Homestead gets reincarnated

The co-founder of the now-defunct brokerage Homestead New York has started his own company.

Homestead co-founder Danny Shamooil said he recruited roughly 12 former Homestead agents to work at the new company, Prime New York, which is headquartered in a 1,000-square foot space at 48 Wall Street at William Street. Homestead announced last month that it would cease operations after what Shamooil said was a series of disagreements between him and partner Eli Adahan.

Homestead alum Eric Hantman is vice president at Prime, and Jared Scotto is managing director.

The company, which is launching its Web site in two weeks, will specialize in residential sales and rentals but will also dabble in commercial leasing, building sales and investment packages, Shamooil said.

Shamooil said he will hire at least three new agents by the end of March, but his plan is to keep the company small.

“We’re going to keep it boutique,” he said. “We’re not out there to have 1,000 agents, where 1 percent of the agents are the ones that are making money. We want 100 percent of the agents to be making money.”

Hantman elaborated. “We’re definitely different from the direction Homestead was taking,” he said. “Most of these other companies are bringing in all types of agents. Really our vision here is a boutique-style firm that not about quantity of agents, it’s about quality.”

Homestead, a four-year-old boutique brokerage, had 35 agents by the time it closed but at one point had many more than that. It started with an office at 102 Fulton Street, specializing in the Financial District, and later expanded with offices on the Upper East Side and in Midtown. The Midtown office, at 900 Eighth Avenue at 54th Street, was the only one still open at the time of the company’s dissolution.