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]

From the May issue: Brokers famously sell the mantra of
location, location, location. But when it comes to their own offices,
that refrain may be changing. During the boom times, real estate
companies large and small rushed to open glittering storefront offices,
like Halstead Property’s mammoth 408 Columbus Avenue office across from
the Museum of Natural History, or the Tribeca office that Brown Harris
Stevens has on the ground floor of a 19th-century Romanesque Revival
building. The hope was to stake out their turf in prime neighborhoods
while attracting passersby. But New York’s housing slump has prompted
the rapid closing of some real estate offices, as firms seek to cut
costs, and the opening of others, as they seek to take advantage of
falling rents to gobble up new territory. And while closing an office
inevitably means ceding territory to competitors, with real estate
sales down nearly 50 percent from last year according to a quarterly
market report by Prudential Douglas Elliman, satellite offices are a
luxury many firms can no longer afford. [more]