Your Home, Near & Dear.
Every Move Starts
With a Why.
Understanding your why is how I help you find where you belong. I’m Joe Deardurff, a Chicago real estate broker.
More Than Property
People Before Property.
Properties, market knowledge, negotiation and financial strategy all matter. None of it comes before understanding the person making the move.
Understand the person. Understand the why. Build the strategy. Guide the move.
The Dear Home Promise
You will be understood before you are advised.
You will be informed before you are asked to decide.
You will have a strategy before you make a move.
You will have someone in your corner throughout the process.
Meet Joe
Dear Chicago,
Dear is my last name. It’s also exactly how I approach everyone I work with. I leased and managed apartments all over Chicagoland for seven years before I sold my first home, which is why I can tell you what a building will cost you after you own it.
Since 2014, hundreds of families have found home with me, first in apartments and now in homes they buy and sell. That’s about $30M in homes sold since 2021, from a $127k one-bedroom condo in Edgewater to a $2.2M single-family home in Bucktown, and the reason behind each one was different.
The property transaction is the visible event. The reason behind it is the real story, and that is where I start.
Chicago is the center of gravity. Chicagoland is the world around it.
Where I Work
Bucktown
Logan Square
Edgewater
Lake View
Albany Park
Jefferson Park
Four Ways to Work Together.
Dear Home Concierge for Selling
What is your home actually worth?
Preparation, Pictures, Price and Presentation, handled with you before your home goes live. I don’t simply list your home. I position it. You get a written pricing opinion built on what closed near you, not on what is listed. In writing, within two days.
“Once we were ready to go on the market, you got photographs done and the next day we were live and at the end of the day we had two offers.”
Karla S., Roselle
The Dear Homebuyer.
How much do you really need to buy in Chicago? Less than most people think. What a down payment actually takes today, and the programs that help.
Rent Then Own.
A strategic path to homeownership that begins with renting. For renters who want to own in the next few years. We start with why you rent today, then map your path from a rent payment to a mortgage payment.
Pi(2) for Investors.
Is a two-flat worth owning? Passive Income from Property Investing: identify the opportunity, evaluate the numbers, acquire with purpose, position for rental, lease without the hassle. Underwritten by someone who has managed buildings.
The Dear Home Approach
Understand the Person. Understand the Why. Build the Strategy. Guide the Move.
01
Start With Why
Why you are moving, and what a good outcome looks like for you.
02
Build the Strategy
The plan follows the why: timing, price, the search or the sale.
03
Prepare
The home, the numbers and the paperwork, before anything goes live.
04
Execute
Negotiation, due diligence, closing. Prepared, patient, decisive.
05
Keep Moving Forward
After the keys, still your first call.
In Their Words
“Joseph was with me every step of the way! From the moment I reached out he formulated a game-plan that was tailor made to my exact needs. He made sure to check in daily.”
Ivan V., Joliet
Dear Homes.
Three I have sold, and the reason behind each one.
Crystal Lake
A townhome-style condo pulled off the market after months with another agent and no offers. Relisted with Dear Home Concierge, it was under contract in two days and sold above asking.
Lake View
I sold this condo in 2022, then sold it again in 2025 so the owners could move up to new construction a mile away, on a timeline that let the equity carry straight over.
Evanston
A first condo, sold with the care its owner had put into it, to a first-time buyer who fell for it at the very first showing.
Letters From a Chicago Realtor.
A letter a month about a Chicago neighborhood, what is selling there, and what it costs to live there. Written by me, in my own words.
The first letter is on its way.