Trump Soho sales director joins Eklund Gomes team

Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Eklund Gomes team, led by “Million Dollar Listing New York” star Fredrik Elkund and his business partner, John Gomes, has announced the hiring of its newest member: Sara Clephane, a luxury broker who headed up sales at Trump Soho.

Clephane joined the team this week, after marketing Donald Trump’s downtown tower since 2006. Her arrival marks further expansion for the Eklund Gomes team, which has grown significantly in the last year thanks in part to the publicity the hit Bravo show has garnered for Eklund, who appeared on the show’s first season and is currently filming the second season.

Clephane, recruited from Miami to take the position of director of sales at the Trump project, said she was eager to move on from the position at the Soho tower in order to focus on multiple projects at a time, particularly in the downtown market. She had been heading sales at the Trump development on behalf of residential brokerage Prodigy International, which is currently listing the condominiums on a co-exclusive basis with Elliman.

“I was just ready for something new. I wanted to expand my horizons instead of focusing so much on one project,” she told The Real Deal. “John and Fredrik have a lot of really exciting downtown projects. … I really love downtown. That’s kind of my specialty.”

Eklund, who noted that the team has expanded further to include 10 brokers in recent months, said in a statement to The Real Deal: “Sara is the perfect fit for us with extensive new development experience and an international following.”

Indeed, Clephane has conducted seminars for foreign buyers in Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama, she said.

The Eklund Gomes team is gearing up to launch sales at Veracity Development’s 111 Mercer Street, a five-story, four-unit building in Soho with asking prices ranging from $4.25 million to $10 million. It will also begin marketing 250 Bowery, a Nolita project by VE Equities that will feature 24 one-, two- and three-bedroom condo units.

Clephane also mentioned the team’s “flashy” marble house listing at 60 Collister Street, a 9,000-square-foot residence complete with a 45-foot-long pool, a wet bar and a wine cellar, which she thought would appeal to Russian and South American buyers.

As for Trump Soho, a spokesperson for the development declined to provide recent sales figures for the building. In May — the last time brokerage Prodigy International released data on its recent deals — less than one quarter of the 391 residences had been sold or were in contract. Clephane, who did not have up-to-date sales figures, said the volume of deals at the building has picked up recently, thanks to an upturn in the luxury market.