Berkshire Hathaway gains Lincoln Park agent as area talent shuffles brokerages

Lincoln Park’s game of residential agent musical chairs is still being decided, and it’s remaking Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago’s neighborhood roster.

For the second time in recent months, the brokerage’s Lincoln Park presence snagged an agent from Redfin right after losing other top producers to Compass.

Mike Smith, formerly with Redfin, made the latest move to Berkshire’s Lincoln Park Clybourn office. Smith’s 2022 sales production exceeded $13 million while he was at Redfin.

The move comes days after Compass announced the hiring of one of Berkshire’s agents, Brian Pistorius, also in the New York-based brokerage’s Lincoln Park office. 

Pistorius was at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago for more than six years. He brings two agents, Amy Ruch and Jenna Cody, with him to Compass. The team generated more than $50 million in sales volume over the past two years. 

And in January, Meredith Pierson, who formerly had a Lincoln Park office affiliated with Berkshire, joined Compass to start a new team at the brokerage by combining with the Glenview-based office headed by Missy Jerfita. The rebranded Jerfita Pierson Team has five licensed agents and two support staffers across two Compass offices — in Glenview and Lincoln Park.

That decampment from Berkshire was quickly followed by the brokerage picking up one of Chicago’s top agents, Keith Brand, who notched $100 million in sales in the last two years and joined its Lincoln Park offices in another jump from Redfin.

Meanwhile, agents across the Chicago market have been far less participatory since rising interest rates kicked in and depressed residential property sales volumes, motivating brokerages to make moves to expand deal flows amid the slowdown.

The number of active agents in the Chicago area in the fourth quarter last year was down 24 percent from the previous year, according to AgentStory, a company that monitors real estate agents and their transactions. It defined an active agent as any one that has a listing or co-listing as well as buyer agents who participate in a residential transaction during the quarter.

Smith, who said Berkshire’s “commitment to excellence and integrity” prompted his move, was formerly a luxury residential broker in Manhattan before moving back to his native Chicago, according to the brokerage.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago has more than 1,400 agents and staff across 24 offices in the Chicago metropolitan area, Southern Wisconsin, Northwest Indiana and Harbor Country, Michigan.