In the Spotlight: 150 Years of Baird & Warner
By Chris Huizenga, NSBAR Director of Marketing/Education

March 2005

Chicago, 1855. Levi D. Boone has been elected mayor. Sixty people have been arrested protesting the prohibition against the sale of beer on Sunday. And on March 28, Lucius Duncan Olmsted has loaned $5,000 to Edward Casey & Brothers for a property in what is now Chicago’s South Loop. Thus begins an era not only in Chicago history, but in the overall history of real estate and Baird and Warner.

Chicago burns in 1871. Homes, businesses, hospitals – all gone. Streets are lost beneath the crumbling frameworks of the old buildings. 90,000 are homeless, and no one knows where one property begins and another begins; the rebuilding process cannot begin. Sifting through the rubble and ash, workers find a safe in the remains of Baird and Warner’s gutted office. Inside are the only surviving documents that show Chicago’s property grids. The rebirth of the city begins from these documents.

Today, the Chicago grid documents are now old and brittle and await electronic scanning and filing in the Baird and Warner Marketing office. Andrew Hayes, Director of Communications and Community Relations, flips through some pages as I stand there, looking at an old ledger that helped shape the early real estate market in Chicago, and further documents a $5,000 mortgage awarded in 1855. It has been 150 years since that first mortgage went out from that tiny office, and Baird and Warner is amongst the largest and healthiest brokerages in the world today.

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of meeting members of the Baird and Warner team, as well as the opportunity to speak with President & CEO Stephen Baird. From his office on the 20th floor, Stephen Baird looks out across a cityscape that time and again has been touched by a family legacy and the entrepreneurial spirit of Baird and Warner’s corporate culture. So quite frankly, I ask him how an independent brokerage survives 150 years.

Sitting back in his chair, Stephen Baird tells me that for a company to survive, it must “change the right amount.” While admitting the longevity is part luck, he tells me that part of it is reinventing the business just enough to accommodate the consumer. Consumers today are leaning towards a more simplified process of real estate buying/selling, and any company that wants to survive cannot lose focus on their wants. For example, studies show that consumers are using the internet more and more for real estate data gathering. The Internet can breed person-to-person service, as it helps facilitate the transaction. Putting that knowledge into practice, Baird and Warner launched HomeFinder, an online property-search service accumulating 62,000 users in three years.

150 years in business, as well as being the fourteenth largest brokerage in the country, are not the only great accomplishments of the brokerage. The success is as human as it is tangible. Stephen Baird tells me that one of the greatest accomplishments is the depth of Baird and Warner’s agents and employees. We spoke about the company’s culture, the teamwork, the feel of the office, and the family environment. And it shows. To spend time with the Baird and Warner team was to be treated like an old friend. There is a very human side to the corporate culture at work here, a reverence and a sense of accomplishment residing with everyone I spoke to.

I asked Baird to describe the relationship the company has with its brokers, and how that has attributed to the growth and lifespan of the company. He tells me that there is a great relationship there, a trust and an honor. The brokerages have learned to trust the corporate office, and the main office reciprocates. Everyone has to take ownership for their decisions. Everyone has to be honest. “You have to lean on the trust,” says Baird.

Amidst some of the tougher challenges for the company has been dealing with the size of the organization and the maintenance of its culture. Baird tells me that it is challenging for any company to continue to motivate and grow the employees and business. Staying vigilant amidst challenging market conditions, reinventing the energy that is required to stay aloft, staying unique and investing in brand equity are some of the other challenges faced not just by Baird and Warner, but by every brokerage.

In 150 years, many other brokerages have come and gone. According to Baird, the costliest mistakes that lead to downfall are made when the brokerages stop listening to customers. “You have to ask yourself: what is right for the customer, and what is the right thing to do?”. Stephen tells me that by taking care of the customer, by doing what is right for them, the rest of the business benefits.

There are 150 years behind Baird and Warner, and a bright future ahead. Looking forward, Stephen Baird sees an integrated real estate market driven by the internet and one-stop service. Seldom can any American company boast 150 years of service, but surviving the Civil War, the Great Fire, the Great Depression, and two World Wars tells me that there is something stronger and more inert behind Baird and Warner: good will, growth, innovation, and adaptation; four attributes which I see repeatedly as I look at the history of Baird and Warner.

Perhaps the best advice on corporate survival is etched into a placard which greets both staff and guests alike as they step off the elevator into the main office of Baird and Warner: “Good will is something we cannot buy in the open market. It has to be earned – and nothing will acquire it quite so rapidly as Courtesy, Cheerfulness and Respect.”

Congratulations to Baird and Warner on 150 years of service to the Chicago area market.