Purplebricks Group plc. announced that Robert DiBiase has joined the company as regional director, Tri-State Area.
DiBiase will lead sales, recruitment and agent development and work with Purplebricks’ managing brokers to drive market share growth and strategy.
Currently licensed in New York, DiBiase is initiating the process to secure licenses in New Jersey and Connecticut. He will report to Eric Eckardt, U.S. CEO, and will be located in the Purplebricks’ regional headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
DiBiase joins Purplebricks from Halstead Property, where he was an associate broker focused on business development, particularly with respect to multifamily, new development and townhouses.
For both 2016 and 2017, DiBiase was recognized as “Agent of the Year” in his designated market of Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Prior to joining Halstead, he was an executive managing director at Massey Knakal Realty Services, where he led a Townhouse division focusing on Brownstone Brooklyn. He also held positions at LendingTree, Foxtons, Inc. and Les Friedland and Associates.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
•••
Citi Habitats has welcomed two new rental managers to the firm.
Noah Falconer will work with senior managing director Alex Saltalamacchia at the brokerage’s Williamsburg office.
Omer Zakai has joined Senior Managing Director Daniel Rash’s team in Cobble Hill.
In their positions, both Falconer and Zakai will help agents achieve their individual business goals. In addition, they will act as coaches and mentors. They will also be responsible for recruiting experienced agents to the company.
Falconer began his real estate career as an agent at Citi Habitats’ Upper East Side office.
He then transitioned to the New Developments arena where he held on-site positions, first at Bold New York and then at Halstead Property Development Marketing (HPDM). Most recently, Falconer was the Client Relations Manager at The Oosten in South Williamsburg for the Chinese development group, Xinyuan.
He graduated from SUNY Albany with a degree in Political Science.
This is also Zakai’s second time working with Citi Habitats. He was named their Upper West Side office’s “Rookie Agent of the Year” in 2015.
In 2016, he was invited to join The Shemesh Team, then at the Corcoran Group, and later worked as a sales associate at Keller Williams NYC.
Originally from Israel, Zakai is an MBA graduate with a focus on Organizational Behavior and holds a BA in Behavioral Science and Economics from Ben-Gurion University.
•••
BOND New York announced the hiring of Chris Shiamili as its newest team leader.
Shiamili comes to BOND New York with 30-plus years of real estate experience, mostly as principal broker of Ardor New York Real Estate and, most recently, as team leader at Citi Habitats.
Shiamili came to the United States from Cyprus in 1989 to attend CUNY, where he received his degree in Philosophy and Economics. He also has a Masters in Humanities from NYU.
At BOND, he will form and lead Team Ardor, a five-agent group that includes Stephen Love,
a former director of sales at Ardor who also previously served as a senior managing director at Citi Habitats and director of dales at DSA Realty.
Love has over 16 years of New York City real estate experience and is a graduate of Fordham University.
Shiamili will focus on business development while Love will supervise the team’s agents and broker for private clients.
•••
Rutenberg NYC has welcomed more than a dozen new licensed real estate salespeople to its New York City team.
New agents include: Ji Zhang, formerly of Tony and William Brotherhood Real Estate Group; Mia Le and Elizabeth Vega, who joined from Keller Williams NYC; Barbara Dervan, formerly of Fox Residential; Barbara Parks and Norman McHugh, who joined from Halstead; Christine Araman, formerly of Citi Habitats; Former Nest Seekers International broker Jessica Kim; Kristen Whitchurch, formerly of Compass; Yona Srour, formerly of City Connection Realty; Vivian Eleftheriou; Jessica Rosin; and Anies Castillo.
•••
Mirador Real Estate has welcomed Tim Serignese, an agent with 20 years of experience.
He began his career 1997 at Bellmarc and spent many years at Douglas Elliman. He has also consulted with The Marketing Directors.
Serignese has lead sales on over a dozen new construction and conversion projects, in total overseeing more than $750 million in transactions. At Mirador he will concentrate on new development marketing and client relationships.
Agent Gilyana Sarangova has also joined the firm. She has five years of experience working at both BOND New York and Coldwell Banker.
She graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in psychology.
•••
Madison Estates announced a new position which will focus providing continuous support and attention to the individual growth of agents.
Melissa Talamo will be promoted to Madison Estates’ Growth Coordinator and will work directly with individual team members to enhance their personal success rates.
Talamo has held several positions throughout her ten-year career with Madison Estates.
Talamo will be focused on increasing market share and profitability through strategic planning, tracking progress, sales priorities, forecasting and targeting goal achievements.
••••
Modern Spaces announced Miles Chapin has been appointed senior managing director of the Chelsea and Long
Island City sales offices.
Chapin joins the firm from Brown Harris Stevens. Before that, he worked with Warburg Realty Partnership, where he won the Rookie of the Year in 2004; was Top Producer in the Eastside Gallery office in 2011; and was the second-highest grossing agent firm-wide in 2013.
Since its inception in 2015, Chapin has served as the co-chair of REBNY’s Residential Brokerage Queens Committee.
He is also a member of the Broker’s Partnership of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and of the exclusive New York Residential Specialist group (NYRS).
•••
Paul Boomsma has assumed the role of president and chief executive officer of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World.
Boomsma, who has served as the company’s chief operating officer and president of its Luxury Portfolio International division, succeeds long-time CEO Pam O’Connor, who announced her retirement in January.
Boomsma brings more than 20 years of experience to his new position. He began his career marketing luxury office towers, later heading marketing for a Chicago residential firm before becoming national marketing director for a major franchise.
Boomsma is responsible for creating Luxury Portfolio International, the high-end marketing division of LeadingRE and subsequently was tasked with also heading operations and strategic marketing for LeadingRE as COO.
Stephanie Anton, who has served as executive vice president of Luxury Portfolio International, was also promoted as part of the LeadingRE succession plan and is now president of Luxury Portfolio.
A graduate of Boston University with a Masters in Integrated Marketing from Northwestern, she has over 15 years of experience in real estate and luxury marketing.
•••
The Rick Lodato Team has joined Century 21 Cedarcrest Realty in Caldwell, NJ.
In addition to Lodato, team members include Lizette Brown, Diana Weeks and Peter LoCurto.
The team was most recently at Berkshire Hathaway NJ Properties, where Lodato was a top listing agent for the past nine years.
Lodato owned his own real estate agency, Lodato & Company Realtors, before joining NJ Properties in 2009.
