Daniel Gale Sotheby's acquires Bay Shore real estate brokerage

Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty has added its first office on the South Shore of Suffolk County through the acquisition of Meg Smith and Associates Real Estate in Bay Shore.

In recent years, the Huntington-based brokerage has expanded on the South Shore with offices in Long Beach and Westhampton Beach. It now has offices on Long Island and in Queens and Brooklyn.

"We had this big gap," said Deirdre O’Connell, CEO of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. "We had been talking about that area, particularly Bay Shore and Brightwaters, because in my mind it’s kind of underserved by a major brand."

The median sale price for homes on the South Shore of Suffolk County, excluding the Hamptons, was $475,000 across more than 1,500 sales in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to data from brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraisal firm Miller Samuel. While that is lower than prices in other parts of the Island, the median sale price rose 11.8% compared with the fourth quarter of 2020.

O’Connell and Smith declined to disclose the terms of the deal. In addition to its strategic location, O’Connell said the new office fit well culturally with Sotheby’s in the way Smith works with her clients and the 25 agents in her office.

"We believe in doing the right thing by our homeowners and sellers. That’s more important than getting the deal done is to do it properly and Meg totally believes in that," O’Connell said.

Meg Smith started her own brokerage in 2010 after previously working for several boutique real estate agencies and Century 21 Real Estate. She had previously run a preschool in Babylon and was inspired to work in real estate after a frustrating experience looking for a new space for the school in which her real estate agent tried to show her a restaurant as a plausible new location.

She recalled thinking, "I’m going to get my real estate license because this was crazy."

Smith said joining Daniel Gale Sotheby’s will allow her to focus on selling real estate rather than the administrative tasks tied to owning the brokerage.

She said joining the larger firm will give her agents access to technology and marketing expertise that she couldn’t offer on her own. They will also be able to collaborate with Sotheby’s agents to help clients who are looking to move from Suffolk County. "As an independent you have neither the time, resources nor the personnel to be able to concentrate on that," Smith said of developing a referral network outside the region.

The Bay Shore office is the latest expansion for Daniel Gale Sotheby’s, which added offices in Cobble Hill, Park Slope and Williamsburg through its acquisition of Avenue Sotheby’s International Realty in Brooklyn late last year. The brokerage has about 950 agents in the area who work as independent contractors.

O’Connell said the firm isn’t interested in adding agents and offices just to grow larger, and in some cases it could combine offices if that would better serve its markets. In one instance a few years ago, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s combined two offices in Roslyn and Old Westbury into a location in Wheatley Plaza in Greenvale.

"We took two good offices and made one fabulous office," O’Connell said. "That’s the type of thing you’ll see. It could be a little more square footage, if you’re bringing in a couple of offices, or maybe less square footage to have a more prime location."