Veteran Brokerage Exec Joins Platinum Properties

New York City-based Platinum Properties has added an industry veteran to its management team.

Karen Gastiaburo, a former executive at Warburg Realty and Town Residential, is taking over as the boutique firm’s sales director, according to the brokerage’s co-founder, Dezireh Eyn.

Gastiaburo is replacing Melissa True, who joined Platinum Properties in 2022 after seven years with Town and a year-long stint as a manager at Douglas Elliman. True “parted ways” with the brokerage in August, according to the firm.

True said in a statement after “amicably” splitting with Platinum she continues to work with the firm on a consulting basis.

Gastiaburo, who was born in the Bronx and raised in Long Island, moved to the city in the 1980s with plans to become an actress. Instead, she launched a decades-long career in real estate, starting with a temporary position at the William B. May Company. She stayed with the firm for nearly 24 years, including opening a Tribeca office where she served as sales director starting in 1998.

Gastiaburo later moved to Warburg Realty to establish the firm’s Tribeca outpost, where she led sales until jumping to Town in 2015 as the sales director of its Financial District office.

In 2017, Gastiaburo traded in her management role to focus on selling real estate as a broker with Halstead and Brown Harris Stevens after the two merged in 2020. She left BHS in February to join Christie’s International Real Estate Group but bounced back to the firm three months later.

Gastiaburo said that while her primary focus is managing the firm’s agents, she will continue to sell real estate when the opportunity arises.

“I’m not out there in the trenches,” she said, adding that she would likely partner with new agents on listings to help with training.

Dezireh launched residential and commercial brokerage Platinum with her brother, Khashy Eyn, in 2005. The firm, headquartered in the Financial District, has since grown to include 75 agents.

Earlier this year, Platinum’s Russell Pollack brought the buyers in Greenpoint’s priciest condo deal on record: a penthouse at Quadrum Global’s the Huron, which closed for $5.7 million in all-cash, off-market sale in October.

Last July, three of the firm’s agents, including Khashy, represented the tenant in what was at the time the city’s most expensive known residential lease. The anonymous renter agreed to pay $125,000 a month for a six-bedroom apartment at 100 Vandam. Khashy also worked on the $248 million deal for a 400-unit apartment building at 116 John Street, which Silverstein Properties purchased in 2021.

“Karen has already proven to be a game-changer,” Eyn wrote in a statement. “With her at the helm, we’re confident that we’ll scale our operations while preserving the close-knit, client-first culture.”

Eyn added that when she was on the hunt for someone to fill the position, a former colleague recommended Gastiaburo and noted, “If you could get her, she would be a slam dunk.”

In her new role, Gastiaburo said she’s tasked with helping to “groom some of [the firm’s] rental agents into sales people” and to serve as “a conduit, if you will, even to those who are seasoned.” She described her leadership style as “soup to nuts,” including helping agents with negotiations, meeting buyers for the first time and assembling board packages.

This article has been updated with a statement from former sales director Melissa True and with details around the end of her time at the brokerage.