Keller Williams team defects to The Agency

Dennis Chernov leads move Mauricio Umanksy’s brand with Sherman Oaks office

Dennis Chernov (Chernov Team)
Dennis Chernov (Chernov Team)

A Keller Williams team led by Dennis Chernov is moving to The Agency, marking the latest installment of an ongoing personnel shuffle among Los Angeles’ top residential brokerages.

Chernov and an eight-person team that includes his wife, Yana, are joining The Agency’s Sherman Oaks office, according to an announcement. Along with the Chernovs, the team includes Kevin Silver, Burt Bakman, Steven Ejiofor, Greg Shenon, Nicole Tekiela, Sarrah Gallegos, and Hovik Pakhanyan. The group will work on deals in the San Fernando Valley, focusing on Hidden Hills, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Toluca Lake. The territories the team covers combine for an upscale swath of residential communities at the southern end of the San Fernando Valley– just north of where it meets the rest of Los Angeles.

“We’re thrilled to welcome the Chernov Team to The Agency family, further adding to our robust team of agents servicing The Valley,” said Mauricio Umansky, the firm’s CEO and founder.

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The Chernov Team claims to have $3 billion in sales volume over the past 12 years. Dennis Chernov was included in The Real Deal’s list of top-producing agents in 2020. At the time, he ranked ninth with a deal volume of $66.8 million across 32 transactions.

The Agency has 850 agents in over 49 offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Chernov’s entry into the firm adds to the list of high-profile defections in the Los Angeles residential brokerage industry. In August, reality TV star Josh Flagg moved from Rodeo Realty to Douglas Elliman. Flagg, an original cast member of the TV show Million Dollar Listing, joined an expanding Elliman, which opened its first Los Angeles location in Beverly Hills in 2014.

The Agency recently completed a similar hiring with Adam Rosenfeld, who joined the firm with his eight-agent team from Compass. Rosenfeld, who specializes in “legacy estates,” was paired with The Agency’s Jon Grauman. The expanded team will handle the firm’s expansion into the Bay Area, Orange County and Miami.