Keller Williams Realty will be returning to Chicago with the leadership of two local residential experts, Mary Haight and Joe Zimmerman.
"Chicago is one of the two biggest growth opportunities in 2016 in the world for this company. We intend to make Chicago a shining example of what Keller Williams is all about," said John Schumacher, director of the Keller Williams Mid-American region. "Our expansion plan here hinged on finding the right leadership who understands our culture, and we believe Joe and Mary are those people."
The Keller Williams Realty was gone in the Chicago market when the former owner of the company sold it to another firm in 2012. At present, Keller Williams has 10 market centers, or offices, in the Chicago suburban area but none in the city of Chicago, except for a satellite facility at the North and Sheffield Avenues.
"We are truly excited with this opportunity to build the KW presence in Chicago," said Haight. "This is a highly successful agent-centric company, with a culture that provides proven systems, business models and training to help agents build their business and better serve client needs."
According to their press release in Business Wire, the expansion plan for the brand in Chicago includes adding three other market centers in the city in 2016, and four more in the metropolitan area. The KW Mid-American region currently has 15 market centers with 1,760 agents.
"The KW culture and its training and education program is a huge part of why we're making this move," Zimmerman said. "This is a company built by the agent, for the agent, and we want to expand this successful blueprint in the Chicago market."
All Keller Williams market centers are independently owned and operated. At present, the company has more than 700 offices and 129,000 associates across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.
"We believe the real estate business is hyper-local," Schumacher said. "A big part of the KW model is to provide local owners with the resources and tools to help them be successful. We want people who are life-long learners, and provide the training and coaching to enable that."
