Today we’d like to introduce you to Gary Lucido.
For years Gary had been perplexed by the residential real estate brokerage business. Many of the agents he had encountered over the years just weren’t that impressive and the commissions were exorbitant. It just didn’t seem right to have to pay 6% to an agent who was little more than an order taker and didn’t do that much to sell your house. In fact, when it came time to leave Richmond, Virginia to return to Chicago his wife and he sold their home themselves (no agent on either side of the deal) and saved $18,000. After several years of wondering aloud to everyone he knew, Gary decided to get to the bottom of the mystery himself. After several months of studying the industry Gary concluded that a good real estate agent really could provide real value to buyers and sellers. The problem was that there just weren’t that many good agents out there and there were huge inefficiencies in the business. As the business opportunity began to emerge Gary began to discuss it with Sari Levy, whom he knew from his last job and whom he knew to be hard working, professional, smart, and customer service oriented. They both received their broker licenses and went to work for traditional brokers. Their work experiences reinforced and complemented the findings of Gary’s research so they decided to build a business together.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We started the business in 2007 just as the market started to turn down, which we knew was going to be a problem. However, we moved forward because the timing was just right for a lot of other reasons. We were surprised at how much of a traditional realtor have on consumers, who can be surprisingly unsophisticated. So, we’ve managed to carve out a nice niche for ourselves with highly educated and smart home buyers and sellers. Our client base skews towards quants, hedge fund managers, software engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc…
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Lucid Realty – what should we know?
We are a full service, discount real estate brokerage that provides commission rebates to home buyers and discounted commissions to home sellers. We even offer an option where people can pay us by the hour instead of a traditional commission. When home buyers pay us by the hour we pass the entire commission through to them which usually more than offsets the cost of our time. I don’t know if any other real estate brokerage in the Chicago area provides our level of service and still discounts the commission/ provides buyer rebates. And certainly, nobody else has an hourly option. Just check out our reviews on Zillow, Yelp, Google, and Angie’s List to see what our clients think of us. Another key difference is that we are extremely selective in who we hire. In the traditional brokerage model, you hire every realtor that walks in the door because they all bring you incremental business. But we generate a lot of our own business and only hire realtors that we are comfortable giving our clients to. We don’t try to hire realtors just to bring in more business.
Who else deserves credit – have you had mentors, supporters, cheerleaders, advocates, clients or teammates that have played a big role in your success or the success of the business?
My business partner, Sari Levy, built the business with me. We owe a great deal of our success to our agents who are some of the best in the business.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1858 W Erie Chicago, IL
108 W Marilyn Terrace Addison, IL 60101 - Website: www.LucidRealty.com
- Phone: 877-582-4399
- Email: glucido@lucidrealty.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LucidRealty/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucidRealty
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lucid-realty-chicago-3
- Other: https://www.zillow.com/profile/LucidRealty/
Image Credit:
Top producer logo courtesy of Chicago Association of Realtors
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