Three of Chicago’s busiest South Side multifamily dealmakers have quietly flipped the script and become mid-market owner-operators. Noah Birk, Aaron Sklar and Dan Gonzalez, long familiar names in the city’s brokerage scene, now run BSG and control roughly $70 million in Chicago-area property across more than a dozen acquisitions. Their shift from listing agents to landlords comes as the very neighborhoods they once pitched to investors wrestle with rising per-unit prices, code battles and the occasional foreclosure.
Brokers buy what they sell
According to The Real Deal, the trio launched BSG after a hectic 2021 brokerage year and started targeting stabilized, recently renovated buildings. Their latest score is 1552 North LaSalle Drive, a 16-unit Old Town property they bought for about $6.2 million, and they are also coming in as a joint-venture partner on a Fulton Market project with more than 70 units. “We’re putting our money where our mouths are,” Sklar told The Real Deal about BSG’s move into ownership.
Where they placed bets
The LaSalle property was sold by JAB Real Estate, whose principals, Frank Campise and Jim Jann, have been active on the sell side lately. BSG’s portfolio also includes a 30-unit gut rehab on the lakefront at 7520 S. South Shore Drive, plus properties in northwest Indiana, a spread that shows how widely they are shopping submarkets. Before launching their investment vehicle, the principals led the top-producing Birk | Sklar team at the Kiser Group.
Trouble followed the frenzy
Not every deal born out of the recent buying rush has gone smoothly. The Real Deal reported that Wisconsin-based buyer Trinity Flood, which picked up a South Side portfolio the brokers had listed, later claimed it was misled about capital improvements and hit with undisclosed mandatory security expenses. That portfolio ultimately became the target of a foreclosure suit of roughly $27 million. The fallout sharpened scrutiny of out-of-state buyers and of the brokers who cater to them.
Federal raid focused attention
The build-to-sell boom got another jolt in September 2025, when federal agents, as part of an immigration enforcement effort known as “Operation Midway Blitz,” raided an apartment building at 7500 S. South Shore Drive and detained dozens of people, drawing intense local and national coverage. The heavy-handed enforcement and the building’s legal problems amplified questions about who is truly responsible for conditions and tenant safety. Chicago Sun-Times reporting captured lawmakers and neighbors demanding answers in the raid’s aftermath.
Legal and ethical questions…