Derek Olivier, Broker, One Market Real Estate

May 2026 — Invest: sat down with Derek Olivier, broker of One Market Real Estate, to discuss how uncertainty is affecting buyer behavior, the pressure on smaller firms, and the outlook for housing in South Florida. “Waiting for a future that may not happen, prevents you from getting the opportunity in the present,” Olivier said.

What changes over the past year have most impacted your business and your clients, and how have those changes influenced your strategy?

The broader economy has created hesitation among business owners and clients, especially when it comes to making bigger moves. There has been a lot of volatility, and that has caused people to be extremely cautious. Whether they are looking at rentals or purchases, they are paying closer attention to the full cost of the transaction over time rather than just the immediate number. Because of that, my strategy has shifted more toward increasing volume. The quality-over-quantity approach is not as profitable as it was before, so the focus now is on increasing transaction count.

How are those pressures showing up in the residential market?

Residential is really the foundation of our company, and we are seeing pressure faster and harder, especially because we are a small business. 

Over the last couple of years, I have become more of a firefighter. It feels like I am constantly putting out one fire after another. A lot of my time now goes into coaching people, building confidence, and helping customers move through uncertainty. Since the Great Recession, people have remained cautious, and many have spent years waiting for interest rates to go back to 3%. That has not happened, and it is not happening anytime soon.

What I try to do is help people understand what they can control. They cannot control interest rates, but they can control purchase price and other terms around the transaction. If rates improve later, they may be able to refinance. Building confidence in customers has become one of the biggest challenges for us. Waiting for a future that may not happen, prevents you from getting the opportunity in the present.

What differentiates your approach to working with clients?

I started my career in commercial real estate and related financial roles. I worked in commercial for many years and then transitioned fully into residential. We still do some commercial deals, but not nearly as much as before.

What pulled me toward residential was the experience of helping people with what is often the most important financial decision of their lives. Buying a home is more money spent in a short period of time than many people will spend on anything else. Because of that, we take our role seriously.

I usually compare myself to a shepherd. I am not making decisions for clients. I am helping guide them. I show them the alternatives, help them understand what they can do to offset possible future issues, and give them guidance so they can make the best decision for themselves. That is the bigger part of the job.

What key trends are you seeing in the residential market across Greater Fort Lauderdale?

Hesitancy is still the best word. Broward is pretty much built out, and that limits what can happen there. Palm Beach still has some new construction, but even there, the more affordable projects are farther west, and demand is not as strong as it used to be. In Broward, much of the new construction is high-end, and that prices a lot of people out.

You can also tell the market is softer when developers start offering more incentives to brokerages. When you see incentives to realtors, you know developers are not getting the sales they used to get. We have been seeing that.

There are still places that stand out. Fat Village is still developing. A lot of people thought it would emerge even more quickly, but it is still moving forward. Las Olas remains strong, and Lighthouse Point is also developing in different ways. But overall, I would describe the market as flat compared with prior years. Prices are still increasing, but in a much more moderate way. Instead of seeing jumps of 6% or 7% year over year, you are now seeing more like 1% or 2%. The market has stabilized, and the year-over-year increases are not as extreme as they used to be.

What are the biggest challenges facing agents and brokers today, and how is your firm adapting?

For agents, one of the biggest changes was the legislation and industry changes that came down in 2024. Those changes required buyer representation agreements and made compensation something that had to be more clearly negotiated. That scared a lot of people in the industry at first.

What the market has shown, though, is that it adapted. Sellers still recognize the value of the buyer’s agent, and in many cases they are still effectively supporting that side of the transaction because they understand that without that incentive, agents may be less likely to bring buyers to a property. So while the change created fear, it has not changed the model as much as people expected.

Still, buyer’s agents are more cautious, and when the market tightens and sales volume falls, they are usually the first to leave the industry. Listing agents tend to remain longer. For brokers, that matters because brokerage is based on volume. As transactions decrease, it becomes more challenging to sustain the business. That is why you are seeing some bigger firms closing or consolidating.

For smaller companies like mine, we have been able to maintain our market share to some degree, but it still brings challenges. A big part of my job now is encouraging team members and keeping them focused. When there is a lot of doom and gloom in the industry, I become a coach as much as anything else. I have been in the business long enough to go through the crash, COVID, and other shifts, so I try to keep people focused on the opportunities rather than only on the negative.

What is your outlook for the South Florida real estate market over the next three to five years, and what will be your top priorities as a firm?

South Florida is in a transition. During COVID, there was a big influx of people, especially from New York. That has eased a bit, and now we are seeing some people leave or go back. Some came expecting cheaper costs and a different kind of lifestyle, and they found that the experience here was not always what they expected.

I still think South Florida remains strong. We have been a net-positive destination for years, and people still want to live here. When people think about South Florida, they think about a place they want to be. It is a destination, and that gives the market long-term strength.

I believe prices will still rise over time. There is still room for growth. We are not California, and we are not New York in terms of pricing, even though demand here remains strong. The bigger issue is income. The gap between local income and housing costs is a serious concern, and there is definitely a housing shortage in South Florida.

Even with that, I think development is moving in the right direction. The quality of the environment is improving, the culture is developing, and it remains a place people want to be part of. As a firm, the priority is to stay adaptable, continue guiding clients through uncertainty, and keep focusing on the opportunities that still exist in this market.