The team from Premier includes Richard Knutson, John Leyvas, Jay Cross, Stephen Pagones, Mike Pagones, Anthony Pappageorge and Vince McCarrie. All will be based in C&C's Oakland office except for McCarrie, who will be in Santa Clara. The new team joins industry veteran Keith Suddjian, senior vice president in C&C's Palo Alto office, in the expansion of Cornish & Carey Apartment Advisors.

Knutson and Leyvas co-founded Moison Invesment Co.'s East Bay Group in 1997. The company became Premier Apartment Advisors in 2006. The Premier Apartment Advisor team is active in all nine Bay Area counties as well as the Northern Central Valley and Sacramento.

[IMGCAP(2)]Knutson, now a senior vice president with C&C, says that Premier had several options for growth over the past few years before choosing Cornish & Carey. Knutson began his real estate career with Coldwell Banker Commercial as an apartment investment specialist in 1982 and joined Moison Investment Company-East Bay Group as a partner in 1997.

Leyvas, who joins C&C as a senior vice president, joined the Moison Investment Co. and before that was an investment broker with Grubb & Ellis. Cross, a vice president at C&C, has been a senior investment adviser with Premier since 2003 and previously was acquisitions manager for Palo Alto-based Pacific Property Co. He also served as acquisitions director for San Francisco-based SSR Realty Advisors, now BlackRock.

Among the other new C&C Apartment Advisory team members, Stephen Pagones joins as a senior sales associate while Mike Pagones, Pappageorge and McCarrie join as sales associates.