This week’s HW+ member spotlight features Budge Huskey, president and CEO at Premier Sotheby’s International Realty. He also serves as vice chairman of Peerage Realty Partners and has previously held executive roles at Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

Below, Huskey answers questions about the housing industry:

HousingWire: What is your current favorite HW+ article and why?

Budge Huskey: No specific article but generally zone in on those by Logan Mohtashami.

HousingWire: What has been your biggest learning opportunity?

Budge Huskey: The Great Recession. I was 46 and overseeing 150 offices and 7000 associates in Florida when the tap was turned off in August 2005. The importance of defining a clear mission, providing confidence in the ultimate outcome and instilling hope in the team whilst reinventing the company into something leaner yet far more powerful than ever was the ultimate leadership lesson. Nothing comes close.  

HousingWire: When do you feel success in your job?

Budge Huskey: Financial success and hitting targets are always rewarding and, after all, an expectation, yet my greatest joy comes when we have accomplished something for which there is an enormous sense of pride among the team and serves to further strengthen our culture as the ultimate competitive advantage. 

HousingWire: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Budge Huskey: There were countless lessons from my dad who was in real estate and development for sixty years. Included among them were two; one a dose of realism “in real estate, you wake up every day unemployed and have to go out and create your own job” and, the second, a glimpse into his empathy “A man’s station in life doesn’t matter, but rather how he strives to better himself and others.”

HousingWire: What keeps you up at night and why? 

Budge Huskey: The inevitable gravity of shrinking margins and the challenge of continually making massive investments to deliver on our promise of elevated experiences for both customers and our global real estate advisors.  Essentially, ensuring differentiation as the best place to win business in an industry which is increasingly devoid of standards.   

HousingWire: What do you think will be the big themes for the housing market in 2022?

Budge Huskey:

1. The sustained imbalance between supply and demand, resulting from a foundational shift in how often owners sell their home and critical underbuilding.   
2. The resulting affordability crisis and the inability for the next generation to enjoy the innumerable human and financial benefits from being a homeowner.
3. The return to reality after our sugar high of the last two years and a return to the realities of economics in our business of sustainability rather than throwing other people’s money around with no clear path to profitability

HousingWire:  What’s one thing that people aren’t paying attention to that you think they should be paying attention to?

Budge Huskey: The snail’s pace of legal proceedings will render any outcome years out, yet the potential impact of DOJ scrutiny and current class action suits to decouple commissions prevailing would prove devastating to the foundational structure of our business as we know today.    

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