Chrissy Hunt

Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their thoughts on the top trends in real estate. 

This week, we talked with Chrissy Hunt, in charge of strategy and business development for Compass. 

Houston Agent (HA):What are some good reasons for companies to expand?

Chrissy Hunt (CH): At Compass, we are excited about building the strongest and most integrated network of best-in-class agents in the largest luxury markets across the U.S. Our agents have access to other elite agents across the nation and benefit from keeping their clients within the Compass family. We are are equally excited to become a platform that shares best practices not just amongst agents in one region, but amongst all agents within the Compass family. By building a national framework, we can take the great ideas of one agent and make it available to the entire Compass network across the nation. Our expansion helps us create the systems and insights to save our agents time allowing them to spend more time with clients.

HA: When recruiting new employees, what are you looking for? How are you evaluating talent?

CH: We want to build the company around great people, both on the agent and employee side. Every week, we receive thousands of resumes from candidates seeking to join Compass. We look for people who are top 1 percentile in their field, people who see the glass as half full, and are builders. We hire proven leaders who can think strategically on how to solve the biggest challenges our agents are encountering in the marketplace. Most importantly, we hire people we are excited to see and collaborate with everyday.

HA: What are some of the challenges of expanding your company into new markets?

CH: Real estate is a hyper-local industry; as such, one of the biggest challenges we have faced is quickly adapting to the unique elements of each new market we enter, from both a technology and a support perspective. After launching our first expansion market, we realized having someone in market as early as possible was one way to adapt quickly, which resulted in the creation of our “City Launcher” role. Our first on-the-ground Compass employee focuses on understanding the intricacies of the market prior to launch. We rely heavily on our agents and other key stakeholders to help dictate what adjustments we need to make to our operations and technology so we can meet the requirements of each market.

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