Compass’ top-selling Brooklyn team is beefing up its new development chops, luring in a veteran broker from Nest Seekers.
Raquel Lomonico, whose Nest Seekers team was involved in $280 million worth of deals last year, according to Compass, is joining the brokerage’s Barak/Blackburn team, led by Lior Barak and Christine Blackburn.
Lomonico’s addition is part of the team’s strategy to cement itself in the new development and North Brooklyn markets at a time when demand is tilting toward larger, family-sized units, she said.
“There’s always been this natural progression that I saw in Williamsburg and Greenpoint where people have their first baby, they go to school here before first grade, then they’re out of here,” Lomonico said. “Now I’m seeing people stay.”
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Luxury housing market took its biggest dive in 10 years
Lomonico, who began her career at Douglas Elliman more than a decade ago, also brings new listings, such as 217 Franklin Street in Greenpoint, at a time when premium inventory in the borough is difficult to come by, according to Blackburn. At Nest Seekers, she was part of the team managing sales at 510 Driggs Avenue, a 44-unit luxury new development in Williamsburg.
“I do a lot of these small buildings,” Lomonico said. “Those are my babies.”
Once seen as an affordable alternative to Manhattan, Brooklyn’s pricier enclaves have transformed into primary condo markets unto themselves in recent years. Compass alone closed nearly $2.8 billion in sell-side deals in the borough last year, more than any other brokerage, according to a TRD analysis. The townhouse market has also been hot, with Blackburn notching a nearly $8 million sale in Fort Greene last month — a price previously unheard of in the neighborhood.
Buyers are also venturing into newer frontiers, like East Williamsburg. Traditionally an industrial area, units in the neighborhood have also been breaking records as buyers are priced out of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront.
Like much of the city, the borough’s luxury market has slowed from its post-pandemic free-for-all: Signed contracts finally ticked upward again last week from a Labor Day slump, but homes sold at an average discount of 5 percent, the deepest recorded this year.