Boston Broker Craig Brody Finds New Opportunity in the City’s “Undervalued” North End
by David Hay
April 2026
“Broker of fun” is how Craig Brody identifies himself in his Instagram bio, and if you’ve ever met the Boston-based agent for Douglas Elliman, you understand why it’s an apt description. Even if you’ve only seen him in a recent team photo for the Brody Murphy Novak Group—in which a bearded, broadly grinning Brody sports Ray-Bans and a shawl-neck cardigan that can only be described as Lebowski-esque—his warm, bear-hug energy comes through clearly.
Brody launched his real estate career in 2018, after working for his family's fifth-generation wine and spirits business, M.S. Walker, where he gained experience in brand marketing and high-level negotiation and developed an extensive professional network. Since joining Douglas Elliman in 2021, where he is part of the brokerage’s Sports & Entertainment Division, he has built a thriving business from Greater Boston to Nantucket, where he recently sold a seven-bedroom home for $9.6 million.
Over the past two years, he has broadened that business through his association with Plumbrook Capital, a New York-based property development company focused on small- to mid-sized residential properties in Northeast U.S. urban markets. Brody was brought on as an on-the-ground advisor and broker exploring acquisition opportunities in Boston’s North End neighborhood.
“It’s given me a whole other understanding of real estate,” he told me. “Normally, with a residential property like the house I just sold in Nantucket, it’s a straightforward transaction: one and done. With what I’m brokering for Plumbrook—which starts with finding a property and researching its viability—these deals involve many more parties. And, of course, they take longer to complete.”
Traditionally home to the city’s Italian-American community, Boston’s Northeast appealed to Plumbrook Capital because of its smaller scale buildings, its quiet, narrow streets, and its overall sense of community. Most of all, they believed it was undervalued and largely neglected by bigger developers. Plumbrook and Brody wager that the existing housing stock can be repositioned and marketed to a rising generation of Bostonians relocating to the city for work.
Brody was responsible for lining up potential properties. Drawing on his large network of friends and contacts, he and the team looked at several options before completing their first purchase last May, a five-story building for $5.5 million. In November, they acquired a four-story building on Prince Street, for $2.6 million, followed a much larger 17-unit building, for $17 million.
Brody is happy with their progress. A native of the Greater Boston suburb of Framingham, he shares the group’s optimism for the housing market in the city he knows so well.
“Even though our rents are high—average monthly rent is $3,300—Boston is still very attractive to new residents,” he told me. “We have large numbers working in higher education and health care and others who see a growing future in tech. We’re expecting further rapid growth.”
In the midst of these exciting professional developments, Brody also faced a profound personal challenge when an irritation in his left eye turned out to be a rare cancerous tumor on the muscle behind his retina, causing loss of vision.
“I was lucky that it was on the muscle, so I was able to feel something was wrong and thus get treated,” he tells me. “If it had been on the retina itself, it may have gone unnoticed, and the cancer would have spread.”
After losing his father to cancer seven years ago, Brody became involved with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As a father himself (to three children in their tweens and teens), now with the wisdom of a cancer survivor, he is all the more grateful for the community of family, friends, and clients he has built as the broker of fun.
“When I was diagnosed, I knew that it would be important for me to communicate my illness with my clients—not only for being unavailable but more importantly for support,” he says. “We are all touched by cancer in some form. When we lost my dad, the support really helped get through the tough times. Cancer puts life into perspective. If you don’t have your health, you don’t have your business. I don’t let the little things bother me anymore.”
David Hay is a well-known architectural writer and playwright. His stories have been featured in The New York Times, Dwell and New York.
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