THE DELGRECO TEAM FEATURED IN CHICAGO REAL PRODUCERS

May 2021

Dear Friends and Clients,

With Mother’s Day just behind us and the ability to gather with and see family again just beginning, we thought it the appropriate time to share this short article with you. This article was created right at the beginning of the pandemic last year, so we thought we would wait to share it with you until it felt to be the “right” time.

Many of you may know us well and our back story, but for those of you who don’t, we wanted to share a little bit of our family dynamic and what makes The DelGreco team who we are.

We hope that this finds you well and enjoying some time outdoors and with your own families!

All our best,

Christie and Lynn

P.S. “If you ever find you have questions about the market, please don’t hesitate to ask. We’re here for you!”

celebrating mothers By Jennifer Mitchell

One of the biggest misconceptions about the real estate team of Christie and Lynn DelGreco is that Christie followed her mother into the industry. In fact, it was Lynn who followed her daughter’s lead, and started taking classes to earn her real estate license after Christie signed up.

For both Lynn and Christie, real estate is a second career. Lynn worked as a residential landscape designer, and was the co-owner of a nursery.

“I loved meeting people and hearing about what they would like to see and the types of plants they liked before creating a landscape and hardscape plan,” says Lynn. “I would hand-select all the plants myself to ensure I was providing quality material to the job, which was very important to me.”

Christie was an equity options trader on the trading floor at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. Much like in real estate, she liked that no two days on the trading floor were ever the same.

Unfortunately, Christie saw many of her colleagues were being laid off and that the industry was rapidly changing. Deciding to take her fate into her own hands, she spoke with her mother about a career change.

“My mom asked me, ‘If you could do anything you wanted and money didn’t matter, what would it be?'” remembers Christie. “And I answered immediately with ‘real estate.’ So, she told me to go get my license.”

Around the same time, Lynn was contemplating a career change of her own.

“Christie was taking classes to earn her real estate license and needed to take the El home alone at 9:30p.m.,” notes Lynn. “I didn’t like the idea of her traveling alone at night, so I decided to sign up for the same class and get my license too. I don’t know that she was crazy about the decision at the time, but it all worked out in the end.”

Once they both received their licenses, Lynn started working in the suburbs while Christie worked in the city. In 2004, Christie was asked to be a part of a new development sales team, which added quite a bit of work to her already stressed schedule. Not wanting her existing resale business to suffer, and knowing that the suburban real estate market had slowed, Christie asked her mom to come downtown and become her partner in 2006.

“The first weekend I worked for Christie, I worked up a sweat running from one end of the city to the other,” claims Lynn. “I was exhausted by the end of the day. But I quickly learned how to manage the schedule, and I moved downtown to be closer to the business.”

“My mom and I are always on the same wavelength about the business,” says Christie. “We even end up asking the same questions to a client if we talk with them at different times. But we do have very different personalities. My mom takes the time to digest what a client says before reacting, whereas my instinct is to reply quickly to each question I am asked. Since working with her, I’ve tried to take a page out of her book, and talk less and listen more.”

When it comes to splitting up tasks, Christie is the lead communicator, expert negotiator, and PR guru; Lynn does a lot of the paperwork, inspections, and keeps the contact management system up-to-date. Both do showings depending on who is available when, and they manage all listings and marketing plans as a duo.

“Sometimes clients will gravitate more towards my mom or myself due to a personality fit, and that person takes the lead on communication,” explains Christie. “But most of our clients like the fact that they have two different perspectives, so we service our listings together.”

In the fall of 2018, this mother-daughter team faced their biggest challenge when Christie was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“While I underwent treatment, my mom not only had to keep our business running smoothly, but she also had to take care of me,” states Christie. “I was very sick after each chemo treatment, so my mom stayed at my house, cook for me, went to the store multiple times a day, worked to deed me when I didn’t want to eat, helped me when I was violently ill, woke me up in the middle of the night to take my meds, and did this all while running our business so our clients wouldn’t be affected by my absence. We actually had an incredible volume of production during those five months, and our clients’ needs were attended to beautifully. Thanks to her, we pulled through , and I am now cancer-free. I guess you can call us the Dynamic Duo.”