From top left: Nest Seekers CEO Eddie Shapiro, managing directors Melvin Caro and Alex Dietrich, and a rendering of the new Williamsburg office at 578 Driggs Avenue

Come next Wednesday, Nest Seekers International will have a brick-and-mortar Williamsburg presence with a new office at 578 Driggs Avenue.

It’s a duplex office in a storefront location at the corner of North 6th Street, said Eddie Shapiro, the company’s president and CEO. He wouldn’t disclose the terms of the lease, but said the space clocks in at just shy of 2,000 square feet.

Nest Seekers, which has five offices in New York City (one of which is under construction), four on the East End and one in Miami, was “getting pressure” from agents and customers to open an office there, Shapiro said, and he wanted to expand the reach of his firm. [more]

Nest Seekers International added Hamptons-based brokerage Perspective Properties to its growing East End stable, the company announced today. Nest Seekers will absorb 11 agents, 20 exclusive properties — some listed for as much as $10 million — and Perspective’s 688 Montauk Highway office, rebranding it as Nest Seekers Water Mill. The acquisition comes on the heels of April’s purchase of Engel & Volkers Southampton office, and brings the firm’s count of Hamptons brokers to 40 and Hamptons offices to four. The firm also maintains three Manhattan offices, one Queens office and another in Miami and more than 150 agents in total. The firm also operates overseas through a set of international affiliates. “Their office location is superb, and they are a pleasure to work with,” said Eddie Shapiro, CEO of Nest Seekers International, in a statement. – Adam Fusfeld

In a move to expand its presence in the turbulent East End real estate market, Nest Seekers International has acquired the former Southampton-based real estate flagship of German brokerage Engel & Volkers, The Real Deal has learned.

Engel & Volkers, based in Hamburg, Germany, originally launched the Southampton franchise location in 2006 as its North American flagship and later expanded into Scarsdale as well as a number of other franchise offices in Florida, Boston and other parts of the country.

Jonathan Lerner, president of EV Scarsdale, which operated the Engel & Volkers franchise in New York, confirmed that company sold the physical assets to Nest Seekers and is in talks on a potential new franchise to operate under a different brokerage flag.

“We will be rebranding,” he said. [more]

From left: Nest Seeker’s CEO Eddie Shapiro and REBNY President Steven Spinola

In an unusual move, the Real Estate Board of New York sent a mass e-mail to more than 500 members notifying them that the trade group had fined the residential brokerage Nest Seekers International $5,000 for laying claim to another broker’s exclusive listing.

Several residential real estate insiders said it was the first time they had received a mass e-mail from REBNY notifying them publicly about a punishment. But at the same time, they said Nest Seekers was deserving of a sanction because it has often improperly put other firm’s exclusives on its own site.

REBNY, the city’s leading real estate trade organization, sent the notice of the fine yesterday afternoon to residential brokers. [more]

From left: Nest Seekers CEO Eddie Shapiro and new hire Caroline Grane

Boutique brokerage Nest Seekers International is planning a hiring spree on the heels of what it says was its “most profitable year ever” in 2010, CEO Eddie Shapiro announced today.

The New York City-based company — whose exclusive new development marketing contracts include the Residences at 36 Gramercy Park East, 99 John Deco Lofts and the View in Long Island City — has already hired some 15 new brokers over the past few months and is planning to take on 20 more in the months to come. TRD [more]

From the May issue: A year ago this month, New York’s real estate community experienced one of the darker moments of the recession when Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy — one of the city’s largest and most established firms — announced it would close. However, CBHK turned out to be the only major firm that disappeared. Business, meanwhile, has steadily improved for months. “New York has had a very good rebound,” said Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group. [more]

From the February issue: Nothing says progress like Madoff. Late last month, The Real Deal broke the story that the Ponzi schemer’s Upper East Side penthouse finally appears close to a sale.
Listing brokers Anne Corey and Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s
International Realty have told interested agents that there is an
accepted offer on the 133 East 64th Street duplex. At press time, the
U.S. Marshals Service, which seized the property from the disgraced
financier, said the listing had not yet entered contract.
The sale (if it does clear the many obstacles of today’s market) may not be unqualified good news.
The penthouse’s asking price is $8.9 million, following a November
price chop of $1 million. It’s also been sitting on the market since
September.  [more]

From the November issue: A year after the financial crisis, Manhattan real estate brokers report that the market is finally returning to normal. But they don’t mean the lightning-fast sales and skyrocketing prices of the recent real estate boom. They’re talking about a more moderate, predictable real estate market, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Manhattan for years. “The last three years have been very interesting,” said Jill Bane, an associate at Leslie J. Garfield & Co. Before the market cratered as a result of the subprime crisis, “prices were very high and there always seemed to be several competing bids,” she said. Now, however, “a sense of normalcy has returned to the market,” said Bane. Bane represented a townhouse at 17 Bank Street, on the market for $10.5 million, that recently went into contract. “People are buying; they are just not as irrational as the prior two to three seasons.”

Nest Seekers CEO Eddie Shapiro and 415 Madison Avenue (Building photo source: PropertyShark)

Using the downturn as an opportunity for expansion, Nest Seekers International has opened its fourth Manhattan office. The seven-year-old residential brokerage opened a 4,000-square-foot office this week at 415 Madison Avenue between 48th and 49th streets, according to Nest Seekers CEO Eddie Shapiro. The space will hold about 50 agents, some newly hired and some from other offices, he said. The company which focuses on low- to mid-priced sales, founded by Shapiro, also has Manhattan offices at 2190 Broadway between 77th and 78th streets, 20 East 49th Street, 55 Christopher Street in the West Village, as well as space at 47-44 Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City, East Hampton and at 1221 Brickell Avenue in Miami. Shapiro said this is the company’s first foray into Class A office space, but the company got a good deal because of weakness in the commercial real estate market. “The cost of opening that office was probably half of what it would have cost us a year and a half ago or two years ago,” he said. [more]