Fourth generation of Hunt family takes over HUNT Real Estate

A fourth generation of the Hunt family is taking over the HUNT Real Estate Corp., which owns and runs HUNT Real Estate ERA. On Monday, current CEO Peter Hunt announced that his son Charlie Hunt would be taking over the Buffalo, New York-based firm as its new CEO. 

Charlie Hunt first joined his family’s business while he was still in high school working across a variety of departments. He began selling real estate in the Greater Boston area while he was in college at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

In 2008, Charlie Hunt moved to Florida to help lead HUNT’s expansion into the Sarasota market. But the onset of the Great Recession ultimately led HUNT to abandon this initiative and refocus operations in its home market of New York state.

Charlie Hunt returned to Buffalo in 2011 and was named executive vice president of the firm in 2015. Four years later, he was named chief operating officer, and in 2022, he assumed the role of president of residential brokerage.

He also helped lead the firm’s expansion into the Greater Boston area through its merger with ERA Key Real Estate Services in 2018 and its acquisition of Great Spaces ERA in 2021. 

“I am humbled to have the opportunity to lead our company into its 115th year of continuous service to buyers and sellers of all forms of real estate and to expand our reach across all related elements of the industry,” Charlie Hunt said in a statement.

Peter Hunt will transition into the role of executive chairman, according to the announcement. 

“The industry has changed significantly and requires a new generation of leadership,” Peter Hunt said in a statement. “My son Charlie is uniquely positioned to continue building our organization’s prominence in all the regions we serve and beyond.”

The firm was founded in 1911 by Charles Hunt as the Hunt Business Agency. In 1947, Charles Hunt’s son, C. Stuart Hunt, took over the firm after completing his studies at Colgate University, growing it into a dominant residential brokerage in the post-World War II boom.

C. Stuart Hunt later took over the firm’s commercial brokerage operation after his father retired in 1968. 

Like his father, Peter Hunt also joined the family business following his college graduation in 1975. Almost a decade later, he founded HUNT Mortgage, and he later expanded into other ancillary services including title, insurance and commercial property management. 

In 2024, HUNT Real Estate closed 11,953 transaction sides for a total sales volume of $3.65 billion. It ranked No. 29 nationally by sides, according to the 2025 RealTrends Verified Rankings.