Germany’s Engel & Völkers Keeps Recruiting Bay Area Talent

A pair of former Vanguard Properties executives are switching teams to Germany-based brokerage Engel & Völkers.

Robert Brisbane will serve as regional president of the San Francisco Bay markets for the luxury agency, while Randy Romero will be manager of the San Francisco Castro office. At Vanguard, Brisbane served as vice president and broker of record, while Romero acted as sales manager.

Brisbane had sales volume of more than $1 billion during his time at Vanguard. Romero has been in the industry for 23 years.

Engel & Völkers has secured Bay Area talent as it expands in Northern California. Top Marin County agent Tracy McLaughlin switched teams from The Agency last year and is serving as a global real estate advisor. Taso Tsakos and Keri O’Reilly, also formerly with The Agency, joined E&V and serve as managing partners.

➤Fremont-based The Joseph Sabeh Group has joined Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty in its East Bay region. The Joseph Sabeh Group’s origins began with founder Joseph Sabeh Sr., who started his own brokerage in 1980 and operated exclusively in Fremont. The brokerage grew to prominence when Sabeh began to cater and sell to high-end clients. Today, Joseph Sabeh Jr. continues the family legacy with his team, consisting of Monica Pokorny and Romina Oviedo.

Before joining Sotheby, Joseph Sabeh Jr. was CEO of Executive Home Realty for 10 years and a Realtor with the firm since 2000. Pokorny has been at Sotheby’s for six years, which was preceded by a two-year stint at Executive Home. Oviedo has been at Sotheby’s for a little over a year, and before that had a stint at the U.S. Soccer Federation in various roles for six years.

The team has been ranked in the top 100 for sales volume ($274 million) in 2021 and 2022, according to data collected by Sotheby’s.

➤Jessica Grimes is joining Christie’s International Real Estate–Sereno and will lead strategic growth and marketing across Sereno’s expansion into San Francisco, Marin County and Wine Country.

Prior to joining Sereno, Grimes was chief marketing officer for former Christie’s affiliate San Francisco-based Pacific Union International. During her time there, the brokerage’s sales volume rose from $2.2 billion to more than $14 billion in 2017, making it the fifth largest real estate firm in the nation. When Pacific Union was acquired by Compass in 2018, Grimes stayed on as CMO of Compass California until 2021 when she transitioned to lead marketing for a Compass team.

➤The Agency is bringing aboard Daniel Hershkowitz as senior director of risk management. He will oversee sales leadership across California with initial focus on Northern California, San Diego, Orange County and the Coachella Valley.

Hershkowitz spent the last five years at Compass as director of risk management. Prior to that, he spent time at Vanguard Properties as managing broker. He currently serves on the board of the California Association of Realtors, as well as serving as past president at the San Francisco Association of Realtors.

➤Independent agency City Real Estate has merged with another independent, Polaris Realty. Both City and Polaris are partnered with San Francisco-based white-label brokerage Side. The merger will allow City Real Estate to keep operating with its name and allow it to grow more quickly, David Cohen, founder of City, said in a statement. Together, the teams at City and Polaris completed 324 transactions for $541 million in volume in 2022. Cohen, who started City in 2018, himself has sold more than $100 million in real estate each of the last four years, and has a career sales volume of more than $1 billion. City Real Estate ranked No. 23 for transactions in California and Polaris was No. 83, according to a report by RealTrends.