Compass just picked up a pair of top-producing broker teams to bolster their operations in Chicago.
Kathleen Malone brought over four members of her Malone Residential team from @properties’ Bucktown office last Thursday. And Alice Chin and seven team members decamped Keller Williams Naperville to join the venture-backed brokerage on Monday.
Last year, Malone notched $50 million in sales volume and Chin tallied $41 million, according to Compass.
Malone, who sold an $8 million penthouse at the Ritz Carlton in 2018, will work out of Compass’ Lincoln Park office, which remains temporarily closed amid the coronavirus outbreak. Chin and her team will help open the brokerage’s forthcoming Naperville office, but its launch is on hold. Her team specializes in sales in the western suburbs.
Both Chin and Malone said the timing of the jump during the middle of the pandemic allows them to regroup and strategize. That wouldn’t normally be possible during the busy spring season.
“So much of the real estate business is reactionary, responding to all of our clients’ needs at any time of the day, moving things along and pushing paper,” Malone said. “There is very rarely a period throughout the year or even your career where you can take a step back from working in the business to working on the business.”
The poaching of Chin and Malone comes on the heels of several Compass agents defecting for their previous brokerages. Jim Ziltz jumped back to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago, and J Maggio was welcomed back to the city’s top brokerage, @ properties.
The fallout from the coronavirus outbreak has already led some brokerages, including Compass, to make cuts.
The New York-based brokerage, which has raised $1.5 billion in venture-capital, laid off 15 percent of its staff last week. The brokerage estimates a 50 percent drop in revenue over the next six months as a result of the pandemic. It’s unclear how the Chicago operation was impacted.
Realogy, parent company of local brokerage Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty, temporarily cut the salary and work week for many of its employees in an effort to avoid layoffs.
Messages seeking comment were not immediately returned by @properties and Keller WIlliams.