The Corcoran Group is officially in the Miami market, and it’s hoping top Miami Beach broker Julian Johnston will be its rainmaker.
Johnston, who had been in talks with the brokerage for months, was previously working for himself as broker and owner of Calibre International Realty. He was ranked No. 4 in The Real Deal’s most recent annual ranking of top single-family home brokers in Miami-Dade County with nearly $110 million in sales volume last year.
Patricia Prado
Corcoran’s new office, at 1688 Meridian Avenue, is expected to open by mid-October, according to Bill Cunningham, Corcoran’s president of sales. Lily Zanardi will be the managing director. The office can fit more than 30 agents, Cunningham said. He declined to say how many agents have joined, but confirmed that Patricia Prado, who was previously with Silvia Coltrane’s Real Estate Transactions International in Surfside, is with Realogy-owned Corcoran in Miami Beach.
Johnston’s top deals this year include the nearly $28 million sale of 428 Hibiscus Drive in Miami Beach. And he has two deals pending, the sale of 1771 North View Drive – asking nearly $16 million – and the sale of 5840 North Bay Road, asking $14.9 million.
He’s bringing with him 41 listings with a total listing volume of roughly $300 million. He said he met with all the top firms but decided to move to Corcoran because of its branding and reputation.
“There’s been a lot of consolidation in the industry over the last five or six years,” he said. “My competition in the past was always local firms. More firms are now national.”
In May, New York-based Corcoran, led by president and CEO Pam Liebman, opened its third South Florida office in West Palm Beach. It also has locations in Palm Beach and Delray Beach.
“We decided to move into Miami Beach because it’s a natural direction for us to go in,” Cunningham said.
The company is being approached to take on new development, but it hasn’t agreed to handle any projects yet, he added.