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As president and CEO of Anywhere Brands and Anywhere Advisors, Sue Yannaccone wears a lot of hats.
Anywhere is known for powering some of real estate’s most storied brands, including Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Corcoran, ERA and Sotheby’s International Realty.
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As the industry faced market challenges, leadership upheaval at the National Association of Realtors, litigation and major practice changes, Yannaccone helped steer the franchisor and its approximately 337,000 sales associates across 118 countries and territories through rough waters.
Inman caught up with Yannaccone in advance of her appearance at Inman Connect New York in January to discuss hot topics, goals, and challenges in the new year, and her advice for agents looking for guidance.
Here’s what she had to say, edited for space and clarity.
Inman: The National Association of Realtors faced challenges this year between leadership shakeups and industry litigation. The American Real Estate Association has now launched as an alternative to NAR. Do you see that as a viable alternative at this point? I realize it’s still very new.
Yannaccone: Yeah, I don’t know enough about it. I think that when things are changing in the industry, there’s always opportunity, and people are looking for a different way.
I think what that speaks to is an industry ready for change and an industry looking to be an advocate. I think the important thing is to ensure that you have trade organizations or advocacy that is independent in the support of its constituency. And, you know, kind of transparent in its focus and its goals. So, you know, I think it’s going to be something we’re going to watch.
I think there’s lots of things that will come and go, as we’ve seen in the past, but, I wish folks looking into the industry to change it for good all the best, and we’ll see where we end up with stuff like that.
Another thing I wanted to ask about is the fact that Anywhere’s luxury brands have been really performing well in recent quarters. Do you think that momentum will carry on into 2025? Are there any specific challenges that you think luxury agents will face next year?
Look, we’ve sold more million-dollar homes than anyone else in the industry. We have a very strong luxury leadership in Sotheby’s International Realty, in Corcoran, and, of course, in our global luxury business with Coldwell Banker Realty. And we love our luxury business. It’s very strong. It continues to be strong.
One of the great things about the luxury space is the dynamic business in any market really, right? There’s definitely less sensitivity to interest rate fluctuations. We have strong consumer confidence.
I was with our top 100 group of agents with our Sotheby’s International Realty Group in November and they were expressing strong consumer sentiment with their clients. We’ve had a relatively strong stock market, and those types of things really help the affluent buyer in the luxury market. So, you know, we continue to see that.
As I mentioned, we’re in 118 countries. We have a very strong international presence across that luxury business, and we continue to see strong demand for that as we grow those businesses internationally. So our luxury business is very strong. And you know, luxury always kind of leads out of any constrained market, and [that’s] no different now, and it’s remained strong actually during this time. So really, we’re really happy with that business.
Great. Thinking more big picture here, what do you think the biggest challenge is that the industry will face next year? I know you mentioned in an earlier conversation inventory is one thing that the industry continues to deal with. Anything else?
When I think about 2025, I look back at what 2024 was, and I think about it being a year of adaptation to a new way of doing business. And our industry showed up. I was super proud of my ecosystem, our brands’, the agents’ resiliency and their ability to navigate change and come through it and continue to deliver on their value to their clients.
And so I think the most important thing going into 2025 is going to be to carry through those learnings as we continue to see potentially a changing or challenged marketplace, right?
We don’t know what the year holds, whether it be on the legal landscape — I know I have all the trust and faith in my legal team to help us navigate that. I’m pushing our team to focus on growth, to focus on serving their customers, to helping them transact that home sale.
It’s going to be important that we don’t lose sight of the lessons we’ve learned, that we’re able to weather any storm, to adjust and be agile and to continue to thrive. And that, for the industry, is going to be an important thing in a market where we’re not sure what’s going to happen. We never know, but that’s the beauty of our business, and an entrepreneurial spirit will carry us through.
So what are the big goals for Anywhere specifically next year?
I know I mentioned growth, for sure. I think it is really leaning into our scale, continuing to scale our integrated business operations and providing that value and that opportunity to our affiliates and helping them grow their businesses, helping our agents take advantage of those integrated services to do more business, to continue to invest in technology to help drive efficiencies in the transaction.
Leverage AI and generative AI to continue to make both our internal business processes more efficient and effective, which in turn serve the consumer more, but also invest in things like our listing concierge program or marketing platform, which is award-winning for its use of generative AI that makes our agents better.
I think it’s leveraging technology to drive efficiencies and drive that integration of the transaction for the consumer and the agent focus on growth and really continuing to just move through a challenging market with our folks. And so I think that, really, the focus for 2025 is getting back to action. It’s raising the bar on what we’ve done and continuing to move forward, leveraging everything we’ve done to get us through, to catapult us going forward, and helping our companies grow.
Speaking more about AI, there were so many developments in the past year, especially in the industry itself. Where do you think we’ll be going with that in the next year?
Who knows? I think the opportunities are endless. I think, you know, we use it every day here at Anywhere in everywhere from our marketing tools and systems to how we use it to automate reporting and streamline our infrastructure and really leverage it in order to just move more quickly.
We were telling a story the other day of something that took four hours a year ago, that [now takes] 30 minutes or four minutes, you know, it just gets faster and faster. And so I think what’s going to happen is, we’re going to continue to see it just accelerate.
AI is moving faster than we can measure at this point in time, right? I mean, it’s just crazy. So companies need to have great teams that know how to implement that into our systems in order to take advantage of that. And that’s one of the great things about the scale of a company like ours, is we have the talent and we have the opportunity to implement that in so many different facets that we can really reap the benefit at large. But it is something that I don’t think we know yet where the benefits of it end, and it’s going to be pretty amazing to watch.
Agreed. So, thinking about those agents who struggled last year with industry changes, but also the market, what advice would you give agents to reset in 2025?
Right now is the perfect time to reset. It’s year-end. You take a look back, be super honest, look in the mirror. What did I want to accomplish? What did I not accomplish and why? And have that honest conversation and be very open to where you may need to pivot in order to grow through the changes that are coming.
Nobody ever grew and accomplished what they wanted to by ignoring what was kind of right in front of them. So I think embracing whatever growth opportunities are there, leaning into the change. Find a mentor. Work with your manager, and ask your manager for assistance in embracing whatever is coming or whatever has happened. You know, take some classes.
I find finding accountability partners is always super valuable in our industry, with agents to help you, accountable to what change you want to see. Because nobody can do it for you, and nobody can want it more than you want it for yourself.
For agents looking to do more in the coming year, be really honest about what held you back this year and ask for help. This is a team sport, and it’s always helpful to have some fans in your corner helping you out. So don’t be afraid to ask your manager to help you, your leader, phone a friend sometimes. It’s very helpful.
Is there anything else?
I think that next year is really going to be a year that we are focused on leveraging who we are. And as I said, I think ’24 was a year of adaptation, and ’25 is going to be the year of action. That really is where I am focused on: let’s stop talking about all the legal and industry change — it’s going to be there. Let’s focus on implementing, getting to work and serving our consumers.
