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San Francisco

Compass Bay Area founding agent joins Christie’s

Phil Chen, who generates $250M in annual sales, and his team of nine switch brokerages

Phil Chen (left) and Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno's Chris Trapani
Phil Chen (left) and Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno's Chris Trapani (Luxury Real Estate, Getty)

Phil Chen, the agent who launched Compass’ operations in the Bay Area’s Mid-Peninsula four and a half years ago, has switched to Christie’s International Real Estate’s Northern California affiliate, taking $250 million in annual sales volume and a team of nine people with him.

Chen and his team, Sybarite Luxury Realty, joined Christie’s Burlingame office, increasing its active agent headcount to 16 from 10, according to the brokerage’s vice president of operations, Shawna Borg. Chen started his real estate career in 2006 and has since generated more than $1.1 billion in sales volume, according to Christie’s news release disclosing the move.

Sybarite consists of seven agents, including Chen, and a support staff of three. It specializes in buying and selling homes in the Mid-Peninsula, generally defined as Redwood City, San Carlos, Belmont, Foster City, San Mateo, Burlingame, Hillsborough, Millbrae, and San Bruno. Many of its sold listings are in Hillsborough, an affluent suburb where the median home sales price was $7.9 million from May through July, according to U.S. Census and Compass data.

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The exit fits into a series of negative developments at Compass, based in New York. The brokerage lost $289 million in the first half of the year, according to a quarterly report released last month. CFO Kristen Ankerbrandt departed earlier this year as the company, which has billed itself as using technology to improve the home-selling process, cuts its tech budget. And several agents have recently defected to competitors; in the local market, Jeff Barnett left Compass to take the helm at The Agency’s Los Gatos office.

For Chen, the move will give him and his team access to a luxury brokerage network with affiliates worldwide and Christie’s name recognition to complement Sereno, he said in a statement. Sereno, a Northern California residential brokerage, partnered with Christie’s owner @properties earlier this year to bring the brand to the Bay Area. The deal created Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno, which has more than 600 agents in the Bay Area and amassed nearly $6.6 billion in sales volume last year, Borg wrote in an email.

Compass declined to comment. Despite Chen and his team’s departure, it remains the Bay Area’s largest residential brokerage by gross sales volume and number of agents, the latest San Francisco Business Times data show.

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