About Deborah Hess

For more than 35 years, Deborah Hess has helped shape real estate decisions across Chicago—guiding buyers and sellers, advising developers and investors, and building a business grounded in market expertise, strategy, and enduring client relationships. As founder of Deb Hess & Partners at Compass and one of Chicago’s most experienced residential real estate professionals, Deborah brings more than $1 billion in career sales and an exceptional depth of insight to every client and transaction.

Her expertise spans Chicago’s diverse residential market, from luxury single-family homes and condominiums to new construction, condo conversions, multifamily properties, and investment opportunities. For sellers, Deborah is known for thoughtful pricing, meticulous preparation, sophisticated marketing, and skilled negotiation designed to maximize value and market impact. For buyers, she combines deep neighborhood knowledge with a sophisticated understanding of housing stock, property value, and long-term potential, helping clients make confident decisions in even the most competitive or complex markets.

Deborah’s experience extends well beyond traditional brokerage. Developers and investors regularly seek her guidance on site selection, floor plans, finishes, pricing, positioning, staging, marketing, sales strategy, and project closeout. Her ability to understand what buyers respond to—and anticipate how a property will perform in the marketplace—has made her a valued advisor from the earliest planning stages through the final sale.

At the heart of Deborah’s business is a highly personal approach. She believes exceptional real estate representation is about far more than completing a transaction; it is about understanding what matters most to each client, anticipating challenges before they arise, and providing informed, candid guidance from beginning to end. Many of her client relationships span decades and generations, built on trust, results, and the level of service that has defined her business throughout her career.

As leader of Deb Hess & Partners, Deborah has built a collaborative team that combines extensive market experience with modern technology, sophisticated marketing, and a shared commitment to exceptional client service. Her enthusiasm for Chicago real estate, deep neighborhood knowledge, and long record of successful results have made her a trusted advisor to buyers, sellers, investors, and developers throughout the city and surrounding communities.

Our Mission Statement:

It is the mission of Deb Hess & Partners to consistently provide the highest quality, most innovative and exceptional real estate service available anywhere in Chicago, and surrounding areas.

Our clients’ needs always come first. We will strive to always provide value far in excess of our clients’ expectations. Our constant goal is mutual respect, and long term relationships that are beneficial to all parties.

Our operation will be a great place to work and do business. We will be positive, helpful, and enthusiastic at all times – always focusing on solutions, not challenges. We will take care of business first and foremost, but have fun and enjoy ourselves in the process.

We will run a clean, organized, and efficient operation, and always adhere to the highest standards of integrity and ethical business practices.

We will never rest on our accomplishments. We will constantly strive to create, develop, and implement new ideas, strategies, and services that will benefit our clients. We will continue to seek continuing education in all aspects of our business to increase the level of service we offer our clients.

Given the state of the current market and our economy, it is even more important for our Group to strive to give both Buyers and Sellers all the positive and realistic information about the home buying and selling process, and to utilize all the data at our disposal to support our positive outlook!

• Honesty & Integrity at all times and in all situations.
• Continually improve our services to exceed our clients’ expectations.
• Create and nurture a fun, exciting, creative and productive work environment.
• Utilize state of the art technology to provide greatest exposure for listings, and most useful and up to date information to both Buyers and Sellers.
• Work with only the most enjoyable and motivated clients and co-workers.