Diane Ramirez
Chief Executive Officer
Halstead Property

A greatly respected and passionate leader, Diane M. Ramirez is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halstead. Under her thoughtful and careful leadership, Mrs. Ramirez has strategically grown the firm from its original goal of three storefront offices in the most important communities in Manhattan to its current size of nearly three dozen strategically located offices with 1,300 agents throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Riverdale, the Hamptons, Hudson Valley, New Jersey and Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Licensed in New York, Connecticut and Florida, Mrs. Ramirez has been an active real estate executive and broker for more than three decades. She started her career in Palm Beach, Florida where she worked as an agent for a number of years before returning to her hometown – New York City – where she quickly became a top real estate broker. She and Clark Halstead together founded Halstead in the Fall of 1984. Their vision for the company was a high-end firm that utilized advanced technology combined with old fashioned elegance that covered all segments of the market and was located in the communities that they serviced. Due to their vision, Halstead became the first big firm to utilize storefront offices in Manhattan as well as the first to be on the West Side and in Downtown. They worked closely together growing the firm organically and were purchased by Terra Holdings in 2001, who helped grow the firm to the size it is today.

Mrs. Ramirez was appointed by the Governor to the Department of State Real Estate Board in 2010 and is still an active member. She is also a member of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), where she currently serves on the Board of Governors, their Executive Advisory Board and as Co-Chairman of their Board of Directors of the Residential Division. Diane was an early supporter of REBNY and has played an integral role on many of the committees including Ethics, Education and Admissions. In addition, she is an accredited continuing education teacher for the State.

An active member of the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE) for more than 20 years, Mrs. Ramirez serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors along with other top real estate executives from all over the world. LeadingRE is a selective global community of over 550 independent real estate firms and 128,000 associates producing over one million transactions valued at $351 billion annually.

Over the course of her career, Mrs. Ramirez has been consistently recognized for her dedication, guidance, passion, commitment and enthusiasm to real estate. Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® presented Mrs. Ramirez with their prestigious Leadership Award, which honors a member broker for outstanding leadership achievements. Mrs. Ramirez was also the honored recipient of the Henry Forster award, an annual REBNY award presented to a real estate professional with an outstanding record of achievement and conduct both within the industry and the community. Additionally, she was named the ‘2016 Real Estate Person of the Year’ by the Institute of Real Estate Management, an award recognizing outstanding achievements within the real estate industry. Mrs. Ramirez is routinely ranked by the New York Observer as one of the 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate.

Mrs. Ramirez is involved in philanthropy both in and out of the real estate community. REBNY recognized her community service by presenting her with the Kenneth R. Gerrety Humanitarian Award, an award that honors REBNY members’ outstanding service to the community. In addition, she has been presented with the New York Moves ‘Power Women’ honor, the City & State ‘CSR Responsible 100’ and the OTTY ‘Eastsider of the Year’ Award, each of which acknowledge outstanding involvement in the community. Mrs. Ramirez was also honored by the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter with the Celine Marcus Community Service Award. She and her husband, Sam Ramirez, are long-standing supporters of the Valerie Fund in New Jersey (an organization which helps children with cancer), and were honored at their annual Thanksgiving Gala for their outstanding involvement and dedication to the charity.