Over 100 new agents have joined Compass over the past month, with teams from Richmond, VA, Chapel Hill, NC, Sacramento and the Dallas-Fort Worth area coming to the brokerage.
On Wednesday, the brokerage announced the expansion of its presence in central Virginia through the launch of its new Richmond office. Jenny Maraghy, the head of the 38-person Jenny Maraghy Team, will be joining as a founding agent. The team was previously associated with Joyner Fine Properties. Also joining Compass is Team Hensley, a seven-person team led by AnneMarie Hensley. The team was previously associated with Liz Moore & Associates.
“We are always looking for ways to better serve our clients, bring them innovative solutions and maximize national exposure for their real estate experience,” Maraghy said of her team’s decision to join Compass.
Also moving to Compass on Wednesday was the Dallas-Fort Worth-based Ulterre Team, as first reported by Inman. The 58-person team was founded in 2016 by co-principals and co-founders John Giordano, Eric Walsh and Rich Wegman. The team was previously associated with Christie’s International Real Estate and was ranked 17th overall in Dallas by the Dallas Buisness Journal, based on sales volume.
These two additions were preceded by Compass’ launches in Sacramento and Chapel Hill. Through the Sacramento entrance, Compass said it gained more than 30 agents.
“Sacramento is the natural bridge between our presence in Lake Tahoe and the Bay Area, and is one of the largest metropolitan areas in California,” Kathy Murphy, the sales manager for Compass in Sacramento, said in a statement.
With the Chapel Hill launch, Compass gained four teams, including the 19-person Terra Nova team led by principal agents Tom Wiltberger, Kara Pittman and Mariana Fiorentino who came from a boutique brokerage in the area, and The Christine Khoury Team, a five-person team formerly associated with Coldwell Banker Howard Perry Walston.
Compass ranked No. 1 in sales volume in the 2022 RealTrends 500 brokerage rankings — the first company to reach the top in only 10 years of being in business. In an interview with RealTrends, CEO Robert Reffkin attributes the brokerage’s meteoric rise to the strength of Compass’ agents.
Early on, many in the industry were displeased with Reffkin’s aggressive agent recruiting methods, including large sign-on bonuses.
During the brokerage’s 2021 full-year earnings call in February, Reffkin suggested that Compass is not giving agents the same compensation packages it has in the past, stating that 62% of agents who recently came to Compass are receiving a less favorable split compared to their previous brokerage.
Instead, many of the agents interviewed by RealTrends cited Compass’ technology offerings as a major source of motivation to join.
“Before I joined Compass, a lot of owners of big real estate companies offered me incentive bonuses but my decision to join Compass was not about the incentives they put in front of me,” Jennil Salazar of the Jennil Salazar Private Client Group of Compass told RealTrends. “The reason I joined is that for a long time I’ve dominated the luxury market in Carmel, Indiana. My last company was very good to me, but they just did not have the digital platform to get my luxury business to the next level.”
