"As a company, we've grown tremendously over the last few years, with most of our growth focused on the core brokerage part of our business," Golden tells GlobeSt.com. "With the exposure we have in the condo market and through our group of agents, there are great opportunities for us to get into the management side of business. For some of the things we do, such as representing banks on REO properties, there are real advantages for us to have a property management business."

In business since the early 1970s, Venterra manages about 800 residential condominium units and 200,000 square feet of commercial space in Chicago. The firm will be renamed @properties Property Management in the new venture. It will initially target expanding its management portfolio in the Chicago metro market with shopping centers, neighborhood strip centers, office and industrial properties and condominium and apartment communities of 30 units or more.

"Venterra has been a steady company and we provide them with a platform to allow them to grow, and it's another value add for us as a company to be able to provide these services to our customers," Golden says. "We work with a lot of developers, and when they're done building and looking for property managers, now they can continue to work with us and it's a seamless transition. It's a natural synergy based on the size of our business."

Steve West, a former @properties sales agent and property management professional, has been named managing director of @properties Property Management. Michael Rourke, formerly the VP and director of retail services for Venterra, will act as VP of commercial management for the group. Venterra's existing staff will also be maintained to provide services through the new venture including property staffing, financial reporting, assessment collections, budget preparation, property maintenance, emergency services, condo board relations, vendor and subcontractor management, management of association-owned rental apartments, and tenant/owner communications.

While many companies are faltering in the rocky economy, Golden says conditions have actually in an ironic way facilitated @properties' continued growth. "Our company is very strong right now, and we've continued to grow our market share tremendously in recent years even though the market's tougher," he says. "We're playing from a position of strength and have an opportunity to invest in our growth while other companies are bleeding money right now. A lot of these companies have financial issues they're dealing with and we're taking advantage of the opportunity to grow given the turmoil and everything happening in the market right now."