Vickey Barron, a top broker and managing director at Core, has boomeranged back to Douglas Elliman, The Real Deal has learned. The former Elliman agent, who departed for Core two years ago citing a less competitive work environment, has returned to the fold, representatives for both companies confirmed today.
Barron joined Elliman in 2000 and spent 11 years there, earning a berth as one of the brokerage’s top producers. Barron won the Real Estate Board of New York’s Rookie of the Year award in 2001.
At Core, she handled sales and marketing for JDS Development and Property Markets Group’s Walker Tower, at 212 West 18th Street in Chelsea. The long-awaited residential conversion of an Art Deco building originally designed by architect Ralph Walker, hit the market last June and by this February was half sold.
Last year, as TRD reported, she also hosted a real estate matchmaking event that helped her clients furnish their new homes with an important flourish: a new partner.
“Douglas Elliman offered me an incredible opportunity to work with Susan de França and Howard Lorber in a larger capacity in new development,” Barron told TRD via email, referring to the firm’s new development chief and chairman, respectively.
“I loved my time at Core,” she added. “Relationships are very important to me, and I look forward to maintaining mine with Core.”
Core CEO Shaun Osher offered similarly warm sentiments.
“It’s been wonderful working with Vickey to build her resale business and offer her the opportunity to work on her first new development project,” he said via email. “We wish her continued success and all the best in her future endeavors.”
In her new role, Barron will work closely with de França, CEO of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, but will also handle resales, a statement from Elliman provided exclusively to TRD said. Elliman declined to give Barron’s new title.
“We are thrilled that Vickey is coming back home,” Elliman CEO Dottie Herman said in the statement. “She’s far more than just a great broker — she’s a true leader and she just gets it.”
Barron joins a list of Core brokers who have departed for Elliman in recent years.
Frederik Eklund and John Gomes left to participate in Bravo’s reality show, “Million Dollar Listing New York,” in 2010, avoiding a conflict with Core’s appearance on HGTV’s “Selling New York.”
Then, last year, in a three-month stretch, 10 agents departed, including Kirk Rundhaug, a longtime Core agent and senior vice president who joined Elliman as an executive vice president, and Lawrence Rich, who returned to Elliman after a short stint at Core.
However, at least some of the agents were either asked to leave or left as a result of a mutual decision with management, Core representatives said at the time.