RE/MAX Offices In Rock Falls And Sterling Add Agents As Illinois Real Estate Market Shows Resilience

The RE/MAX offices in Rock Falls and Sterling, Ill., are expanding while a majority of real estate brokerages in the Illinois real estate market and nationwide are reducing their agent headcount.

RE/MAX Homes Unlimited in Rock Falls and RE/MAX Sauk Valley in Sterling have effectively doubled their staff of agents in the last few weeks due largely to the recent closing of a major competitor and a sense of optimism about the Illinois real estate market, especially in the Dixon-Rock Falls-Sterling market area.
RE/MAX Sauk Valley, the larger of the two offices, has added 10 agents and now has 22 agents on staff. RE/MAX Homes Unlimited grew from eight to 16 agents. In both cases the new agents were formerly associated with the Sterling office of Mel Foster Co., which closed effective Feb. 13.

“You hear and read a lot of discouraging news about the real estate market nationally, but the fact is that in our area home prices have remained remarkably stable and have even increased,” said Tim McCaslin, who along with James Cesarek and John Rosengren, owns RE/MAX Sauk Valley. “Like many areas in the Illinois real estate market, ours didn’t see the big increase in home prices that occurred in much of the nation from 1997 to 2006, and as a result, we aren’t seeing the same kind of declines.”

According to the Illinois Association of Realtors®, the median price of the average home sold in Lee County in 2008 was 6.2 percent higher than during the prior year. For Whiteside County, the increase was 7.4 percent. That compares to a 7.8 percent decline for home prices statewide, and a 5.5 percent dip in the metropolitan Chicago real estate market.

According to McCaslin, he and his partners expect the local market to continue on its present track, and that is why they were anxious to add a number of the experienced agents who had been affiliated with Mel Foster Co.
David DeVries, broker/owner of RE/MAX Homes Unlimited, said his decision to bring a total of nine new agents into his Rock Falls office last month was based on similar reasoning.

“These are experienced Illinois real estate professionals who have established reputations in the community, and we are delighted to welcome them to our RE/MAX team,” DeVries said. “Fortunately, we had the physical space in our office to accommodate them comfortably. Then, along with providing the Internet and phone services they needed, we quickly expanded our office staff to be sure our new agents have ample support. It took a couple of days to get everything up and running, but things are going smoothly now.”

Patti Sword, the former manager of the Mel Foster office in Sterling, is one of the agents moving to RE/MAX Sauk Valley. She views the new arrangement as a plus for the local real estate market.

“With more local agents operating under the RE/MAX banner, there should be greater coordination of services, and I am looking forward to tapping the broader educational and technical resources that RE/MAX offers,” said Sword.