One of Douglas Elliman’s top teams is heading Out East.
Noble Black & Partners is setting up shop in the firm’s Sag Harbor office and adding two local agents, Averitt Buttry and William Schumann.
Noble Black credited the team’s expansion to finding agents with “deep local knowledge and experience.”
“I’ve long been asked to expand to the Hamptons, but have always hesitated,” Noble Black said in a statement. “It’s a natural cross-over with our clients here in the city.”
Both brokers have sold properties in the Hamptons for more than a decade. Buttry, a former attorney and Manhattan residential agent, is joining the team from Corcoran, and Schumann, a Hamptons native, is joining from Saunders & Associates.
Buttry’s listings include a two-bedroom home at 39 Lumber Lane in Bridgehampton asking $5 million and 471 Hill Street in Southampton, a co-exclusive with Corcoran asking $7.5 million.
Schumann’s listings include 50 Caldwell Road in Bridgehampton, asking $2.5 million.
The announcement comes shortly after the team snagged a buyer for a Sag Harbor home, priced at nearly $15 million, less than two weeks after it hit the market. Noble Black & Partners co-listed the property with one of Elliman’s top agents in the Hamptons, Erica Grossman, and Hedgerow Exclusive Properties.
The team also plans to list 139 Seascape Lane in Sagaponack with an asking price of $15.5 million.
News of the team’s expansion comes about four months after Noble Black teamed up with fellow Elliman agent Glenn Davis, who co-founded the Tuinstra Davis Team with Justin Tuinstra. The cohort’s headcount totaled 29 agents after the merger, including 10 team members from Davis’ former team, and appeared to add a specialty for New York City new development.
Noble Black & Partners ranked 31st among the city’s top resale brokers and 26th among its new development agents, according to The Real Deal’s 2023 ranking of agents by sell-side transactions. The team closed roughly $148 million in sales last year.
The cohort is adding to Elliman’s footprint on the East End, where it will join top agents like Grossman, Enzo Morabito and Martha Gundersen. The brokerage crowned TRD’s latest ranking of Hamptons brokerages with more than $2 billion in sell-side deals closed in 2022.
The team’s foray into the Hamptons follows a wave of brokerages opening up on the island after the pandemic, including Adam Modlin’s The Modlin Group, Serhant, Christie’s International Real Estate Group and The Agency.
The Agency’s Hamptons franchise — co-founded by former “Million Dollar Listing” star Tyler Whitman and longtime Sotheby’s International agent Dana Trotter — announced its arrival with a weekend of splashy events, including a $120,000 title sponsorship at The Hamptons Classic Horse Show and a $60,000 launch party.
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While Whitman and Trotter bet big on their success Out East, other agents cast doubt over their move considering the lack of inventory constraining home sales in the area.
“I’m definitely confused by the timing,” Compass’ Joe Fuer told TRD last summer. “We’ve had a lot of new players enter the market and we’re obviously well past that Covid [market]… I think some of the newer companies have some work to do in order to establish their brand and their clientele.”
But the Hamptons’ residential market was showing signs of life in April with listings up 41 percent year-over-year — an uptick that’s expected to boost sales in the coming months, according to appraiser Jonathan Miller.
“Inventory itself is expanding, and that’s something that has been sorely missed in the last three years,” Miller said.
This article has been updated with broker details for the Sag Harbor home sold by Noble Black & Partners, Douglas Elliman’s Erica Grossman and Hedgerow Exclusive Properties.