Compass Chicagoland named Ashley Donat as its new northwest region sales manager, joining the leadership team of at least seven in the city and suburbs.
Donat is replacing Rachael Mann, who will be covering the suburban Libertyville market at the brokerage, according to Compass. Since joining Compass in 2018, Donat spent more than three years at the River North office, where she co-led the Bridge Team that achieved sales growth of over 220 percent.
Using Compass’ technology to help agents and customers is Donat’s goal covering the company’s relatively new northwest region, such as Arlington Heights, Barrington, and Libertyville, where a seller’s market is expected to continue this year.
“It’s more important now than ever to work with a qualified agent because we are seeing way more deals happening that are off-market than ever been before,” Donat said in an interview with The Real Deal. “Broker relationships are more important and private listings are much more prevalent now than it has ever been.”
Donat brings more than 10 years of experience in the real estate industry, where she worked at smaller boutique firms, including Miller Chicago Real Estate and Main Street Real Estate Group, to help recruit and mentor agents while selling houses.
Since Compass opened its Chicago office in 2017, the brokerage has been aggressively expanding its market coverage poaching agents from competing firms such as @properties. Most recently, Compass signed @properties’ seven-agent Schwabe group in January, only to see its top producer return to @properties a couple of days later.
Compass, founded in 2012, is home to more than 25,000 agents and operates in over 60 markets in the U.S. Last year, the brokerage reported a net loss of almost half a billion dollars, including about $175 million in the fourth quarter as operating expenses jumped 80 percent.