Saving the World, One Real Estate Deal at a Time

By Ashley Welch

Two years ago, real estate broker Jason Haber had a minor dispute with the Libyan government that changed his life.

In 2009, Haber started receiving phone calls from supposed Dutch diplomats inquiring about a townhouse on the Upper East Side to rent during the United Nations General Assembly. He became suspicious when they began making strange requests, such as taking extreme security measures and wanting to put a tent on the roof. When the “Dutch” officials revealed themselves as representatives of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, Haber told them he would give them the townhouse for free, on one condition—that they send Abdelbaset al-Megrahi back to Scotland. Megrahi, a Libyan citizen convicted of murder for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released to a hero’s welcome in Libya two years ago.

At the time, Haber was an agent for Prudential Douglas Elliman. He received thousands of emails in support of his actions and was particularly touched by those from family members of the victims of the attack.

“It got me thinking about how you can make that experience part of your professional work,” he said. “You can’t turn down dictators everyday, but you can add meaning and purpose to your professional work.”

That’s when the idea for Rubicon Property was born.

Haber, who lives with his wife, Cory, on the Upper West Side, is the chief executive officer of Rubicon Property, a “social entrepreneurial real estate firm” with a business model tied directly to philanthropy.

Every 90 days, the firm funds the construction of at least one clean-water well in the developing world through the nonprofit organization Charity Water.

“We measure our success by calculating how many lives we’ve impacted, instead of what our bottom line revenue or profit margin is,” said Haber, 34. “It’s a very different concept, so when people work with us they have the satisfaction of not only getting the best in customer service but they also get to know they’re helping make the world a better place.”

When he and his brother Cory founded Rubicon Property a year ago, they had $900,000 worth of listings. Today that number has reached $45 million.

Haber attributes the growth to the innovative nature of his business, emphasizing that it is the first of its kind in the real estate market.

His influences include companies like Tom’s Shoes, a company that donates one pair of shoes to children in the developing world for every pair it sells. This, he said, is what consumers are coming to expect these days.

“We think this is a larger trend in consumerism,” he said. “In the old business model, when people buy a product, it ends there. But in the new model, that’s only half of the equation. Consumers today have grown to expect something more.”

Yet no one else has adapted that model into real estate—that, Haber said, is what makes his company stand out.

“Real estate firms are a dime a dozen,” he said. “In the last 10 minutes, two real estate firms have launched and no one will hear of them or care about them. But people do care about us and people have heard about us because we have this entirely different model that works.”