Official was left scrambling last month when allegations of rape and sexual assault against its two most visible co-founders surfaced.
Top brokers Oren and Tal Alexander stepped down from their roles at the brokerage after The Real Deal reported multiple lawsuits filed by women in New York claiming one or more of the brothers, including Oren’s twin, Alon, attacked them more than a decade ago.
As its top brokers and co-founders announced they were stepping back, the two-year-old brokerage has appeared determined to stay its course. The company, founded in partnership with Guy Gal’s San Francisco-based Side, posted a statement to its Instagram in June, claiming the firm remained a “healthy business on stable ground.”
“Our agents are the best in the business and deserve a lot of credit for their hard work and performance,” the firm said in a statement to The Real Deal. “While there has been some unavoidable impact to our listings, our agents continue to fill the pipeline with important properties and close big deals. We believe what we’ve got coming for the business will provide them the best platform they’ve ever had.”
But the firm still has to navigate shuffled leadership, agent exits, dropped developer deals and reassigned listings.
Michael Stern’s JDS Development made the first major change for the brokerage’s state of business, with sources telling TRD it plans to replace Official at its Dolce & Gabbana Tower in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. Michael Shvo followed suit a few weeks later, keeping Anna Sherrill to lead sales of the Rosewood Residences at the Raleigh in Miami Beach.
The brokerage also weathered a major blow on the opposite coast last week, when its top broker in Los Angeles, Tyrone McKillen, said he planned to leave the Official with his eight-person team. Their departure leaves Official with only six California agents, split evenly between L.A. and Orange County.
McKillen, who joined the firm as a founding agent last January, will operate his Plus Real Estate Group team as part of his Plus Development Group. The broker has 16 active and pending properties on the MLS, totaling $104 million in volume.
Chief growth officer Nicole Oge said in a statement acknowledging McKillen’s move that the firm had “a deep amount of respect” for him and would “support him in his new venture.”
The broker followed exits by John Hudak, who departed Official’s New York office for Compass, and Sherrill, who bounced back to One Sotheby’s International Realty two months after her arrival at Official. Sherrill and her team will lead sales at the Raleigh project.
More departures could be on the horizon. Alexa Kort in Beverly Hills is no longer listed as an agent on the firm’s website and her license is with Side, the white-label firm backing Official.
Kort did not respond to request for comment.
With Tal and Oren out of the company, Official’s legacy is unclear at this point.
In their absence, other agents at the firm have inherited some of their priciest listings, TRD analysis shows. In South Florida, Oren’s partner, Isaac Lustgarten, has taken over many of those. Lustgarten is now representing developer Jeffrey Soffer in the nearly $29 million listing of a penthouse at Turnberry Ocean Club, a waterfront condo tower in Sunny Isles Beach.
Lustgarten also held onto the listing for 222 South Coconut Lane, a waterfront home owned by Artefacto owner Paulo Bacchi. Oren and Lustgarten were co-listing the Miami Beach property; now it’s on the market with Lustgarten and Liora Rahimi for about $13 million.
In New York, Official agents Jared Schwadron, Brett Miles and Adrian Radomski have taken over listings once represented by or shared with Tal. Frederick Wallenmaier is now the primary agent on listings he once shared with Tal.
But some sellers are no longer working with Official.
Manny Medina, a multimillionaire tech investor, tapped Oren in early June to list his waterfront estate at 555 Arvida Parkway in the ritzy Gables Estates neighborhood in South Florida for $27.5 million. Three days after the first article on the rape allegations was published, the listing was canceled, according to the MLS.
On July 10, the listing returned to the market with Douglas Elliman’s Fredrik Eklund and Lourdes Alatriste, asking $29.5 million.
Other agents untangling themselves from the Alexanders hasn’t been a smooth process.
In late June, Lustgarten was listed as representing the buyer who paid $37 million for the Fisher Island penthouse belonging to tennis pro Caroline Wozniacki and her husband, former NBA player David Lee. Donnie Pingaro, Side’s managing broker in Florida, was later replaced in the MLS as the buyer’s representative. After TRD reported on the change, Lustgarten was restored as the buyer’s agent.
“Now we’re moving fast towards a construct that’s best for our agents and clients, and will continue our mission of redefining what people expect from a luxury brokerage,” Official said in a statement. “While we don’t have an announcement today, we’ll be ready to share news in the very, very near term.”
Read more
Residential
National
What is Official without the Alexanders?
Residential
National
After rape accusations, a closer look at the parties and social events that fueled the Alexanders’ rise
Residential
National
Tracking the rise, relationships and allegations around the Alexander brothers