Keller Williams hires new director of residential rentals

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New Director of Residential Rentals Declan Devlin and Keller Williams CEO Adina Azarian

Keller Williams continued its Manhattan hiring spree today, naming Declan Devlin the director of residential rentals, effective May 31. Devlin was most recently a senior vice president at Best Apartments, and said he had been looking to take a position elsewhere because his “upside was limited” at Best Apartments. While Keller Williams Chairman Ilan Bracha and CEO Adina Azarian have made their focus on exclusive listings known, they chose a director with little experience in that realm.

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“Exclusive listings are completely out of my range of experiences,” Devlin told The Real Deal, “I’m completely new to that form of the business.” But Devlin said he is very comfortable presenting in front of landlords, and as when it hired Azarian to be the firm’s CEO, Keller Williams has demonstrated its preference for a certain character trait over a set of experiences.

“Declan impressed me the moment he told me that he started in the business when he was only 18,” Azarian said. “I knew immediately that I was connecting with someone that I could really relate to as far as work ethic and drive.” Devlin will be focused on training new agents and forging exclusive relationships with more landlords, rather than closing deals. In the meantime, he said there will be some opportunity for new agents to compete for open listings, as they get accustomed to their new roles. “We don’t want to be another open listings brokerage,” Devlin said, “but to get some of these guys up and running they’ll have access to an OLR-type database.” TRD