Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 14, 2012, 5:17 pm
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Every so often I get an inquiry from an online consumer trying to see a place that looks pretty good. Actually, it looks so good as to be too good to...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 12, 2012, 12:20 pm
Puffy cheeked angels are hurling ever-damper spitballs earthbound as Chicago gears up for its first substantial snow of the season. Sitting in my North Shore perch, a Starbucks near my sons’...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Dec 18, 2011, 12:42 am
A friend recently slipped a haiku into a facebook status update. As is the case always with haiku, once it enters my line of sight I refuse to relinquish the reins of haiku IQ for a good two weeks....
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Dec 12, 2011, 12:07 pm
Friday night the group gathered to toot their horns and celebrate the season. The setting was the grand ballroom at the J.W. Sheraton downtown and the hosts were the ever affable chieftains of...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Dec 11, 2011, 11:21 am
Value is a tricky thing to capture. In the Chicago and North Shore real estate market it’s akin to taking a shoe box and filling it with like-sized properties either in the same building (in...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Nov 2, 2011, 1:07 pm
It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. The map of life has more than a few detours that could so aptly be described. Whether it’s us looking at ourselves, at others or others at us, the...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 29, 2011, 10:44 pm
Disappointment. Things don’t go the way you want them to. I’m not talking cataclysm, catastrophe or that which is colossal. I’m talking the more mundane. Like when you don’t...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 27, 2011, 10:47 pm
A few weeks ago my five on a scale of five wife presented to me a radically wonderful birthday gift – the iPad 2. Oh wonder of wonders and miracles of miracles. Me gusta mucho and all of that....
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 25, 2011, 12:58 am
Like many Chicago real estate brokers I am more often out and about than I am behind a desk. With the advent of mobile technology I spend most of my day on the road, meeting buyers and sellers, going...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 23, 2011, 1:36 am
Had a weird one Friday. My clients were closing on the purchase of a South Loop townhome. And for the first time in more than ten years of being a Chicago real estate yenta the selling side of the...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 15, 2011, 12:33 am
Friday is share day in my son Jackson’s kindergarten class. Share day, for those of you not savvy as to twenty-eleven lexicon in the halls of certain North Shore learning centers, is the...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 13, 2011, 7:17 pm
It is 4pm on a rainy Thursday. Dampness combined with coolness and a general lack of sunlight imbues me with a Nordic dread of the season to come, the season after fall in Chicago. Well, at least the...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jul 24, 2011, 11:49 am
First it was an email. Then a text. Then a phone call. A North Shore buying client wanted to take a look at a newly listed single family home offered on the suppressed value side of the ledger. No...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jun 15, 2011, 12:35 pm
“Clear to close.” These are the words we await when a house or condo wends its way to closing when a loan is involved. And in the current market what we know to be true is simply...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jun 14, 2011, 10:40 am
Hell or high water. I suppose somewhere online there’s a tracing of the semantic geneaology of the comment. Maybe a wikapedia article that traces it back to the guy who first uttered it....
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jun 12, 2011, 12:18 pm
Smorgasbord. I thought of the word last night when I looked at a picture my wife snapped of me and the boys (they with painted faces and me simply grinning) as we enjoyed Midsommarfest on Clark...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jun 7, 2011, 6:36 pm
So there’s Icarus, a young dude who found a moment’s exhilaration so great that he ventured on a path with a literally terminal end. There he was, outfitted with a gorgeous pair of wings...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - May 8, 2011, 12:29 pm
Parking lots are not something synonymous with life in Chicago. When we go places we either street park, find a nearby garage or valet. That’s real life in Chicago. We just consider it part of...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Apr 15, 2011, 1:42 pm
Fresh sensibility. It’s one of the things that kids do so very well. Whether it’s coloring outside of the lines or singing a song with the slightest lyrical alteration. Another gift they...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Apr 12, 2011, 11:17 am
I laughed at a friend’s facebook post yesterday. She said something to the effect of a roll of paper towels at Costco costing her $125. I wonder how she does it when the same roll costs me...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Apr 10, 2011, 12:31 pm
Staccato. That describes yesterday and much of the last week. It was busy in spurts, with the busy-ness of the business of the Chicago real estate market erupting in segments of action. Kind of like...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Mar 27, 2011, 3:23 pm
Today is a bit busy. Just as yesterday was and so too the past week. A bit busy. Sporadic and occasional showings to clients both buying and selling homes in Chicago and dashing from here to there in...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Mar 22, 2011, 8:27 am
April showers seem to have come early. Perched 11 floors high in our Lakeview condo raindrops delicately smack the window like errant angel kisses. The question that mumbles numbly through the back...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Mar 5, 2011, 9:48 am
A few nights ago Jackson rewrote history in the magnificent manner that a five-year-old will, telling the story of how mommy and daddy fell in love on the beach. While we have shared more than a few...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Mar 4, 2011, 12:07 pm
Maybe my son Lucas has it right. Last week when my wife said it was time to get dressed he responded simply and succinctly, I stay in my pajamas when I stay at home. I wear outdoor clothes when I go...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Feb 19, 2011, 9:36 am
On Thursday night we came back. With a series of bankings, deaccelerations, accelerations and hydraulic whinings that I don’t recall in the past we made our way to a safe landing at Midway....
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 30, 2011, 12:14 am
We leave our fingerprints. Whether it is the Chicago real estate market or anywhere else where homes are being sold (or at least listed in the hope of being sold), we leave our fingerprints. Meaning...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 16, 2011, 3:39 pm
Sunday arrives. Awaited. Nay, anticipated. And unlike other Chicago Sundays, so many Chicago real estate Sundays, this Sunday is reserved for a position on the couch with a clear view of the tv to...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 9, 2011, 2:44 pm
Chicago real estate professional Tom McCarey had to turn his truck upside down today to find quarters to feed the meter as he conducted his business. Usually a credit card in the kiosk is how he pays...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 4, 2011, 11:30 am
Who knew a little palate diversion would be so problematic? And yet it was a Chicago Realtor Tom McCarey and his family looked for a Mexican meal during a recent Paris trip. Success at last after a...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 2, 2011, 10:23 am
It wouldn't be a vacation without a bit of work. Such was the case nearly 5000 miles and seven time zones away as I blended just a bit of work in with touring Paris. Helping the cause was a host of...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jan 1, 2011, 5:24 pm
A 30 degree drop greeted the dawning of the new year today in Chicago. Shocking! Nonetheless, it is good to be home after a two-week jaunt to Paris. And while there the chilly weather did not prevent...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Dec 2, 2010, 3:51 pm
Have you ever met a well digger? Well, neither have I. So it’s hard to gauge how cold the guy gets. Especially in specific parts  that may just be best left described as where the sun...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Nov 6, 2010, 2:34 pm
Daylight savings ends today marking the start of a different savings for Chicago area home buyers. Tom McCarey talks of recent market activity as he represents buyers and sellers in the Chicago real...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 10, 2010, 11:12 am
If ever there was a day to stop on a dime, today would be that day. Three of them in a row. Ten / ten / ten. A few years back, when the days lined up in a sequence of sevens, we traveled to Vegas....
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Oct 9, 2010, 7:11 pm
Tony Two Hands. I think that’s what he said his name was. I entered the waiting room where I waited, awaiting the arrival of the person who would shepherd me to a blissful state of...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Sep 25, 2010, 10:09 am
Today Chicago. The boys and I returned home to Chicago Monday evening, an unfurling bit of ribbon that traced the sky from Dallas to Austin and from Austin home to Chicago. Jackson and Lucas won the...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Sep 11, 2010, 6:49 pm
Checklists. Like it or not checklists begin each and every day. Alarm rings, hand extends, terminates the ring, commences the day. Checklists. Whether you head down the hall f or a home-brewed cup of...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Sep 7, 2010, 2:05 pm
One door closes, another opens. I’ve always loved the symmetry of those words and the belief they establish. My only admonition is don’t have your fingers inside either door jamb when...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Aug 15, 2010, 11:38 am
I thought of an old friend yesterday as we zipped through Rogers Park for a mid-evening jaunt to Best Buy last night. Jerry Riggs, the kid who could (or thought he could) concoct anything from...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Aug 13, 2010, 1:41 am
It happened yesterday. Jackson asked to ride another kid’s bike at “The Choo Choo Train Park.” And sure enough, with a little boost he continued on his merry two-wheeled path. It...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Aug 10, 2010, 4:00 pm
Did you hear about Steven Slater? First he lost his cool and probably his job as well. Slater is a flight attendant. Was, anyway. He had a scuffle with an early-to-rise passenger when their flight...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Aug 6, 2010, 11:36 am
The president just flew over my Edgewater home. The roar of his chopper and his flying armada filled the sky for minutes prior to his arrival above, filling my chest with a sense of imminence. And...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Aug 5, 2010, 2:40 pm
One of the things I enjoy doing is establishing an online imprint for my listings and my overall work. More than 8 in 10 people lace their running shoes to dash online to begin, continue and complete...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Aug 2, 2010, 6:41 pm
Lately I have been thinking of guys I went to college with. Hah, ending the sentence with a preposition conjures up on the finest fellows ever I crossed paths with, Eric Kizer. Great guy was Eric....
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Aug 1, 2010, 11:50 am
Like pastors on the pulpit, real estate agents ply their trade on Sundays. Today I will do so at 1716 West George where the builder has smashed the price down by $250,000! And while a Realtor may not...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jul 29, 2010, 10:12 am
Two quarters, eleven pennies, seven dimes and four nickels. Three Hotwheels. And a small Altoids tin. My sons are four and three. These items came from their pockets tonight. In what order and...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jul 26, 2010, 10:54 am
The folks who came came at the end, walked about the Lincoln Park home, and talked about what they are looking for. I, a pleasant sort, traded anecdotes with them about what they seek. And so goes...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jul 25, 2010, 4:04 pm
Refuge was granted today. After an endless series of scratches etched on a stray board  to suggest days where the heat simply suffocated today ambled in at a delightful sub 90. Blessed...
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Tom McCarey posted an article on The Real Estate Lounge.Chicago - Jun 23, 2010, 1:32 pm
goals spur us toward where we wish to go and who we wish to be. today a goal by the US soccer team in the waning minutes led to the next round of the world cup. sometimes new tactics need to be...
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