Jeff Baker

CEO, Illinois Realtors

Chicago’s real estate industry has spent the past few years playing defense against a steady drumbeat of tax proposals. Baker is best known for leading the 50,000-member trade group’s fight against rising property taxes it views as transaction killers. 

He organized the successful opposition to the “Bring Chicago Home” transfer tax referendum backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson in 2024, a victory for the real estate industry. The organization spent $1 million on its campaign to block the referendum, and another $500,000 in 2025 to oppose a proposed state transfer tax hike.

Baker has described the whack-a-mole nature of those battles in blunt terms: “Those ideas just keep coming and coming, and we just have to keep trying to say, look, you’re killing the housing economy,” he said.

Illinois Realtors represents agents statewide, including roughly 18,000 in Chicago. Baker brings a lawyer’s posture to the top job, which is equal parts messaging, lobbying and internal dispute resolution inside an industry fighting on multiple fronts. Before joining the group, Baker worked as a commercial real estate attorney at Sorling Northrup.

Under Baker, the group has pushed hard on supply and affordability, with a particular focus on what he calls the state’s sluggish rebound in housing inventory since the pandemic. The organization hired lobbying pros in early 2026 to advance its legislative agenda, which includes a push for deregulation to allow denser housing at the state and local levels. 

Operationally, Baker coordinates state-level advocacy with the National Association of Realtors and local boards, backed by a network of local government lobbyists who work municipality-by-municipality.

— Caleb McCullough