The leader of Connecticut’s top small team is headed to Compass.
Leslie Clarke, head of The Leslie Clarke Team, is leaving William Raveis after 12 and a half years with the family-owned brokerage. Clarke’s team crowned RealTrends’ 2022 ranking of small teams in Connecticut with over $124 million in sales volume.
Clarke declined to share the size of her team and whether members would be joining her at Compass.
“I’ve been in sales since I was 20 years old,” Clarke said. “I’ve actually never stayed at a firm for as long as I had my last one, so I think I was ready for a change.”
Clarke credited her move to Compass to the brokerage’s technology and its nationwide network of agents. The firm lists 288 agents in Fairfield County on its website and reported an average of 13,600 principal agents in the second quarter.
“I found that, especially in the last few years, referrals and networking are super important in this industry,” she said.
Compass invested $900 million in developing a technology platform for agents, which includes features like the predictive modeling “likely to sell” tool.
While at William Raveis, Clarke peddled properties in Fairfield County and Westport, with a particular focus on luxury waterfront homes. Clarke said her deals are largely for single-family homes with an average sale price around $2.4 million, though her team handles some condo sales and rentals.
Clarke’s team last year closed a $5.3 million deal for a historic Westport waterfront property at 42 & 44 Compo Mill Cove. In July, she sold another Compo Cove-facing home at 248 Hillspoint Road for $7 million.
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At Compass, Clarke said she plans to continue selling in her primary markets but is open to expanding.
William Raveis, headed by chairman and CEO Bill Raveis, was founded in Fairfield in 1974 and now covers markets in the Northeast and Florida.
Compass said in its second quarter earnings call it was cash flow positive for the first time since it went public in 2021. The numbers followed an aggressive cost-cutting strategy, which involved multiple rounds of layoffs and eliminating its cash and equity incentives for new agents.