Robert Anderson: The Ironman Broker Betting on Palm Beach

Robert Anderson does not describe his career change as a leap. He describes it as a training block. “I kind of take that attitude and mental aptitude from endurance training and apply it to business,” the Managing Broker and minority partner of Engel & Völkers Palm Beach told 1NFLUENC3’s Richie Hosein.

The office opened a few months before the interview, at 135 Quadrille Plaza Drive in West Palm Beach. Alongside it, Anderson does development work and capital advisory, “primarily in the Palm Beach region.”

The COVID pivot

Anderson spent about 18 years running a software development company. Then, as he puts it, “I did the COVID career pivot.”

It started with a deal that fell through. He was trying to buy an 11-acre campus, the former Palm Beach Post site, and lost it. The process stuck with him anyway. “I got bit by the bug,” he said. “I’m going all in.”

That lost deal pointed him to a broker and people he already knew. He joined a brokerage that had been in business for about 35 years, “went in blazing,” and says he did about $45 million in volume in his first two years.

Thirty-three years of groundwork

Anderson is quick to say the fast start wasn’t luck. “It was 33 years prior to that,” he said. A Chicago native, he moved to Palm Beach County in 1988, went to Palm Beach Atlantic University, “and just built a network.”

He met people through volunteering. Nonprofit boards, he noted, are full of business people. He met more through endurance sports. His other rule is “being comfortable with being uncomfortable,” which means showing up at events and introducing himself.

The deals followed. He says he closed about a $19 million deal in his first year and a $15 million deal after it. He then co-founded Tortoise Realty Group, a brokerage tied to a family office, and in 2025 launched his own firm, Anderson Urban Real Estate, before taking the managing broker role at Engel & Völkers Palm Beach. “You make your luck,” he said.

Mile 80

Anderson has finished four Ironman races, a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run, including the world championship in Hawaii. He has also raced Escape from Alcatraz in San Francisco, and he was just accepted to race it again. His 11-year-old son, he said, wants him to do it.

He says the training is where the business lessons come from. “When I’m sitting there on a Saturday morning in sunny South Florida and I’m on mile 80, and I’ve got 20 more training miles to go and it’s about 95 degrees,” he said, “you just continue on. And then you’ve got to do a 10-mile run after that. And you just do it.”

“Perseverance always perseveres,” he added. “You keep on keeping on.”

A $19 million piece of dirt

Asked about his biggest deal, Anderson said the current one is still confidential. The one he can talk about is “a $19 million deal, which is a piece of dirt, essentially.”

What happens to a $19 million piece of dirt? “They build a 264-unit multifamily property on it and lease it out,” he said.

He described how it came together. He heard about an off-market parcel, phase two of a developer’s project, whose owners were willing but not required to sell. He called a former employee from his software days who had become a broker, and five weeks later they were under contract. After the developer broke ground, Anderson helped start the family office’s brokerage and placed about 102 of the 264 units on a three-year master lease.

“Still a hidden gem”

Anderson has watched West Palm Beach since 1988, back when, he jokes, beach parking was free. He still sees untapped ground. “This is still a hidden gem, and there’s still tremendous opportunities here,” he said, pointing to the North Dixie and South Dixie corridors as areas that “really need to be activated.”

His argument rests on institutions moving south. He cited Vanderbilt coming to West Palm Beach, Carnegie Mellon going to Miami, NYU Langone already in the area and Boston Children’s announcing its arrival. “Wall Street South,” he called it. The goal, he said, is for people who grew up there and left for school to come back. That requires affordability, and he named affordable housing as one of his own initiatives.

From Palm Beach to Dubai

Anderson’s newest role reaches well beyond Florida. He is president of the Palm Beach chapter of the Miami Dubai Chamber of Commerce, which, in his words, is “connecting the gateways of Miami and Dubai.”

The Palm Beach chapter has existed for about a year. He said it has held four successful events and has a strong season ahead, with a focus on thought leadership and introductions. “Miami’s got a great chapter, and our objective is to do the same,” he said. The network is growing to New York, Riyadh and Cairo.

The chamber also suits how he likes to work. “You’ve got to be friends with the people that you serve,” he said. “That’s where it starts, and I think the chamber really facilitates that.”

Never give up

Anderson’s advice to founders echoes his training. “Never give up,” he said. “There’s always going to be naysayers, and don’t let them get you down. Have a passion for what you’re doing.” For anyone making a career pivot like his, he stressed patience: sticking with it “is not a year, year and a half, it’s several years.”

“There’s going to be tough times,” he said, “but the guy who gets through that is the guy that’s going to win.”

Asked what the world should know about him, he skipped the deal sheet. “I’m the world’s best dad.”

Robert Anderson spoke with Richie Hosein for 1NFLUENC3. Video produced by 1NFLUENC3 Media. Find him through Engel & Völkers Palm Beach, at AndersonUrban.com, and on Instagram at @robmaine.