Peter Cummins joins Leigh Marcus @properties Christie’s shop for North Shore push

The Leigh Marcus Team of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate has picked up a suburban Chicago expert to branch out beyond the big city.

The Roscoe Village-based team, which ranked fourth in The Real Deal’s residential brokerage ranking last year with $196 million in sales volume on 282 deals, added Peter Cummins to bolster sales along the North Shore, Chicago Agent Magazine reported.

Cummins is a 20-year real estate veteran known throughout the Winnetka area, and brings extensive knowledge of outlying Chicago. His new alliance with the Leigh Marcus Teams aims to help suburban clients find homes in the city, and vice versa, cutting back on the middle-man process.

“We are excited to take Peter’s extensive knowledge of the suburbs to amplify our capabilities to better serve our clients and expand our community,” Marcus said in a statement.

Cummins, already an agent with @properties, will continue working in its Winnetka office as well as in downtown Chicago. Marcus will remain based in the team’s Roscoe Village office, which now has 17 real estate agents.

A native of Evanston, Cummins has spent his real estate career in the North Shore, according to his website.  Since 2003, the  award-winning agent has managed more than 500 deals valued at more than $500 million.

He’s also a developer who built the Winnetka Galleria, the Parkview Place Condominiums in Glencoe, the Renaissance Condominiums of Evanston and numerous single-family homes along the North Shore.

Leigh Marcus is a top real estate agent for Christie’s International Real Estate recognized each year since 2009 for ranking among the top 1 percent of Realtors in Chicago, according to ChicagoAgent. He’s closed more than 2,000 real estate deals, totaling more than $1 billion in sales. Before joining the industry, he worked in technology sales at IBM, CDW and EMC.

— Dana Bartholomew