The Chicago area’s fourth-largest residential real estate brokerage is ending the year far larger than it began, after acquiring a brokerage whose sales volume tops $1 billion.
Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group, based in Shorewood, with offices largely in outer-ring suburbs and Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan, acquired D’Aprile Properties. Based in the West Loop, D’Aprile has offices in close-in suburbs Park Ridge and Oak Park, as well as Lake Geneva and other outlying towns.
Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group, a family-owned franchise group, is a separate company from Coldwell Banker Realty, a corporate-owned line that operates mostly in the city and close suburbs.
The firm declined to make executives available for comment. In the press release, Mike Prodehl, CEO and president, said adding to its ranks “the remarkable agents of D’Aprile Properties not only expands our footprint in the region, it further strengthens the brand in our marketplace.”
In 2021, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group had sales volume of $5 billion, ranking it fourth among local brokerages, according to an annual report from Real Trends, an industry consultancy. D’Aprile, according to the firms’ press release, had about $1.2 billion in volume last year.
Sales volume is an inexact figure in real estate. Both the selling agent and the buying agent get credit for the full amount of the transaction. That means when a $1 million home sells, it counts as $2 million in sales volume. It’s not possible to simply cut the figures in half, as there are many transactions where one brokerage gets credit for both sides.
Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group has been on an aggressive growth path for several years. In 2015, when it was called Coldwell Banker Honig-Bell and was not yet in the top five Chicago-area brokerages, it bought a fellow Coldwell Banker franchise with 18 offices in Wisconsin. It now has 60 offices, and grows to 70 with the acquisition, which was announced Dec. 16.
Prior to the acquisition, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group had 1,700 agents and D’Aprile had 380.
Brokerages’ 2022 dollar volume will not be reported until a few months into 2023. The totals are likely to be quite different than last year’s figures, given the slippage in sales that followed the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes designed to slow inflation.
While the two local Coldwell Banker entities are separate, a corporate Coldwell Banker officer said in the press release that the acquisition of D’Aprile will boost brand recognition for Coldwell Banker overall in the Chicago metro area and neighboring states. The buy “solidifies the Coldwell Banker brand presence in the marketplace,” Liz Gehringer, president of Coldwell Banker Affiliate Business and chief operating officer of Coldwell Banker Real Estate, said in prepared comments.
