Baldwin ? Competition in the Baldwin real estate market is heating up. A third real estate company is set to open in this southern Douglas County community of 3,500 people.

John Bush and Patrick Flavin, Lawrence Realty Associates partners, have teamed with Baldwin real estate agent and developer Michael Green to form Baldwin Realty Associates.

Bush said the company would start with four agents and hoped to have its office along U.S. Highway 56 open within the next two weeks. It will be the third real estate office for the community. Two Lawrence-based firms, Hedges Real Estate and Stephens Real Estate, have had offices in Baldwin since the mid-1990s.

But Bush said he thought Baldwin Realty Associates would do well because it planned to draw attention to Baldwin’s small-town atmosphere and the amenities that Baker University offers.

“We think the community calls for a different type of marketing,” Bush said. “We think the Baldwin lifestyle really needs to be sold better. Once we do that, the home sales will follow.

“We’ll talk a lot about how Baldwin has a small-town way of life but is still a college town. That makes it real unique.”

Green said the agency also would compete by focusing more heavily on selling newly built homes than either of the town’s other two real estate companies.

Green is working on winning city approval for two developments in northern Baldwin that would add a mix of about 175 single-family homes and duplexes to the area during the next five years.

Both projects are near Baldwin High School. The largest project is called Signal Ridge and would be located on 63 acres on the southeast corner of Douglas County Routes 1055 and 12. It would include 50 single-family homes, 50 duplex units and another 50 to 60 units that could be either single-family or duplex homes.

The second development is called Parkside and would be along County Route 1055 on 6 acres just west of the high school. It would include about 25 townhomes. Baldwin Realty Associates would be the exclusive agency for all the new home sales in both developments.

Opinions are mixed on whether the community has enough sales to support three agencies.

According to numbers from the Douglas County Appraiser’s Office, there were 72 single-family home sales in the Baldwin city limits in 2001. That actually was down from 90 sales in 2000, according to county data.

But Krystal Williams, branch broker for Hedges Real Estate, said she anticipated all three firms would do fine because she expected the town’s size and the cultural activities offered by Baker University to keep drawing more people to town.

Debbie French-Morgan, branch broker for Stephens Real Estate, is taking more of a wait-and-see approach.

“The positive thing is we are expanding with a lot of new growth to the north of town,” French-Morgan said. “But I guess we’ll have to see if there is room for three down here. We have good growth, but we’re still a small town.”