​Its fun to hate on Realtors. They often appear to be the unwelcome mutation of a Bar Exam failure and a used car salesperson. And they can activate something deep in our reptilian brains that make us flee at the first muttering of the R word. I never thought I would be one. But maybe you never thought you'd be the Senior VP of North America's 3rd leading smegma stain removal company. Despite our national fallacy of Be-What-You-Wantism, many Americans find themselves careers away from those smegma stained dreams of their collegiate egos.

You've been looking for a new house for months. You know what you want. You aren't some indecisive slouch. You understand there aren't many homes for sale. Limited inventory they say. You get it. Your agent prepared you to make a strong offer. And you went even stronger. Yes!!! Then you heard the news – the seller decided to go with another offer. Motherfu****!!!!

The free market has helped price many buyers out of neighborhoods. It laid the foundation for escalating property taxes that forced homeowners to prematurely sell. And those rents that never seem to come down regardless of how bad the economy is doing – that damn free market!  

Open Houses. Only in America. It says a lot about our country. In many nations hosting an Open House for complete strangers would get you committed to the provincial asylum. Not here. It's a right of passage in the national goal of home ownership for all. The trust of our citizenry is on full display every Sunday in a home near you. Yes, we actively discourage talking to strangers in America. We install cameras outside our homes to keep an eye on strangers. And we also promote gun ownership to protect you from strangers. But in a nation founded on the principle of equality of all, hypocrisy is a national pastime.

They are the guardians of the block. The ones looking out for the Cottages and Bungalows, or maybe the Queen Annes or the Four Squares. Those aren't the names of the latest Northside hipster moped gangs. They are the stalwarts of Chicago's single family housing stock. But no chess board is complete without the rooks. Those would be the two and three flats. In other townships, they are often labeled 'duplex'. Not in Chicago. We reserve that for two story apartment units. The City of Big Shoulders is really the City of Multi-Units, that being the all encompassing name of the deep and varied collection of neighborhood apartment buildings: two flats, three flats, four flats, 6 flats, 9, 12, 16.......choose your number. Eventually there are so many they end up in a courtyard or a high rise.