Scott Klein | Credit: StreetEasy
Scott Klein and at least five members of his seven-person team are making the jump from Douglas Elliman to Compass. The move, first reported by The Real Deal, will boost the Brooklyn presence of the New York City-founded brokerage, which has experienced immense growth over the past year.
“We are honored to have [Klein] and his team join the Compass family,” Rory Golod, Compass’ general manager for the New York region, told Inman. “Brooklyn is one of the most important markets in the entire country for us and with Scott and his team joining we are continuing to build on our momentum within the community.”
While Compass has made headlines with its growth into new markets and with big acquisitions, on its home turf of New York City the company has also ballooned. Compass saw its New York City agent count grow by 72 percent in 2018 to 1,449 agents, according to an independent study by Space, a New York City-based real estate agent directory startup.
Klein’s team boasts of a combined 35 years of real estate experience. It ranked the 131st in New York State in 2017 in sales volume according to Real Trends, with nearly $50 million in transactions. According to The Real Deal, the team was the third most productive in sales in Brooklyn at Douglas Elliman in 2018.
A Compass source told Inman that the brokerage plans to expand its Brooklyn presence in 2019 with two new offices – one in Fort Greene near the Barclays Center and another in Bedford Stuyvesant. Compass currently has offices in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Park Slope and Cobble Hill.
The move to open more Brooklyn offices follows Compass CEO Robert Reffkin’s announcement at Inman Connect in New York that the company plans to grow in existing markets in 2019, rather than expand to new markets.
This is the third big agent or team that Compass has snagged from Douglas Elliman in the past year. In March 2018, Compass lured away David Dubin and in January 2019, Michael Graves jumped to Compass from Douglas Elliman.
It goes both ways, however, as Douglas Elliman snagged associate broker Lindsay Barton Barrett from Compass in December 2018.
A spokesperson for Douglas Elliman did not respond to a request for comment.
