Back in September, seven agents left Mark David and Company, the residential brokerage, to join City Connections Realty, a residential and commercial brokerage. Now, two of the defectors have formed a new, commercially oriented team, called the Capari Group, within City Connections.
Mahkyle Catalano and Nikhil Patel are president and senior partner, respectively, of Capari. The team plans to focus on commercial building sales and leasing, while remaining active in residential sales and rentals.
As of the middle of last month, the Group, which claims it has fluency in 10 languages, had five agents working for them. Catalano noted it was still looking to hire “agents that fit our vision.”
Catalano was the highest-grossing producer for Mark David in 2007 as measured by rental and sales commissions.
According to City Connections founder David Schlamm, the agents who left Mark David — a group that included Crystal Davenport, Lana Dzhindzholia, Hicham Elkerdoudi, Richard Guzman and Michael Rivera — were attracted to City Connections by an ad offering a 90 percent commission payout to agents.
Schlamm called them “high-producing people who saw that they deserved more take-home income for themselves.”