Stephen Preuss and Ripco’s Gene Spiegelman (Ripco)
Several months after his split from Cushman & Wakefield, top investment sales broker Stephen Preuss has landed at Ripco Real Estate.
Preuss has joined Ripco as a vice chairman, heading up a new office the commercial brokerage is opening in Kew Gardens, Queens, the company told The Real Deal. Preuss will build a team focused on outer-borough sales, with Ripco planning to add leasing professionals to the Kew Gardens office to focus on the Queens market.
Unlike Cushman & Wakefield, which had a territory system that assigned each sales broker a specific trade area, Preuss said he will have free rein at Ripco to pick up business wherever he can.
“It’s an open playing field,” he said. “It’s more of, add value where you can. I’ll be focusing on the Queens marketplace and other areas where I can execute and transact.”
Preuss previously led the Queens office for Cushman & Wakefield, where he was one of the brokerage’s top sales agents. But he was terminated from Cushman in May under dubious circumstances; sources told TRD at the time that it had to do with a disgruntled client.
Preuss declined to elaborate on the matter, beyond saying that “nothing was perfect” and that his exit from Cushman was a “mutual decision.”
In the new role. Preuss will be reunited with Gene Spiegelman, the former head of Cushman’s retail brokerage who jumped to Ripco as vice chairman and principal in 2018.
The veteran broker has sold more than 500 properties over the course of his career, which began at the former Massey Knakal Realty Services. Cushman acquired that brokerage in 2015.
