Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid: a Major Wall Street Real Estate Disruptor has finally landed in DFW. Compass aims to own 20% of the US real estate market by 2020.
Compass, which bills itself as a real estate technology company that also sells real estate, has launched their first Dallas office by merging with the small but mighty boutique firm known as The Collective Residential. The Collective, launched by Christy Berry and Jonathan Rosen almost one year ago, branded itself as an elevated real estate experience for the agents and the clients they serve. Rosen and Berry came from Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s, where they were two of the most consistently high producing agents.
Calling itself “a unique boutique luxury brokerage comprised of dynamic real estate advisors (never agents) in Dallas- Fort Worth, with a focus on enhanced design and innovation that guarantees clients maximum efficiency and premier access to the city’s most exclusive properties and listings,” the firm vowed to limit itself to 30 or 40 agents at most. They currently have 13. Most recently Gaynelle Henger left Coldwell Banker to join The Collective, which boasts a beautiful office on Oak Lawn just south of Highland Park that resembles a sleek ad agency more than a real estate office. The firm also added Erin Duvall, Molly Duvall Thomas, Callie Brickman and Duke Jimerson III shortly before the holidays. Jimerson is the son of veteran Dallas agent Duke Jimerson at Allie Beth Allman & Associates. The Collective has clearly been building a team of millennial dynamo associates with deep family roots in Texas real estate.
The merger with Compass was actually something the duo sought before creating their company.
Robert Reffkin
Ori Allon
“We we went to New York City two years ago and talked them into opening Dallas then, but they just were not ready,” says Christy. “The Compass philosophy is much the same as our’s, very agent-centric, but they have this huge, impressive tech component that we could never compete with.”
Nor, says Christy, will others. In the New York City office, Compass has a full time tech department of about 80 engineers sitting in one room consistently working on the company’s intuitively designed software for agents to advance and improve, she says.
“They hire from Pixar, Apple, Google,” says Jonathan. “The mantra is to have full time tech people in every Compass office.” (more…)
