In this Dec. 22, 2011 photo, the building at 15 Central Park West stands at the edge of Central Park in New York. The family of a Russian billionaire has bought a New York penthouse apartment for $88 million. The Wall Street Journal says the property on Central Park West is now the most expensive apartment in the city.Richard Drew/The Associated Press
Kyle Blackmon, the real estate agent who handled the most expensive apartment purchase completed in New York City, has joined Urban Compass Inc. as the latest high-profile hire for the upstart brokerage.
Blackmon resigned Friday from Brown Harris Stevens, where he arranged for more than $1-billion (U.S.) in residential real estate transactions since 2003, including as a top broker at the luxury 15 Central Park West towers. He will be head of luxury sales at Urban Compass, founder Ori Allon said.
"He's a perfect fit for us," Allon said in an interview. "He's young, he's savvy and he believes in technology."
Blackmon, 36, is part of a growing list of brokers and executives who have left Manhattan's established real estate firms for the new frontier of Urban Compass, a company that employs a team of data scientists and engineers – some from Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. – with the promise of bringing scientific efficiency to the opaque world of real estate sales. The brokerage, started in May, 2013, raised $40-million in July from investors including Salesforce.com Inc. chief executive officer Marc Benioff.
That funding more than doubled Urban Compass's valuation to $360-million. The company's revenue has jumped 10-fold in the past year, people with knowledge of the financing said in July.
Urban Compass expanded this month into the Washington market, with the acquisition of the 40-person brokerage Lindsay Reishman Real Estate, said Sofia Song, head of research at the New York-based firm. It plans to enter other cities including Boston, Miami, Chicago and San Francisco.
'Sound Advice'
"The real estate industry is changing rapidly and I am confident that Urban Compass is at the forefront of that change, powered by its technology, team and approach," Blackmon said in an e-mailed statement. "Providing my clients with sound advice, timely information and discreet, personalized service has and always will be at the bedrock of my practice."
While at Brown Harris, Blackmon brokered the $88-million sale of former Citigroup Inc. chairman Sandy Weill's penthouse at 15 Central Park West. The 2012 deal is the most expensive residential transaction to have closed in the city.
At Urban Compass, he joins a team of 111 brokers in New York, many of whom were hired from the city's more established brokerages and development firms. In June, Urban Compass hired Leonard Steinberg, a luxury broker with Douglas Elliman Real Estate who specialized in new developments downtown, to become president. Jay Glazer, whose sales at Warburg Realty were the third-highest by dollar volume last year, joined the startup the same month.