Corcoran shuffles East End management

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From left: Rick Hoffman, Tim Davis and Philip O’Connell

At the Corcoran Group’s Southampton office, a managerial shift that might have seemed like an insult was actually a company “goal,” the people involved in the moves said.

Tim Davis, who spent four years as senior managing director at Corcoran’s Southampton office, following the firm’s acquisition of his former company, Allan M. Scheider Associates, has left his role, with an outsider, Philip O’Connell, replacing him. O’Connell, who has no prior brokerage experience, is an East End native and a real estate attorney.

Rick Hoffman, a Corcoran senior vice president for the East End overseeing operations in the Hamptons, said the change was made so no managers in the Hamptons would also be selling homes.

“It was always our plan to have [a] non-selling manager,” Hoffman said of Davis, who was a Southampton office manager for 16 years, prior to Corcoran’s 2006 Schneider acquisition. “It’s a goal that we’ve had. In many companies, agents have a hard time going to a manager who is competing with them.”

Hoffman said O’Connell’s background in real estate law will make him valuable, even though he has no sales record.

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Davis, who will stay on with Corcoran as a senior vice president and broker, will assume the new title of “East End Adviser,” an advisory role to the management team as a whole.

Davis said he was happy with the managerial change, and said that O’Connell’s lack of a brokerage background would not be a hindrance.

“I think his background in real estate law will bring something to the table. There are legal questions that come up on a regular basis,” Davis said.

O’Connell declined to comment.

According to Hoffman, there are no hard feelings.

“A non-selling manager can devote their full time to coaching,” Hoffman said. “If you’re selling, would you want to go to a manager who has a competing listing?”