Oldest Chicago Brokerage Baird & Warner Buys Dream Town

The Dream Town name is going away, but its agents are sticking around, under a different banner.

Baird & Warner is acquiring Dream Town Real Estate in a deal that unites Chicago’s two largest independent brokerages and signals a major bet on locally owned alternatives to national firms, Crain’s reported.

The merger will vault the combined company to second place in the region by sales volume behind only Compass and its newly acquired subsidiary, @properties Christie’s International Real Estate. With more than 2,400 agents and loan officers across eight city offices and over 30 locations, the firms represented roughly $6.7 billion in sales last year, based on BrokerMetrics data.

The move would “create a local powerhouse,” said Steve Baird, president and CEO of Baird & Warner, a fifth-generation leader of the family-run company. Founded in 1855, Baird & Warner is the oldest brokerage in the region and the third-largest by volume before the merger.

Dream Town, established in 1998, is known for its early embrace of digital real estate marketing and has presented itself as giving clients a “boutique experience.” It brought in about $1.46 billion in sales volume last year. CEO Yuval Degani, who founded the firm, will join Baird & Warner as president of brokerage services. The Dream Town brand will be retired.

In a joint release shared with The Real Deal, the firms positioned the acquisition as a response to the deprioritization of what they called an “agent-centric culture,” one they argue is being diluted by Wall Street-backed consolidators — likely jabs at top Chicago firms Compass, Coldwell Banker, Redfin and Berkshire Hathaway.

“Every major brokerage in town is now run by Wall Street or a hedge fund,” Degani said. “Steve and I envisioned creating an even more competitive, locally committed and powerful independent alternative for agents.”

The firms say no offices will close “in the immediate future.” Despite Dream Town’s smaller footprint, both companies noted their locations have little overlap and that agents increasingly work remotely.

The deal is Baird & Warner’s largest acquisition ever. Talks reportedly accelerated “about six months ago,” Baird said. That was just after Compass announced late last year it would acquire @properties Christie’s, which was, before the Compass purchase, Chicago’s biggest locally owned brokerage.

— Judah Duke

Residential

Chicago

Thad Wong echoes Compass opposition of Clear Cooperation in clash with Baird