[See in original format at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago]
So the lances have been drawn and the steeds mounted as the coffee battles are being waged.
In billboards and full-page ads in income-deprived dailies like the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times we are witness to the skirmishes as grinding teeth of corporate titans have been supplanted by grinding coffee and lots of lattes that are being tipped to and from Starbucks and the cafe of the masses simmering under McDonald's Golden Arches and the double "d" of Dunkin' Donuts.
And while I will be the first to admit that I have enjoyed more than a few specialty coffees that I have snagged from Mickey D drive-thrus in-between showings of pristine (and less than) pieces of real estate in Chicago, I'd like to tell you of an adventure of sorts that I had earlier today as Lucas shimmied through the playground at a McDonald's on Ashland in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood.
[If I am not mistaken, this is the same McDonald's that is the source of endless comments on a Northside Parent's Network's chat room that involves a bad nanny - but that's a story for a different day.]
But the story for today has to do with coffee, McDonald's attempt to usurp the market share currently controlled by Starbucks and the ease of grabbing a cup of joe while keeping up the good fight behind the computer screen while going wireless.
If I'm not mistaken, as more and more places offer wifi service, McDonald's restaurants are part of this trend. And while wireless service itself isn't so much of a concern to me as I have modem service through Verizon, what is of concern to me due to the feeble battery life of my hp computer is an outlet.
So there we were today chucking a single stone at two or three birds - Lucas plays in the kiddie land with Nicole while I crank out some work before heading to show my West Loop loft listing at 1250 Van Buren. And as I surveyed the situation I came to the grim discovery that amid the hubris of the morning rush was a complete and utter absence of outlets.
Nowhere to be seen was an outlet to bubble the life of electricity into my computer. Rats!
Then lo and behold after resigning myself to be less wired rather than wireless my eyes stumbled upon a single lonely outlet stranded below one of two benches in the playland. Hah, and so surrounded by the green shoots of social skills of a group of two to five year olds I set up shop, returning emails and advising clients about our searches for Chicago area real estate and the state of currently negotiated contracts for a couple of Chicago condos.
And so it went for fifteen or so minutes. And then my screen went black.
I suppose later I will laugh while mulling over the line of "being careful what you pray for" because my silent prayer had been for an outlet, not a working one. But at the time my frustration was palpable. Again, rats!
The good news is that while my computer went cold my latte was still warm. And more good news is the lesson learned.
It boils down to you get what you pay for.
A to-go latte from the Mickey D's drive-through is great as I stitch appointments together from showing my Andersonville condo to my Lakeview condo to my River West condo to my West Loop condo to my Roscoe Village condo to my Bucktown condo to my Wicker Park condo. But when it's time to settle in do some search engine optimization for google, yahoo or bing or provide something more than the terse email that a Blackberry allows, I need a place that provides two types of juice - a tasty latte as well as a working outlet.
So at the end of the day, as well as at the beginning, that's the perfect time for a place like Starbucks. Face it, given the option I will always opt for the little guy. Especially the one who rocks the globe with service and quality that makes you want to be a stark-raving fan. So my true choices will be Metropolis Coffee in Edgewater or The Coffee Studio in Andersonville.
But I won't turn my back on Starbucks, forever crediting them for changing the lexicon of coffee and ensuring that a true, reliable and strong cup of coffee is always there. So hip hip hooray Starbucks.
And hip hip hooray for other things that are worth what you pay for them, like the input and counsel from a Chicago real estate professional whose advice and input is insightful, reliable and valuable.
That, my friends, is a classic soft-sell of your's truly, Thomas McCarey and his team at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago.
[Original post + format at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago]
This is my bike.
Standing against the garage behind our Edgewater home, this bike is but a suggestion. It is a suggestion of what might be if it were being ridden. Coasting along the Chicago lakefront, dodging pedestrians, slowing down when need be and speeding up to chase down imaginary Lance Armstrong competitors trying to outpace me.
I love the idea of a suggestion for if properly placed it serves as a reminder to be more fully what we aspire to be. And so as I aspire to be a more romantic husband or a more playful daddy or a guy who rides his really cool cruiser all I need to do is take a moment and heed the suggestion. Years ago in any number of spiritual tomes I was hurling into the furnace of my mind writer after writer commented on the idea of waking up to "the universe's alarm clock."
Surely this idea is nothing new to anybody who has ever watched a week of Oprah. And yet I constantly trend away from waking up to these alarm clocks, preferring, I guess, to stay asleep or tilt my hand to quell the alarm. Over and over and over...
But I think now is the time! Do you remember the old Nike commercial when the simple question was raised and resolutely answered time after time, "Where do you want to go today?"
So today I will bracket my day by etching up and down Lake Shore Drive as I take and then pick up Jackson from Lycee Francaise in the Buena Park neighborhood of Chicago. And I will market each of my wonderful real estate listings in various Chicago neighborhoods, acting like the wizard behind the curtain of my internet controls and on the phone with folks looking for and purveyors of Chicago real estate.
Then I will take my technological beakers down from the shelf to continue to concoct my soon-to-be-released website called ChalkTalk Chicago that provides parents in Chicago who have kids with more than enough information to figure out the byzantine labyrinth that relates to Chicago public and private schools. There also will be a good measure of Chicago real estate related information to help these parents figure out things like home values, the overall market, boundaries related to Chicago schools.
In essence it will be one-stop shopping for Chicago parents dealing with Chicago condos and homes, schools, and the range of ancillary questions like questions to ask a nanny, good kid-related websites for clothes, places to eat and so on and so on. If the work in the lab goes well www.ChalkTalkChicago.com (right now the url points to The Real Estate Lounge Chicago) should be up and running and helping Chicago parents figure stuff out in the next eight weeks.
But back to today.
A colleague at another brokerage who is showing my property in the West Loop at 1250 W Van Buren has a tagline on his email signature that incorporates "Carpe Diem" in it. That exhortation - to seize the day - is the breath behind the universe's wake up call.
And with this in mind perhaps before it's time to nestle Jackson and Lucas into a restful framework to gain sleep for the next day I may even wrestle the beautiful bike down from its "j" hooks in the garage and let the rubber hit the road as I fancy myself to be a bike-riding cowboy realtor squinting my eyes against the wind in my face as I take a real spin around the northside of Chicago.
I will keep you posted.
[View this post in Original and Lovely Format at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago]
The weekend that just passed was a pleasant time spent with the family in a to-and-fro motion between Dallas and Chicago. To Dallas we went last Thursday and fro Dallas we returned last night to experience the real chill that we don't seem to be able to shake in Chicago. And so it goes... But the story today isn't so much the fine time we had in Dallas and being the proud and loving godfather to baby Ya Ya or a festive engagement party Sunday night or even about hustling the boys last night into a sushi place in Andersonville on Clark Street with them dressed essentially in pool gear after summer weather down south. Instead it is to recount the great time we had the week before as we celebrated the second birthday of our lovely boy Lucas. For all of you out there keeping notes, you know that Lucas' real birthday is March 10th. 
Yep. The mighty winged stork descended into our room at Prentice Women's Hospital at Northwestern University two years back. And it was Cinco de Mayo en el ano pasado that Lucas commenced his ongoing escapade of walking. But instead of being restricted by the calendar and the foul weather that typically comes with March, we hesitated the scheduling of his bash until the middle of May to try to score some temperate climes. Our patience was rewarded as the skies conspired to gleam an opalescent blue punctuated by white clouds that drifted like weightless filaments. And the setting in our sideyard and rear patio was perfect as we gathered friends and family for a puppet show, a pinata bashing, a bit of arts and crafts, some delightful sugar-free Red Velvet cupcakes from Bleeding Heart Bakery, and more than a small portion of fun. 
When it was all said and done the folks gathered agreed that what we had had was fun. Good old fashioned fun on a beautiful spring day. The kind of fun that you look back on and exhale with delight that you had been there and been part of it. The kind of fun that Nicole and I had had in mind when we hatched the idea of having a puppet show-themed party with the type of weather we prayed for after the swamping the day before and given the entirely damp forecast for the day. But it all came together. What also came together as the party was nearing its natural conclusion was an offer I had submitted earlier the same day for a home for sale in a nearby suburb of Chicago. New to the market, my clients and I had zoomed in to see this new introduction to the Chicago real estate market it with the alacrity of a hand hitting the snooze button on a Sunday morning. And we then returned Saturday morning to confirm our suspicion that this house for sale represented what we were seeking in a home. 
The answer was yes and our commitment to act followed swiftly as we penned the contract on the hood of my truck. The good news is that the folks on the other side of this part of the Chicago real estate pie weren't in a stalling state of mind. And so we completed the negotiation to purchase this home by 6pm. With the holiday weekend fast approaching we set in motion the other elements of the process. We arranged for the estimable Peter Neuman of Prairie Home Inspection Services to inspect the premises the following Tuesday afternoon while forwarding the contract to Jack Arfa, a reputable real estate attorney also handling the sale of my clients' Wicker Park penthouse condo. Is there a point to all of this? It could have easily rained on the puppet show we had arranged for Lucas' birthday. And had that happened we would have gone to plan b. And what plan b is I don't know, but we would have concocted it and the end result would have been a frosty mug of fun. And the house in Oak Park, perhaps a second viewing would have unearthed something we didn't see the day before. Or the inspection might have pointed out something entirely unexpected that put the kibbosh on the deal. Or the folks selling might have proven to be obstinate just as we might have been. But these scenarios did not play out. What we had was a coming together of reasonable parties. What a relief! Much in the same manner that the skies turning from a slate gray at about 1.30 that afternoon to a peaceful blue proved to be. 
And the point? I don't know that there's much more of a point than patience. Some of the bruised feelings and damaged bank accounts associated with what is transpiring in Chicago and the national real estate market can be attributed to acting without enough (accurate) information. We waited to hold Lucas' party. And even with the delay there was a chance that the day of might have been called due to rain. But at the end of the day everything worked out just fine. With the clients I represented in buying the home in the Chicago suburb, we were patient enough to be willing, like several other clients of mine, to rent a place rather than moving forward with a place that didn't meet our criteria. Unlike the Chicago real estate market a bit more than two years back when action preceded cogitation and contemplation, today Chicago real estate consumers are willing to see a place sell before making a decision that doesn't feel comfortable or right. I know which scenario I prefer. And that which suits my clients. Which leads inexorably to the question that the savvy Chicago real estate consumer needs to contemplate and answer - does the Chicago real estate professional with whom I am working view things like I do? Or am I just a statistic that he is trying to close?
[View this post in original format by clicking here]
Forgive my forgetfulness.
The post from earlier today was trending toward the idea of stark raving fans and two things slipped my mind.
On Broadway just south of Belmont is an innocuous shop run by John Hwang. If you wear glasses and you haven't made your way to see Mr. Hwang at 3149 N Broadway, it's time to sprint over there.
Boxes on boxes of specs that form a line from old school to new school to no school are stacked in an incongruous order that makes sense to the estimable Mr. Hwang. But aside from the fact that hands down Mr. Hwang will give you a better deal than anybody out there is the fact that the man does his job unlike any optometrist I have ever met.
And so without doubt so long as my friend Mr. Hwang is hanging his shingle at 3149 N. Broadway in Lakeview (and I pray that it will be a long time), I and my family and everybody I can exhort to do the same will be loyal customers.
Which brings me to somebody I don't know but who embodies a timeless and visceral grace. I thought about will.i.am for two reasons. Last week he was on Oprah and he provided four young men, all from the same high school and all accepted to colleges they could not afford to attend and all being raised by single mothers as was will.i.am with full scholarships to attend school.
The idea is to be better, to join together, to unite, be strong and to do it with grace and dignity. And if so doing can be spiced up as was the case with his transcendent song "New Day," so be it.
By the way, just to shed some light on the inner contours of my brain, will.i.am's song "New Day" is roughly the same name as Mr. Hwang's shop, "New Days Optical."
By the way, click here to catch the song.
I guess you might file this one under "unclear on the concept."
I called a guy Tuesday morning to find out what he would charge to do a side job that I didn't want to do. The faucet in the kitchen decided to hiss a leak and I was willing to pay a fair wage to a guy to do the job for me. I had never met the guy, but his name had been brought up on an email list that my wife participates in that essentially intertwines a whole bunch of moms in our Edgewater neighborhood. Since I had not heard back from the handyman that I usually use from a message I had left the previous day, I decided to try this guy. To his credit he answered the phone. But what happened next is puzzling.
I don't run my business like that. And so when I come across somebody that does, it stuns me. Whether it is a fellow Chicago real estate professional or a handyman, an auto mechanic or a landscaper, I expect folks to be either at the top of their game or striving to get there.
What I don't expect is a "devil may care" attitude that could be interpreted to reflect disregard or disdain for me.
What I do expect is someone who really loves what they are doing and, if they are in business for themselves, they want to impress me so much that I won't be able to help but scream their name loud and clear to the next person who is looking for the service or product that they provide.
Which is exactly what I want the buying and selling clients that I represent in the Chicago real estate market to do after we work together.
Or my favorite mechanic, Marvin's at 1848 W Belmont in Roscoe Village.
Or any other number of places where they call you back, show up on time, do what they say they're going to do when they say they're going to do it. Where they simply make a habit of exceeding expectations.
That, to me, is what we are supposed to do. Whether we are waiting tables, teaching kids, snapping photographs, or tying words together in a blog. Set the bar higher and perform! I see people all over doing just this, so when the recommended handyman dumped my call and never called me back, it was a bit baffling.
But instead of crying over a leaky faucet, I nabbed a replacement faucet from Home Depot in Lincoln Park, cleared out below the sink, got the tools I needed and fixed the darned thing myself.
Even did it between showing my listing at 200 North Jefferson, discussing a new rental listing on Lake Shore Drive in Lakeview, and following up with new listing clients of a fantastic duplex up condo for sale in Bucktown.
The funny thing is, when it was all said and done, I kind of enjoyed replacing the faucet. Not so much that I intend to leave my day job, but enough to do it well and do it right and earn the accolades of my wife and sons.
All in a day's work, I suppose.
Chicago real estate professional Thomas McCarey and his team at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago provide outstanding services to buyers and sellers of real estate in Chicago.
Going online is a smart way to start your search for real estate in Chicago. But as useful as the online search is, it is limited.
For instance, information tends to be out-dated. And sometimes descriptions of properties are simply inaccurate.
Because for most of us the sale or purchase of real estate is among our most significant financial activities it is important that this activity is not left to chance. As you get ready to sell and/or buy your next home, it is critical that you be able to turn to a realtor who you can trust.
Tom McCarey is that Realtor. I am one of the 160+ elite Chicago Realtors that Century 21 Sussex & Reilly employs in four Chicago locations. Since January of 2002, Century 21 Sussex & Reilly has grown into the number one Century 21 real estate brokerage company in the Midwest.
Here's why.
Ask my past clients and they will tell you that I am among the top realtors in Chicago because I work harder, know the market better, and I listen to them - allowing me to more aggressively and intelligently advocate for their interests.
When you are ready to buy or sell a property in Chicago, I would love to hear from you.
I specialize in the new construction and resale single families and condos and multi-unit buildings with an emphasis in Chicago's north and northwest sides. My clients often select the following Chicago neighborhoods:
When you are ready to make a move, contact me directly at 773.848.9241. And feel free to refer me to your family and friends when they are looking in Chicago.
We had searched for a home for over two years and had worked off and on with several brokers. None of them were able to come close to meeting our needs.
And then we met Tom. He was the only one willing to go the extra mile to find us the perfect place.
His patience, dedication and service went above and beyond the call of duty. Not only did we gain a beautiful house in a wonderful neighborhood, we also gained a lifelong friend.
When my husband and I decided to buy our first home, we contacted Tom for help. We were interested in several neighborhoods in the city, we liked several different styles of home, and we had a lot of flexibility in budget. While we were excited by the possibilities, it was very hard for us to narrow our focus and we became overwhelmed. Tom stuck with us and went above and beyond the call of duty to help us narrow our search.
Thanks to Tom, we were the first on the scene when new properties hit the market. Once there, Tom used his excellent eye for detail and knowledge of construction and design to provide counsel, many times providing more insight into properties than the selling agent!
Through all of our searching and indecisiveness, Tom was patient and steadfast until he found the perfect home for us. Because the property was new construction, the contract process was complex. Tom was able to guide us through this process and was a fantastic advocate for us. He is a skilful negotiator and his detail orientation is invaluable during the closing process.
I can’t imagine how we would have survived the experience without Tom - he is quite simply the best realtor in the city.
When my husband and I were checking out Chicago neighborhoods we were not even sure we were going to buy and we certainly were not going to use a realtor as this was neither of our first purchases. Then we met Tom McCarey at an open house. We ended up speaking to him for some time and he listened to us. We were impressed with his knowledge of the market and the area. We told him we had found a house that we would like to see but were having problems getting in touch with the developer.
Tom aggressively pursued the situation, which was important since another couple was also interested in the house.Tom negotiated the contract like a pro and thought of items to include in the rider that we did not. Tom batted for us the entire way through the process and ensured the developer did what he promised.
When it came time to sell our home, I turned to Tom McCarey. My discussions with him prior to signing a listing agreement assured me that he knew the market-place and knew what it would take to sell our property quickly. We had another property under contract and had to sell our home at top dollar fast.
He priced it right, made himself available for all showing requests and sold it in days.
And, while I was working 24/7, he took care of all the details to ensure a smooth transaction and provide us with a stress-free experience. Tom took a personal interest in making sure we got the best possible deal - going above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that we had a rewarding experience. I highly recommend using him as your realtor.
I met Tom at an open house nearly a year before I purchased my home. He made an impression, so when I was ready to come back into the city from the north suburbs, I called him.
We talked about what I wanted in a house, what I wanted in a neighborhood, and what I wanted to spend. Tom was the best at providing me with timely information and in arranging showings. He also made sure to not only answer my questions but to show me properties that helped me make my decision.
Ultimately I decided on a new construction single family. Even after the contract was in place Tom's involvement continued, ensuring my satisfaction and a smooth closing. I couldn't be happier. I love my new home.
Approximately two years ago, my husband and I began our search to purchase a condo in Lakeview. We were already renting in the area and wanted to remain in the neighborhood that we had grown to love. Luckily, we met Tom who took the time to understand what we were looking for in a home and was undaunted by the challenge of finding us the perfect place within the very tight radius that we had defined as our ideal location.
Immediately, we were impressed by Tom's professionalism and knowledge of the properties and their amenities; he had had extensive experience with both vintage and new construction and was able to provide information about the properties and neighborhood that we had not considered.After looking at numerous properties - including negotiating contracts on two properties that we terminated due to inspection issues - Tom located the condo that we had been searching for and it was only two blocks from where we were living. He recommended an inspector and attorney who were both personable and professional to help us close the deal.
Tom was with us for every step of the process - we could not have done it without him. We are glad that we had the opportunity to meet him and would highly recommend his services and experience to anyone interested in looking for a home.
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