Compass’ Gene Martinez Dies

Gene Martinez (Compass)

Gene Martinez, a longtime New York Metropolis gross sales supervisor who was considered one of Compass’ earliest recruits, died Tuesday evening. He was 60.

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin knowledgeable managers of Martinez’s sudden loss of life in an electronic mail Wednesday. Reffkin stated Martinez performed a “vital” position in serving to Compass launch workplaces in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, the place he was the agency’s first regional president. “We might not be the neighborhood we’re at present with out him,” he wrote on Instagram.

The reason for loss of life was a stroke, sources stated.

When Martinez joined Compass in 2015, he was one of many startup brokerage’s first 50 workers. He got here from the Corcoran Group, the place he spent 16 years and rose to turn out to be supervisor of its Soho workplace.

In reality, Martinez’s transfer to Compass grew to become a flash level within the startup agency’s rivalry with established gamers.

After he and several other different ex-Corcoran managers and brokers joined Compass, Corcoran sued the agency, alleging it had “overtly” raided its workplaces and poached expertise.

The lawsuit was settled, however a duplicate of Martinez’s contract, which was submitted as proof within the case, make clear Compass’ recruiting ways, together with profitable signing bonuses and different perks.

In 2019, Corcoran’s mum or dad firm, Realogy, filed a wide-ranging lawsuit accusing Compass of “predatory” recruiting. (Martinez was not talked about in that lawsuit, which is ongoing.) Compass now has 18,000 brokers and did over $91 billion in gross sales quantity in 2019. Earlier this month, it filed confidentially to go public, as The Actual Deal first reported.

To fulfill his noncompete with Corcoran, Martinez was director of gross sales and enterprise growth in Miami and D.C., in response to his LinkedIn. He later held the identical position in New York Metropolis. In 2016, he moved to San Francisco to launch that market, and he moved again to his hometown of Miami in 2018 and started working as an agent.

In December, he represented Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner in a $23.5 million purchase of a waterfront mansion in Miami Seashore.

On social media, fellow brokers recalled Martinez as a caring and efficient supervisor who was beneficiant together with his recommendation. “I’m completely devastated,” Leonard Steinberg, Compass’ chief evangelist and a fellow early recruit, wrote in an Instagram publish.

“He was a coach, confidant, and shut buddy to many,” Reffkin wrote in an electronic mail to Compass managers on Wednesday. “His entrepreneurial spirit was at all times on show.”