Berkshire buys Elmhurst-based Schiller, boosts reach into area

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s property brokerage bought Schiller Real Estate, expanding the reach of Warren Buffett's company in the Chicago area as home sales rise.

Schiller, based in suburban Elmhurst, will become a part of Koenig & Strey Real Living, a residential brokerage that Berkshire's HomeServices of America Inc. unit bought last year, HomeServices said today in a statement. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

"The acquisition of Schiller, merging with Koenig & Strey, further strengthens our presence in Chicago," Ron Peltier, chairman and chief executive officer of Minneapolis-based HomeServices, said in the statement.

Home sales in the Chicago metropolitan area, the third- largest in the U.S., rose 32 percent to 4,134 in February from a year earlier as lower prices lured buyers, data from the Illinois Association of Realtors show. The median price for a home in the region fell 10 percent year over year to $165,000, the association said March 22.

With the addition of Schiller, Koenig & Strey will have 22 offices and 1,000 agents and staff, according to the statement. Schiller, founded in 1970, has 70 employees.

HomeServices is the biggest U.S. residential brokerage after Apollo Management LP's Realogy Corp., based in Parsippany, New Jersey. Realogy owns the Coldwell Banker and Century 21 brands.

HomeServices is a unit of Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. Buffett is the chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire.