Welcome to the 16th annual Agents’ Choice Awards, where we honor the best and brightest of Chicagoland real estate, according to the 35,000-plus votes cast.

The real estate brokerage business has gone through a metamorphosis over the last few decades and continues to pivot as online competitors grow and local competition remains fierce. In this issue, we speak with some of the biggest names in Chicagoland real estate.

There were 6.46 million homes sold in the United States last year, according to the National Association of Realtors, and agents from a single company represented well over a million of those buyers and sellers: Realogy. 

Joan Smothers launched Smothers Realty Group in 1996 and built her company to be the No. 1 brokerage in La Grange. So why would a successful broker-owner trade their independence to join Compass?

Wild fluctuations in the cost of building materials, rapidly changing buyer preferences and a variety of other factors have compelled builders and developers to find innovative solutions to get their projects completed.

This is the issue where you get to learn more about the outstanding agents, lenders and affiliates of the residential real estate industry who set the example for their peers. Learn everything from how they got into real estate to what drives their business to how they continue to grow year after year.

The past 18 months brought ups and downs to the housing market throughout Chicago and the city’s suburbs. With pandemic restrictions lifted and COVID-19 cases at lows not seen since last spring, agents and clients are still dealing with a lengthy inventory shortage and high demand that pushed prices up in many markets.

What are some of the tried and true methods of successful branding? How has it changed with social media and the tumultuous year that had brokers reinventing themselves? We talk with some of the biggest names in the Chicagoland real estate industry to find out more.

While masks and social distance requirements may eventually fall by the wayside, much of the new real estate technology that has surfaced during the pandemic is likely to stick around for the foreseeable future.

Agents are swearing by the year-old Clubhouse app that allows more than 10 million users to host town hall-style audio-only forums on various topics.

To update you on all the exciting new changes in the luxury market, we went directly to the source: luxury brokers. With much candor, they reveal how the market held up this past year, the types of properties that are moving, how the city compares to the suburbs, buyers’ evolving needs and their exciting predictions for the post-COVID world.

LaFido has spent more than 20 years in the industry working in luxury sales and training agents to work in the field. In 2016, he launched his Luxury Listing Specialist (LUXE) certification program.

In this year’s Truth About Agents survey, we go beyond the statistics with an analysis that contextualizes your responses with prior years’ survey results; the 2021 survey also serves up your comments on topics such as agents’ opinions of their brokerages, what their plans are for the future, how much they expect to earn in the coming year and much more.

Have you attempted to renegotiate your commission split in the last 12 months? See what other Chicagoland agents had to say in our 2021 Truth About Agents survey.

Which area of training do Chicagoland agents say they wish they had more of? We asked them in our 2021 Truth About Agents survey.

What kind of agents are managing brokers targeting for recruitment? What’s their biggest challenge in training new agents? The answers are in the 2021 Truth About Agents survey.