How did you get your start in real estate — and new development, specifically? Tell us about your journey.
I started early. In high school, I worked for Fox & Roach, on the Philadelphia Main Line. Scheduling showings, placing ads, covering open houses—assistant work. The market was hot, the office had a ton of agents, and we operated mainly without computers. I was good with tough brokers. The atmosphere was total chaos, and I loved it.
After college, I worked in big brand advertising in New York and got hooked on reading Curbed in my spare time, which covered the glitzy universe of development marketing. This was the era of The Orion selling 550 apartments in under a year, 40 Bond launching, Seal doing a concert on Riverside Boulevard for the opening of The Avery, etc. When I saw a job posted for the marketing team at Corcoran Sunshine, which handles the highest caliber ultra-luxury developments, I applied that night. That was 2007, and I’ve been working in new development with Corcoran every day since.
Describe your role with Corcoran New Development. What does your day to day look like? What’s your big-picture view?
Corcoran brought me over to the brokerage side to evolve how we work with smaller developers, starting in late 2018. My team’s mission is to bring more boutique developments to Corcoran that our best-in-class agents sell. We scale our services to specifically fit the needs of a boutique luxury developer, and are backed by the powerhouse resources of Corcoran. We’re totally hands on, from planning to sales, and it’s a winning formula.
Today, we started with a pricing meeting for a development coming up next to Moynihan Train Hall. Then, the sales team for 147 Ludlow and I made some final tweaks to our model residence with the designer, Ash. We strategized on upcoming new business with Jodi Stasse, who is EVP of Corcoran New Development and is a Senior Managing Director at Corcoran Sunshine. David Maundrell III, EVP, rounds out our incredible leadership team. Jodi and Dave each bring unmatched experience and properties to Corcoran New Development, from resort locations to groundbreaking new waterfront towers.
We capped off the day working with the PR firm and developer of 450 Warren in Gowanus, which is indeed very press-worthy. 450 Warren just launched, and it landed in Fast Company and Surface. Its developer, Tankhouse, has committed to building in totally new ways and our sales team, headed by Behzad Amiri, knows how to tell the story because we all had a part in the planning.
As VP at Corcoran New Development, my team and I are at the center of the action. We guide the marketing and sales vision with the developer from beginning to end. We bridge the worlds of development and brokerage, teaming up with incredible partners in design, creative, arts, PR, and sales along the way.
What’s your favorite part of the job?
Earlier this year, we sold out 124 West 16th Street—the only New York building to launch during the pandemic and sell out in less than a year, achieving an average price of $5.8M. The 15 beautiful residences were designed by DHD, with above-and-beyond craftsmanship by its developer Grid Group, and represented by an incredibly talented Corcoran sales team headed by Nicole Hechter. That may be my favorite part of the job; that a truly successful development is a collaboration at every level. It’s a series of complicated, well-orchestrated decisions made among many people, and at the end there is an incredible building you can walk by and know you had a hand in it. We just launched our fourth development with Grid Group, and buyers are pouncing.
Looking forward, how do you see new development evolving in the coming years?
New Yorkers have embraced use of outdoor space on a totally new level in the past eighteen months, and that is here to stay – just look at how outdoor dining has been revolutionized. In a development, that might mean private outdoor space, a communal building garden, or selecting a site because it sits on a park. One of our developers has made the use of fresh air and outdoor space a guiding principal of their firm. I don’t think we’ll ever begin a project again without discussing it.