Long & Foster is joining HomeServices of America. The real estate giant, one of the largest residential real estate companies in the country by sales volume, was acquired this week by HomeServices of America, a Berkshire Hathaway firm. Long & Foster’s business lines in mortgage, settlement services, insurance, and property management are also included in the acquisition.
HomeServices of America, an affiliate of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, also owns Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Prudential Real Estate, and Real Living Real Estate. The company is poised to become one of the nation’s largest residential real estate brokerage firms.
“This deal is big,” David Charron, chief strategy officer of Bright MLS, told
The Washington Post. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Long & Foster was founded in 1968 by Wes Foster and Henry Long. It has about 11,000 agents in more than 230 offices in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. In 2016, Long & Foster had nearly $29 billion in sales volume and more than 81,000 home sales transactions.
“We’ll continue to operate under our current Long & Foster brand names, and other than our ownership, it will be business as usual,” Wes Foster wrote to Long & Foster real estate agents about the acquisition.
Wes Foster will stay with the company and become chairman emeritus. Long & Foster’s president and COO Jeff Detwiler will become chief executive.
Source: “Long & Foster Acquired by Berkshire’s HomeServices,” The Washington Post (Sept. 7, 2017)
