The Alliance exists for all of them. Being independent does not mean standing alone. Not anymore.
“I spent twenty-five years building global infrastructure for the world’s largest real estate brands. The Alliance brings those same advantages to independent firms that want to remain independent.”
