How often do NYC real estate agents switch firms, and why it matters for your list
April 22, 2026 · 6 min read
NYC residential agents change firms more often than most people outside the industry realize. Tracking our own scraped roster week-over-week, we see roughly 15–20% annual churn — meaning one in five agents on your list today will be at a different firm 12 months from now. For high-volume movers like Compass and SERHANT. the number runs even higher.
This is the single biggest quiet killer of bought broker lists. A CSV you downloaded in January is materially wrong by July.
The numbers, by firm
| Firm | Annual agent churn (in/out combined) | Primary driver |
|---|---|---|
| Compass | 22% | Aggressive recruiting + some defections to Elliman |
| Corcoran | 14% | Stable legacy team, Brooklyn agents stay put |
| Douglas Elliman | 16% | Poaches luxury producers, loses mid-tier to Compass |
| SERHANT. | 26% | Higher-velocity recruiting, some wash-out |
| Nest Seekers | 24% | Rental-heavy rosters turn faster |
| Brown Harris Stevens | 11% | One of the stickiest rosters in NYC |
| KW NYC | 19% | Standard KW turnover pattern |
| BOND New York | 28% | Heavy rental desk, younger agents |
| Boutique luxury (Leslie Garfield, Modlin, etc.) | 6–8% | Long tenure, equity-in-firm dynamic |
Numbers are based on our own directory scrapes from April 2025 through April 2026, cross-referenced against Department of State licensing data.
What “churn” actually means in this context
We count three kinds of roster change:
- Inter-firm moves. An agent leaves Corcoran and shows up at Compass two weeks later. Happens constantly, especially within the mega-firm tier.
- Departures from the industry. An agent lets their license lapse. Industry attrition runs ~4–6% a year in NYC.
- Team splits and new boutiques. A top producer peels off, brings their team, and launches a new firm. Happens a few times a year in the $5M+ segment.
Why it destroys outreach ROI
Four compounding effects:
- The email bounces. When an agent leaves Compass for Elliman, their
@compass.comaddress dies. Your send gets a hard bounce, which damages your sender reputation (see SMTP verification). - The firm attribution is wrong. You think you're reaching 500 Corcoran agents, but 70 of them left in the last nine months. Any personalization like “you're at Corcoran” is now embarrassing.
- The pitch context drifts. You wrote copy about Compass's tech platform. The agent is now at BHS where that pitch doesn't land.
- Trust collapses. If one email calls an agent by the wrong firm, they're suspicious of everything else you say.
How often a fresh list matters
| Use case | Refresh cadence that works |
|---|---|
| One-off product launch blast | Refresh within 30 days of send |
| Multi-month drip campaign | Monthly refresh, minimum |
| New-development 12-month push | Monthly refresh; re-scrape firm moves weekly |
| Building a CRM of broker contacts | Monthly sync with suppression merge |
| Ad-hoc list for investor roadshow | Refresh week of event |
If you bought a static CSV more than six months ago and you're still mailing it, you're mailing into an 8–12% bounce rate that nobody warned you about.
How we handle churn
Every Sunday we re-scrape every firm's public agent directory. Agents who disappear from a directory are flagged and we check licensing data for whether they moved firms or left the industry. Before each monthly customer refresh, we re-verify every active email via SMTP. Subscribers get the updated CSV on the first of the month.
If you buy a one-time list instead, we still ship the latest snapshot — but the value of that snapshot decays roughly 1.5% per week from ship date. Monthly subscribers don't have that problem. For a look at how the 2026 Compass-Anywhere merger reshuffled firm affiliation see Compass vs Elliman vs Corcoran.
Our monthly plan auto-delivers the refreshed NYC roster on the 1st. New hires added, departures removed, firm moves updated, every address re-verified. See /find to pull a filtered slice right now.
See pricing