New Dev Broker Returns to Douglas Elliman From Compass

A veteran new development broker has returned to Douglas Elliman after just one year at Compass.

Samantha Behringer departed the brokerage for Compass in January 2025, ending a 23-year stint during which she oversaw a number of new development projects as the leader of her own eponymous team.

Her track record in New York City new development includes 12 new development projects, eight as sales director. The projects include the Oro Condominiums, a 303-unit condo in Downtown Brooklyn that launched sales in 2007, and 15 William Street, a condo-turned-rental-turned-condo building in the Financial District.

At Compass, she sold all three units in a boutique townhouse condo conversion in Gowanus at 167 13th Street for a total of almost $6 million.

Behringer said she missed the “luxury, boutique environment” at Elliman. “The move back was, to put it bluntly, to be with family,” she said. “There’s no way to recreate that sense of kinship that happens at Douglas Elliman.”

“We wish her well,” a Compass spokesperson said in a statement.

Behringer will bring the two other agents on her team back to Elliman, where she’ll split time between the brokerage’s Manhattan headquarters and its Greenwich office.

Behringer joined Compass about nine months before it announced its $4.2 billion merger with Anywhere Real Estate, the holding company for brokerages like Sotheby’s International Realty, Corcoran, Coldwell Banker and Century 21. The deal closed in January and the Compass brand now exists under Compass International Holdings, which oversees more than 300,000 agents.

“We’re one brand and we’re luxury all the way, and we’re expanding into markets that are luxury, and it’s clearly defined,” said CEO Michael Liebowitz of how Elliman has positioned itself as an alternative to larger competitors like Compass.

Behringer said New York City is still a major focus for her, she’s been working in Greenwich to continue to service clients looking to move out of the city. Her addition to Elliman’s Greenwich office at 75 Arch Street comes weeks after the firm picked up a top agent in the wealthy enclave, Megan Sullivan, from Sotheby’s, another brokerage under Compass International Holdings.

One of Houston’s top agents, Dana Johnson, also jumped to Elliman from Compass in January, as Liebowitz says he’s focused on growing in select luxury markets to create a “high-end referral network.”

Liebowitz, who said during the brokerage’s recent earnings that the firm was expecting to enter a “new growth phase,” added that he has a goal of adding 3,500 agents in 2026.

Compass has also picked a number of top New York City-based agents from Elliman in the last year, including 24-year veteran Holly Parker, Lindsay Barton Barrett and Dennis Mangone.