NRT, Long & Foster among largest U.S. real estate brokers

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage's parent company NRT Inc., and Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. are among the country's largest real estate brokers, according to the 2002 Real Trends 500 report.

NRT, based in Parsippany, N.J., ranked first, with 397,049 transaction sides and 759 offices nationally. Long & Foster, based in Fairfax, Va., was No. 4 with 83,747 sides and 165 offices.

A company gets one transaction side for being the listing or selling broker. If the company acts as both listing and selling broker, it is credited with two sides.

The two brokerages had the same rankings by sales volume. No. 1 NRT had a volume of $117.1 billion last year, 11 percent more than in 2000. and No. 4 Long & Foster had a volume of $17.4 billion, up 23 percent.

Other local brokerages ranked in the top 500 include: Columbia's Re/Max Advantage Realty (230), Laurel's Century 21 H.T. Brown Real Estate Inc. (236), Baltimore's Re/Max American Dream (248), Re/Max Columbia (298) and Frederick's Mackintosh Inc. Realtors (474).

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage was formed March 12 when NRT acquired Coldwell Banker Stevens, Realtors, Coldwell Banker Realty Pros and combined it with O'Conor, Piper & Flynn ERA and Pardoe Real Estate ERA.