Three area groups representing real estate agents across Winnebago, Boone and Stephenson counties have merged into a single organization.
The new Northwest Illinois Alliance of Realtors is a combination of Rockford Area Realtors, Belvidere Board of Realtors and the Realtor Association of Northwestern Illinois based in Freeport.
The new group has 1,144 members. Before the merger, the Rockford group — the largest of the three — had 786 members.
The new group covers Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, Stephenson, Jo Daviess and Carroll counties — stretching from Belvidere in the east to Galena in the west and from South Beloit in the north to Oregon in the south.
“This merger came from a vision for a much larger and stronger organization that could provide more for its members and home buyers and could do more in terms of both community service and advocacy,” the new group’s CEO Conor Brown said in a news release.
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Individual chapters and offices will remain in Boone County and also in a tri-county area shared by Stephenson, Carroll and Jo Daviess counties.
“A chapter lets us keep offices in each location, and lets us still have our own culture” said Amy Barnes, a realtor in Lanark who served as president of the Realtors Association of Northwestern Illinois. “Each chapter will make local decisions, continue to support local causes, charities, scholarships we have in the past, and make local advocacy decisions on a local level.”
Market sales volume for the new area is estimated at $1.16 billion, the release states.
Corina Curry is the news director for the Rockford Register Star and Freeport Journal-Standard: ccurry@rrstar.com; @corinacurry