CR Magazine - Winter 2016
Winter 2016 issue of the Chicago REALTOR® (CR) Magazine the official publication of the Chicago Association of REALTORS®.
Winter 2016 issue of the Chicago REALTOR® (CR) Magazine the official publication of the Chicago Association of REALTORS®.
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Continued from page 11<br />
Matt graduated from Michigan<br />
State with a degree in Hotel<br />
Restaurant and Institutional<br />
Management. He worked for<br />
Marshall Fields as a manager,<br />
and then for one of the original<br />
partners of Lettuce Entertain You.<br />
Eventually, he began to burn out,<br />
and turned his attention to wine.<br />
But before he could switch from<br />
restaurants to selling wine, his<br />
father talked him into going into<br />
packaging sales together.<br />
Matt Silver's family: Grant Silver, son, David Silver, brother,<br />
Marlene Silver, mother, Verne Silver, father, and Matt.<br />
After ten years, he found himself struggling to break<br />
the six figure mark. His wife at the time, who has Crohns<br />
disease, sometimes was too sick to get out of bed; per<br />
Matt’s dedication to family, he wanted to find a career that<br />
allowed him to be around to help her if something was<br />
wrong. And true to his father Verne’s favorite saying, “Good<br />
luck is the result of hard work,” he went on a series of over<br />
200 informational interviews – everything from medical<br />
device sales to real estate. Following several different<br />
informational interviews on the commercial side, Matt got<br />
excited again.<br />
“I had this, ‘Oh my God, I can crush this,’ moment,” he said.<br />
“I knew that you could earn a really solid living, and what<br />
I liked most was that it could be done the way I wanted<br />
to do it. I remember saying that I didn’t want to get put in<br />
a room to smile and dial. I wanted to problem solve, be<br />
stimulated, and get really creative with it.”<br />
Although Matt eventually then made the jump to residential<br />
real estate, he still has a soft spot for commercial. “It’s very<br />
rare for a residential sector to do well without commercial<br />
offerings,” he stresses. “And, no one wants to live in a strictly<br />
commercial area. Commercial is very important to me.”<br />
His residential career began at Rubloff, under the<br />
mentorship of Jim Kinney. “For the first few weeks, Jim<br />
would sit with me and we went over every contract, every<br />
piece of paper, every sale – any detail I might need to know,”<br />
Matt said. “It was an interesting time to be in the business<br />
because we were switching from books that were printed<br />
every day to computers.” Technology, he notes, that has<br />
actually made the job of a broker easier, and gives them<br />
opportunity to provide even stronger service to clients.<br />
“Real estate has never felt like work to me,” Matt said.<br />
“It’s the culmination of every job I’ve had in my lifetime –<br />
particularly at Rubloff, where I was in my element and I<br />
could rise rapidly.”<br />
After Rubloff sold, Matt switched to @properties for a<br />
brief time – they were expanding to the North Shore, and<br />
they were a new perspective for the market. And then the<br />
market crashed. “For a period, it was as if everything in my<br />
life was saying ‘time for a change!’” Matt said. “I was on the<br />
board, going through a divorce, the market was tanking…<br />
and I reevaluated everything.”<br />
It was at this point that he met Matt Farrell, a fellow C.A.R.<br />
board member. They hit it off, and Matt made the switch to<br />
the growing boutique firm, Urban Real Estate – a “mutually<br />
beneficial” decision. After a year there, he began talks with<br />
Matt and Michael Emery about becoming a partner. Two<br />
years ago, it became a reality.<br />
“And it’s been incredible,” Matt said. “I love what we do, and<br />
our dedication to doing it in the most elegant way.”<br />
Matt and his business partner,<br />
Michael Emery, Urban Real Estate.<br />
Elegance, after all, is one of Matt’s trademarks, right<br />
alongside professionalism. It’s a trait he wants to<br />
encourage membership to embrace this year. “The people<br />
I know in this business are hardworking, dedicated, sincere,”<br />
he said. “This is true in all 77 neighborhoods. It’s incredible<br />
12 Chicago REALTOR ® <strong>Magazine</strong>