Gail Liniger’s REMAX legacy includes shaking the hand of every new franchisee who came through broker-owner training in Denver, Sabrina Belleci recalled.
“She personally would meet and shake hands with each new franchisee in Denver when we attended our first broker/owner trainings to onboard with the brand,” said Belleci, a former REMAX multi-office franchisee and founder/broker at Casa Tua in Incline Village, Nevada, told Inman. “She was a welcoming and delightful woman.”
Liniger, who co-founded REMAX with her husband, Dave, in 1973 and later served as the company’s CEO, died Aug. 27 at 81. In the days since, REMAX brokers and agents across the network have described a legacy that extends beyond the brand she helped build to the doors she opened for women in an industry that, in its early decades, rarely let them own the business.
The company she built
Liniger became REMAX’s first employee when she and Dave founded the company in 1973, according to Emily Askin, a broker-owner with REMAX at Home and REMAX Preferred, writing in an Inman column. She was promoted to vice president that same year, then executive vice president in 1978, president in 1979, chief executive officer in 1991 and vice chair of the board in 2002, according to the company. Her rise to CEO came during a period REMAX has said also marked the start of its international expansion and cultural transformation.
“Gail was my partner in every sense of the word,” Dave Liniger said in the company’s statement announcing her death. “She was crucial to the success of REMAX, and in many ways was the steady force behind everything we built.”
Abby Lee, chief marketing officer of Real REMAX Group, said in the same statement that Liniger was known within the network for more than her business record.
“Beyond her professional impact, Gail was known for her warmth and ability to connect with REMAX affiliates around the world,” Lee said. “We are forever grateful for her vision and voice but also her friendship.”
Nick Bailey, president and CEO of REMAX, LLC, credited Liniger with shaping the company from its earliest days through its growth into a global brand.
“We’re all very fortunate she was there to help build the foundation in the early years — and help guide us forward as we grew into a global powerhouse through the decades,” Bailey said in a company statement. “REMAX is what it is today in large part because of Gail.”
Liniger stepped back from day-to-day operations in 2018 and retired from the REMAX Holdings board in 2023, when she was named vice chair emerita. Her death comes days after Real Brokerage completed its acquisition of REMAX Holdings, closing out the company’s run as an independent public company.
Liniger and Dave also championed REMAX’s sponsorship of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals starting in 1992. In 2011, the couple received the organization’s Founder’s Award — an honor given to only five others — after REMAX affiliates surpassed $100 million in donations to the network. REMAX affiliates have since donated nearly $200 million to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, according to the company.
Making room at the table
For Askin, Liniger’s influence on the industry came into focus during a single meeting four years ago, at a private event during the REMAX Broker Owner Convention in Nashville.
“There was a strength about her,” Askin wrote. “A grit balanced by grace that seemed to tell the story before she ever had to.”
Askin said Liniger’s legacy extends beyond REMAX itself to the era she helped shape, when women were rarely part of the decisions being made at the top of major brokerage brands, and that Liniger helped create opportunities for the women who came after her.
“She didn’t wait for someone to tell her she belonged at the table,” Askin wrote. “She took her seat.”
Lisa Nguyen, who joined REMAX more than a decade ago, said the Linigers’ approach to agents shaped her decision to join the brand. REMAX was among the early real estate companies to bring women on as agents in the 1970s, Nguyen said, and Liniger helped pave the way for women moving into the industry more broadly.
“Gail and Dave treated every single agent like family,” Nguyen told Inman. “She will truly be missed.”
For Belleci, that influence was direct. Coming up through REMAX as a female franchisee who went on to run multiple offices, she said Liniger made ownership feel accessible at a time when women were welcomed as agents far more readily than as business owners.
“She didn’t just open the door — she made you feel like you belonged on the other side of it,” Belleci told Inman.
The crash, the return
Liniger’s own resilience became part of her reputation within the company. In 1983, she was seriously injured in a small plane crash that killed the pilot and left her partially paralyzed. She spent months in the hospital, and doctors told her she might not walk again.
“My injury paralyzed my left side, and I lost peripheral vision in both eyes,” Liniger told CNN Money in a 2009 interview. “After six months of excellent therapy, I was walking again.”
She returned to REMAX leadership in the years that followed and became CEO in 1991. There is something poignant about her death coming at this moment in REMAX’s history, Askin wrote, as the company begins a new chapter under new ownership.
Tributes across the network
Tributes to Liniger spread across social media in the days after her death, with brokers and agents describing her as central to REMAX’s identity beyond the founding story typically told about the brand.
David Serle, a REMAX broker-owner in Boca Raton, Florida, wrote in a Facebook post that Liniger’s influence extended into the culture REMAX built around entrepreneurship.
“Every REMAX office, broker and agent carries a piece of the legacy she helped create,” Serle wrote.
On Threads, agent Amy Whitmarsh described Liniger and her husband as early disruptors of the traditional brokerage model.
“She and Dave paved the way for us all,” Whitmarsh wrote.
REMAX also released a video tribute to Liniger following her death.
A legacy that outlasts the brand
Askin, reflecting on what Liniger left behind for the women who came up in the industry after her, put it simply.
“She didn’t just tell us we belonged at the table,” Askin wrote. “She showed us. And then made the table bigger for everyone who came next.”
