CHICAGO—The economic recovery has unleashed construction crews throughout many upscale residential neighborhoods on the Northwest Side, and one of the city's top brokers has decided to take advantage of the boom by opening a major satellite office in the area.
Over the next 12 months Related Realty, the residential brokerage division of Related Midwest, will hire roughly 75 brokers for its new Bucktown office, located at 1755 N. Damen Ave., adjacent to the 606 trail which debuted this summer. The 3,000 square foot office is Related Realty's second location in Chicago – the full-service brokerage is headquartered at 350 W. Hubbard St. in River North.
"We've experienced tremendous growth in terms of our agent roster and volume of sales," David Wolf, president of Related Realty, tells GlobeSt.com. The company wants to have three Chicago locations, and "Bucktown was always on our radar. It's where a lot of our brokers operate and it gives us a great entry to the low-rise residential market on the city's Northwest Side."
Wolf ran his own brokerage group, David Wolf Residential, out of the neighborhood prior to founding Related Realty in 2012. The firm dedicates itself to the luxury residential markets in the top ten zipcodes and projects it will have sales near $500 million in 2015, up from $300 million in 2014.
It now has about 65 brokers in the downtown office, but the new location will allow for quicker access to a wide swath of the city, including Wicker Park, Logan Square and others where there has been so much recent activity and so many of the brokers live. "We will ramp up very quickly out there," Wolf says. "We are actively recruiting the right kind of agents who fit our business model."
"We like the infrastructure that has gone into Bucktown in recent years," he adds. The local retail market, especially up and down Damen Ave., has become quite vibrant. And the 606 will make Related's new office a landmark to the thousands of bikers, runners, hikers and others that use the trail every week.
"There are not a lot of residential brokerages in this market, at least ones with offices in the area,' he says. "Potential buyers want to see your presence in the neighborhood," and this new office, which will have highly visible signage on the street and the 606, should give Related an advantage over its competitors. "We are on one of Damen's best blocks and and many residents pass by several times a week. It's something that all of our agents are excited about."
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
