Jeff Malec kicks off “Chicago Month” on The Derivative with Chicago real estate powerhouse Tommy Choi of Weinberg Choi. Tommy lays out what really makes Chicago compelling as a place to live and invest—world-class food, underrated beaches, iconic bungalows, and relative affordability, while tackling the tough stuff around crime headlines, taxes, and politics. He breaks down post-pandemic migration, why inventory is so tight, how boomers with 2–3% mortgages and “Bank of Mom and Dad” shape the market, and why millennials are choosing flexibility and crypto over owning. Jeff and Tommy hit on stubbornly high rates, surging rents, condo special assessments, aging buildings, the limits of Loop office-to-resi conversions, and how AI and blockchain might (and might not) change the game. They wrap with a very Chicago detour into best burgers, dive bars, Wrigley in summer, and a few local hacks for seeing the city like a native. If you care about real estate as an asset class, Chicago as a case study in big-city risk and reward, or just want some elite burger intel, this one’s for you.
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Check out the complete Transcript from this week’s podcast below:
Inside $2B of Chicago Real Estate: Tommy Choi on Housing, Migration, and Millennials
Jeff Malec 00:00
Hello there. All right, everyone. Welcome back to The Derivative, brought to you by RCM Alternatives, as hinted at, or maybe I should say threatened. We’re doing a bit of a Chicago month here in June with guests doing financial-ish stuff in and around Chicago, or with a Chicago firm or exchange. First up, Tommy Choi, a friend of a friend I’ve had the pleasure of debating best burger in Chicago with a few times. He also has to do real estate in Chicago, a lot of it, like 2 billion of it. So thought would be good to have him on. I always thought people were leaving Chicago because of taxes and cold weather, but Tommy sets me straight. Send it!
Jeff Malec 00:41
all right. Everybody, we’re here with Tommy Choi. Tommy, how are you?
Tommy Choi 00:45
I’m doing great. I appreciate you having me on here.
Jeff Malec 00:49
I appreciate you coming on. Tommy and I are friends of friends, but we’ve hung out a couple times, and
Speaker 1 00:54
yeah,
Jeff Malec 00:55
pretty nice circumstances. One was a 50th birthday party on a, in a kind of rented out part of a steak restaurant, and one was on a, on a boat.
Tommy Choi 01:03
Yeah, I was telling our friend Dan, I’m like, you got to get that boat again every year, because you know, who doesn’t like a huge private yacht catered by RPM and hang out, you know, on a nice summer Chicago day?
Jeff Malec 01:16
Yeah, just keep paying that bill. So I got to start the hat, I love it. It look, I’m getting Coca Cola vibes, which I’m drinking a random McDonald’s, got my standard Diet Coke before we started. Yeah, I appreciate
Tommy Choi 01:29
that. You know what, so I have this thing where I obsess over classic iconic brands, and obviously Coca Cola is one of the most classic brands and companies, especially in pop culture, too, and I always think, okay, when we make our team corporate swag at Weinberg Choi, my real estate company, I’m always like, I would not want to rock this stuff if I wasn’t the co-founder of the company, because, like, I don’t want to be a billboard for someone else’s brand, so I said, you know, let’s start building making swag based on other people’s logos, and I had this dream one day that I would have this wall just filled with cease and desist letters from the companies like Coca Cola, which is wishful thinking, like they care about this, you know, little real estate company in Chicago that we’re, we’re making these hats based on their logo, but anyhow, every year we make these, we make about 150 sometimes we do 200 and we give them out to, you know, past clients, just supporters, and what’s cool is I always get people, especially in the summertime, when it’s street festivals and people are out and about, you know, take pictures in the wild, being like, “Oh, I just saw Weinberg Choi hat out there. So, so this is one of our, one of our favorite ones, the Coca Cola one,
Jeff Malec 02:56
putting my name in. For I got you,
Tommy Choi 02:58
I’ve got you. I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you a whole slew of these cool ones, so
Jeff Malec 03:04
I have the same dream. We’ve done a bunch of Star Wars infographics around investment themes, and I’m waiting for them to be like, “Hey, cease and desist, you can’t use our characters talking about managed futures. But, right, yeah,
Tommy Choi 03:15
I mean, you know, I was gonna say John Lucas probably doesn’t hear, but it’s not even him, he sold it’s all Disney now, right? So, George
Jeff Malec 03:22
Lucas, George
Tommy Choi 03:23
Lucas, John Lucas, yeah, by the basketball coach, George Lucas, yeah.
Jeff Malec 03:38
So, got you here for we’re doing a little Chicago month on the pod, you’re selling basically Chicago day in, day out, right? Yeah, in your job. So, let’s start big picture of like what makes Chicago great. What are your easy parts selling it, and what are the hard parts selling
Tommy Choi 03:54
it? I’ll tell you what, Chicago, and I’m a lifelong Chicago, and my family immigrated here in the mid 70s to the north side, the city, which is now considered North Center. My mom has had a dry cleaner. Well, had she’s retired now for about 30 plus 35 years in Boys Town. So that North Side, and I live in the Southport corridor now, so you know that that Lake View North Side neighborhood has always been home to me, and what I love about Chicago, I think the easy sell is culturally you look at the food scene, I think we’re one of the best food cities in the entire world, from the beef stands, the hot dog stands, right, what they call like the working class like spots, which I love, to the Michelin star fine dining. We’re pushing the culinary scene. We have such a mix of diversity that brings all the different ethnicities and cultural cuisines to the city. I think the biggest sleeper that a. Lot of clients, when we’re helping them relocate to the city, that they don’t realize is how much beachfront real estate we have, and the amount of beaches, you know, going from the city all the way up even to the north shore, being by a body, a lake like Lake Michigan. I have times where I bring people, and they see the lake, and they’re like, oh my gosh, I can’t see the other side of it. I’m like, this is a largest body of water. Yeah, I’m like, we got five of them, so you know this, that I think those things make it incredible. And as much as people don’t like the winners, I think that’s one of the greatest things of Chicago, because when it comes this time of year, and the city thaws out, and the sun is out, everyone embraces being out in the city. It’s hard for me to travel during the summertime, because I don’t want to leave. This is the best time of year, so I think that’s the, that’s the plus side of why Chicago. And then I can get into the affordability piece, right, for being one of the largest populated cities, you know, it’s such an affordable city
Jeff Malec 06:08
to me. New York is way more intertwined with the water, right? You’re either going in a tunnel under it or bridge over it, but you, you’re in New York, you hardly ever see the water. I mean, you could be up in a big tower, but like the day to day, or when I’m visiting, you get on the island, you’re like, where’s the water? So it is a weird thing,
Tommy Choi 06:28
and you’re looking at the Hudson River, it’s like, okay, it’s not like the prettiest thing in the world, right? You know, that’s the other, that’s the other piece, I, and this is my, like, my doomsday scenario of why I also think Chicago real estate is so valuable, you know, we’re not by the East or West Coast, where we’re dealing with erosion, or even, like, you know, Florida, where they have, like, hurricanes going on. I feel like my doomsday scenario is like Chicago’s pretty natural disaster-free, and I just think more people are going to start heading towards the middle of the country, and you know, we’ll be, we’ll be sitting on prime investments.
Jeff Malec 07:12
I always tell people that, I’m like, I love it, because there’s no natural disasters, just political pension ones, yeah, which we’ll get into, Nick, but, like, yeah, but no mudslides, no. I mean, in theory, downtown you could get a tornado, not really ever happen. Totally agree with there. And my last piece, you should work in your bit of, especially compared with New York, I’m like, we have alleys, we hide our trash, exactly,
Tommy Choi 07:38
New York, yeah,
Jeff Malec 07:40
$80 million condo up there, and they have to walk out of their building next to all the trash bags lined up. It’s so
Tommy Choi 07:46
true, alleys are a key to have, and you know, even, even like when you go into, like, Texas, southern, you know, some parts of the country that have, like, limestone, you know, in their ground, they can’t even dig out basements, they literally have to blast through the ground. I think things like that just make it very.. and I also feel like I always felt the Chicago Brick Bungalow is such an iconic piece of real estate that’s so unique to our city, that is just.. it was a way of affordability, and so many people built generational wealth, you know, through that product, and it’s one that still, you see, and I hope to, you know, that we can secretly protect those bungalows and keep away from developers knocking them down.
Jeff Malec 08:34
Do you know the history of that? Was there, like, many developers that did that, or was it just that was the style everyone copied?
Tommy Choi 08:41
No, it was a style that was copied, but it was, you know, cash, it was, I can’t remember which war it was, probably World War Two afterwards. The developers were starting to build that style of bungalow in the north side of the city, and it just took off, and I think part of it was also at the time, you know, back then families were, I think, smaller. We, they didn’t have all the crap that we have today, and the need for walk-in closets and ensuite bathrooms obviously weren’t a thing. So I feel like that was just an affordable piece of real estate that was all brick, and back then you can build the way that you know they can’t build like that today without charging an arm and a leg for it. So it was just a, it just was a solution that filled a void that people needed back then. And it’s cool to see those still stick around, you know, today.
Jeff Malec 09:38
And it’s a little west of where we live, right? You start driving, and you could go blocks and blocks and blocks, passing home after home. So, there’s probably still a million plus of those. Yeah,
Tommy Choi 09:51
there’s a ton. You just see them more, so I think on the northwest side, you know, of the city. You see some in the south sides, a little bit west sides too. But you know, kind of, when you approach the city center, unfortunately, you know, the price of real estate has taken a toll on a lot of those, but you know, I still, I still love a good bungalow,
Jeff Malec 10:12
and not the, but the classic Chicago line is a what do they call it, shotgun house,
Tommy Choi 10:17
shotgun Sally, yep, shotgun 25 by 125 you know, bowling alley piece of real estate that we have, is
Jeff Malec 10:27
that more narrow than New York, say, or some other cities, you know, I
Tommy Choi 10:32
think I would say it’s probably more narrow than even when you look at, like, you know, the burbs of how you know there’s, and there’s obviously not like a standard lot size out in the burbs, but you know, I think it’s pretty predominant to denser cities, where you see, I see that in Boston, I see that in DC, you know, where you can kind of touch your neighbor, but that it’s definitely, you know, the standard in the city,
Jeff Malec 10:59
and that was, you would open the front door, shoot a shotgun, or go all the way through. What, where’d that come from?
Tommy Choi 11:05
You know, that that’s that, that is beyond my pay grade. I don’t, yeah, I don’t even know the full, but that’s that’s that’s the story I’ve heard growing up. I don’t know if that’s an actual, you know, an event that occurred and whatnot that took off, but, but yeah.
Jeff Malec 11:20
And so, what are the negative? What are you selling against with Chicago?
Tommy Choi 11:25
You know, I would say right now, of late, since the pandemic, the hardest, you know, sale or objection I come across when people are coming to the city is what they see and read in the headlines, and a lot of it has to do with crime, has to do with this, you know, the stretch we had when Michigan Avenue, you know, was dealing with a lot of the smash and grabs and things like that. So I think that obviously in 2026 especially with, you know, everyone having access to news at the finger tips of their, you know, from their phones and whatnot, I think also politically things have been become very sensitive and divided when it comes to, you know, to Chicago as well, so those are really the things, and it comes down to, like, you know, educating people, you know, I always tell people that, yeah, I mean, any major city is dealing with, with that, especially post post pandemic, but I feel like it’s a lot of sensationalized headlines, or a lot of times people don’t read past the headlines, and they don’t get a glimpse of, you know, at what kind of volume this is happening geographically, where is this happening, and whatnot. You know, I have three young daughters that I’ve raised in the city, and continue to be committed to raising them in the city, and so I think that it comes down to just an education, you know, around that, but you know, like I said, and what I mean by the political side of things is you start to see a lot of things that maybe are a little bit more progressive compared to how things are a little bit more, you know, in the center, maybe left to center, historically speaking, in Chicago, when you see, you know, property taxes going up, you’re seeing things like, you know, transfer tax being being proposed in the past, you know, being increased on higher priced homes, so things like that. Definitely people become more sensitive to those headlines, and they start to balk a little bit at whether they want to be in the city or maybe they want to exit the city and go into the burbs, but it’s a lot of, and I think that’s why there’s such an importance to be working with a professional, a real estate agent who understands and that also lives in the community, so they can really tell you boots on the ground on how things really are and what the climate and the market really share compared to what they’re hearing and reading online or in their little echo chamber on Twitter, right?
Jeff Malec 14:07
Yeah, and I was proud of you. You mentioned tax third. You’d think tax would be the number one thing,
Tommy Choi 14:12
but you know, go ahead.
Jeff Malec 14:16
I was gonna say we were just down in Puerto Rico at a conference, and people were basically trying to convince you to move there and only pay 6% tax, but like within an afternoon, went to, they’re like, this was the best bar in San Juan, the best restaurant in the San Juan, the best three things, like within an hour and a half, I’m like, now what, we just did it all in 90 minutes, so I was like, Who, I’d rather pay and have all the good stuff than then save this money on tax, so I don’t know, that’s an unpopular opinion, but I think down deep a lot of people feel that way, of like, hey, I can go to the beach, I can walk to see my kid play softball to the park next door, and then I can go downtown and see a Broadway show and take in a nice meal, so yeah, absolutely,
Tommy Choi 14:58
absolutely, the amenities. That’s what I think a lot of people tie property taxes to, like, well, what am I getting? Okay, so what? What are, like, a lot of times they think about school, and you know, they.. and that’s the thing, right? Chicago is a very competitive market when it comes to schools and how to navigate that, but I always say, look beyond that, look at the end, what you just mentioned, right? The amenities that the city provides, and what that lifestyle is. You’re either you live a lifestyle that’s confused, conducive to what the city offers, or you don’t. And if you don’t, it’s simple. It’s okay, then move to a different place that offers that, right?
Jeff Malec 15:48
but and so that’s a good segue into what are you seeing, has there been this big move, especially wealth out of it? Right, Ken Griffin famously, yeah, so a lot of big money was saying enough of this, I can’t handle this tax burden. I’m out. What are you seeing on that higher end, especially of, like, is it net out or is it roughly the same?
Tommy Choi 16:08
Good question. You know, it’s.. I feel like it’s.. we’re almost at like a net zero. It seemed like I think during the pandemic it felt and seemed like there was this mass exodus, and I will tell you, you know, it depended on geographic, where you were, the more debt, like, or near the near north, like River North, Gold Coast, Shreeterville, they definitely saw more people migrating out, a lot of those people, though, were, you know, winter birds, right? People that had a place in the city that was more of a pied air that they’d come in, you know, during the summertime, but they wintered in, you know, in Florida for half the year. Those are the people that really, the majority that decide to exit out, because they’re just like, you know, what, we’re going to just stick around here full time in Florida,
Jeff Malec 17:02
and they were closest to that crime smash and grab stuff, exactly,
Tommy Choi 17:06
exactly. And then you saw a younger group, that younger workforce, that was like, oh, wow, I can be remote now, you know, I’ll go to the mountains, I’ll go to, I’ll do the beaches, I’ll do southern California, and they just took off, but it was more of a temporary take off, because when we started to see downtown in the loop start to get back in a hybrid in person, we saw that younger, younger professional group come back to Chicago in the form of being a tenant, or in the form of repurchasing, you know, a one bed, two bed condo in the city, so that definitely came back, and I’d say those collar neighborhoods around the loop in the financial district are definitely a little bit more contingent upon what that in-person workforce looks like, because you know that’s the whole draw of being in the South Loop or the West Loop or Fulton Market, sure, outside of neighborhood amenities, it’s being having a short commute to work, and so that equation was taken out, or that was taken out of the equation, you know, 2020 2122 we started to see that come back now, and those markets are starting to thrive and get better, you know. I’ll tell you right, we measure inventory in this nerdy term called month supply, and so at one point the Near North River North Gold Gold Coast in Sugerville in 2021 ish had 18 months of supply, so for anyone listening, that’s like, what is this nerd talking about? Let’s say nothing new came on the market, that means at that point it would take 18 months to sell out those neighborhoods, right? Absorption rate, and to give some context, typically around five months of supply is when you start to see a balanced market, so anything under five months is a seller’s market. So 18 months was a very, very a lot, that was more than during the last market crash in 2010 And so today we’re at about five months supply in the in that market, so it’s come back a lot now, when you look at the North side of the city, Lake Lincoln Park, Lakeview, you know we’re at about four weeks of supply right now, so it’s still very, very competitive and very much so a seller’s market, but that those people exited out, but I’ll tell you what, a lot of people from that, let’s just say River North neighborhood during that 2020 2021 period, they migrated out of River North, but went into single family home because they wanted more space in a Bucktown West town, where I’m going to be working
Jeff Malec 19:56
from home, I need more space,
Tommy Choi 19:57
exactly, so it was a lot. Of just transferring around within the city, but you know, like I said, today we’re seeing a lot of people that still want to go out to the burbs because they want to be closer to family, not so much of like people like wanting to, I’m done with city life, right, it’s just a matter of being closer to family, or it’s people leaving for job relocation. Yeah, they can’t afford the
Jeff Malec 20:26
child care, they need to get closer to families, like I need free childcare,
Tommy Choi 20:31
totally, totally. And that’s part of also right now, I think when we look at inventory, I think Illinois, I actually just, I just did an interview with Pritger, the governor, and we were talking about this, you know, because he’s introduced this whole bill, he calls a build plan, and how he’s going to create more inventory, you know, Illinois is short about 150,000 homes right now, and you look at Chicago, you know,
Jeff Malec 21:04
real quick, of like, how did.. how do they calculate that? So, there’s 150,000 people looking for homes, and there’s not available.
Tommy Choi 21:11
Yeah, it’s based on the supply and demand of what the absorption rate looks like formula,
Jeff Malec 21:18
but
Tommy Choi 21:18
exactly, exactly. And I’ll tell you, what you know, we were coming out of that last recession, we were already behind, you know, nationally as a country of new home starts, and we never caught up to that, and then the, the, the pandemic really widened that gap, you know, right now as well, but I think part of the issue is, you know, right now the largest group are the baby boomers, right now, that have they’re holding on to the largest amount of real estate, and part of it is that, you know, they have, you know, they need to downsize, but a lot of their wealth is tied into that real estate that they’ve owned for 4050 years. A lot of them I have conversations with, and they’re just like, “Hey, with where things I’ve appreciated, I actually.. this is my 401 k, this is the equity I have, and I don’t want to get hit with capital gains, because I know this is appreciated more than, you know, half a million dollars, and also the argument is now, where do I go, and what am I going to buy, and so they’re sold at
Jeff Malec 22:36
a high price, I have to buy something else that I have, totally,
Tommy Choi 22:38
and there’s a, there’s this bottleneck, and that’s, and right now you know, I think the, we, the prime someone I don’t know, someone in Washington DC came up with this, right, the prime household age is 36 of when you’re primed to purchase a home, and next year we’re going to see the largest amount of 36 year olds our country’s ever seen population wise, so we’re going to see another influx of demand that’s coming in, and so you see that gap of supply and demand, and you see it in the data, be last year nationally the average, the first time homeowner age was 40 years old. It’s the oldest that it’s ever been since they’ve started recording and collecting. The millennials
Jeff Malec 23:27
are like, I don’t need to own
Tommy Choi 23:30
right, and part of it is just
Jeff Malec 23:31
getting pushed back.
Tommy Choi 23:32
Yeah, it’s, and it’s, it’s mainly because there’s just no like inventory that’s out there for people to purchase, so it’s getting pushed back further and further. A lot of people will say it’s affordability. There’s a little bit of that, but it’s more so what I’m finding being out there. And listen, you know, our team sold over a billion dollars in real estate. We’ve helped 2000 clients over the last two decades, so we’ve had a lot of at-bats, and these conversations I have are twofold. One, when it looks, when you look at the younger millennial, the, you know, late 20, early 30s, they’re those kids are making more money than we did at that age, right? So they definitely have the income for yourself,
Jeff Malec 24:16
Tom, exactly, I mean, Jeff, I mean, you
Tommy Choi 24:20
definitely were, you know, a top 1% early, so part of it is they don’t look at buying and owning real estate the way that maybe you and I did, or definitely not how our parents did, as you know, the whole idea of like, well, if you’re paying rent, you’re throwing money away, you’re not building equity, they get that, they don’t care, they look at buying a piece of real estate that’s like that now ties me down to Chicago, and now I lose my flexibility. What if I want to be in Boulder for a year, or you know, Southern California, or Seattle, or whatever? They think that real estate erases their freedom and. Then when you look at the equity piece of things and real estate as a vehicle of building generational wealth, they don’t buy into that because they’re more into crypto now, right? They’re just like, oh no, I mean, Bitcoin will do that for me, I don’t need to, I’m fine paying rent, you know, to have this, is just one of my
Jeff Malec 25:18
expenses, I don’t view it as an investment,
Tommy Choi 25:20
totally, so that culturally it’s very interesting how that that’s flipped, and I think part of that’s also pushing that first time homebuyer age up as well. The other part, when it comes to affordability, it’s not so much being able to afford to purchase or to afford a mortgage, it’s really the entry point now, because it’s become so competitive, more people are writing cash offers. I literally have this conversation every weekend when I’m reviewing offers. I’m like, where’s all this cash coming from? Where do, where do these 36 year olds coming up with $2 million in cash to purchase this single family home, right? It’s probably baby bum or dad. Yeah, exactly, that’s exactly what it
Jeff Malec 26:10
- 12 million in Nvidia earnings, and they’re like, okay, sure, I’ll carve a little bit in,
Tommy Choi 26:14
totally. So part of that is why the that first time homebuyer age is going up, is that right? Someone that doesn’t have bank of mom and dad, they have to, and they just, you know, have just right 20% down. They did it how they were taught, they’re just not competitive right now enough in this market.
Jeff Malec 26:35
And what, what, so mortgage rates have been stubbornly high for what since 22 is when they,
Tommy Choi 26:42
so, yeah, yeah, Mother, it was Mother’s Day 22 when they started to write, and then it was 2023 when I think the highest it hit that I saw was 8% at one point.
Jeff Malec 26:55
So, in your experience, does I’ve always thought the people just, they don’t really care about the mortgage rate or the price of the house, they just want that payment.
Tommy Choi 27:04
Yeah,
Jeff Malec 27:04
right. So, like, I don’t care which lever has to go up and down, I just want to pay four grand a month or whatever the number is. So, it was that. Do you see that in your lived experience of like that’s how the move, how the metric works?
Tommy Choi 27:18
No, unfortunately not. I wish, I wish more people had were more financially astute like you that looked at it like that. Unfortunately, people, they, and now we’re in a place in 2026 where it’s become more normalized, and people understand, okay, rates aren’t, you know, unless there’s another global pandemic, we’re not going to see rates in the twos and threes again, but what you wish
Jeff Malec 27:43
for. We’ve got Ebola, it’s out this on the news. Hanta virus
Tommy Choi 27:48
might be time to refi, Jeff, you know, but you know, here’s the thing, there’s a lot of when it comes to real estate, there’s tons of FOMO that hits, and no one wants to be that buyer to say, like, gosh, I miss sound the lowest rates in US history up at this point, right. And so when those rates start to hit 7% close to 8% there’s a lot of people that exited out of that market because purely on FOMO they’re like, this is wild, right? And we try and educate, like, hey, it’s wild when you look at, yeah, you could have had a 3% rate, but you were not looking, you weren’t in the market at that time. Look at your monthly nut. What is your carrying cost? Can you afford it? That’s all that really matters. Rates will fluctuate, you’ll have an opportunity to refinance if they drop again. So you know, don’t really think about everyone tries to time things out, and we always tell people time in the market is better than timing the market. It’s better to just be in it today when you know you can afford it. This is a good rate, relatively speaking, versus trying to time everything when the rates go down, because when rates go down, that means more buyer demand and competition go up, which means home prices might not get it
Jeff Malec 29:07
anyway,
Tommy Choi 29:08
right? Exactly. So,
Jeff Malec 29:09
and what are you seeing? Thankfully,
Tommy Choi 29:11
we’re past that,
Jeff Malec 29:13
but have you also seen where people are locked in at that 3% mortgage, and like, hell no, I’m not selling, because, like, that was the best deal I ever made, yeah, if the roof’s falling in, or whatever, like I’m keep, I’m holding this house,
Tommy Choi 29:25
that’s part of it, that’s part of also why we have this lack of supply, is that those buyers that we’re buying that have this 2% 3% rate, they’ve dug this moat around their home, and they’re just like, right, I have cheap debt. I never want to sell this property, and there’s times I’ll be honest with you, right? I look at myself as an advisor, and as a good advisor, my first question when I meet with someone who wants to sell is, Do you need to use this equity? Do you need to sell in order to buy? If their answer is no, I tell. Them, you know, keep this property, rent it out, you know, unless you don’t want to be a landlord. We can mitigate that by hiring a property manager, but you have cheap debt, you might as well keep this, you know,
Jeff Malec 30:12
best thing you can get.
Tommy Choi 30:13
Yeah, exactly. And so, but a lot of the times, what I find in those conversations, people, even if they don’t need it, they just don’t want to be a landlord, they’re just like, I don’t, that I bought this to be my primary, I get it, I’m good to sell it, and you know, make some good money on the appreciation, and I’ll walk away from that 3% you know, mortgage rate, I
Jeff Malec 30:46
and what, what’s your view on that in Chicago and elsewhere, of like, I think a friend of mine in York span like six grand a month for some one and a half bedroom-ish thing, like rents seem like they’ve just gotten out of control, so part of that must be this dynamic you’re saying, like nobody wants to really buy a house, so push up the rent, but is that sustainable? And do you see people getting pushed into buying because of that?
Tommy Choi 31:10
Here’s the thing, we try and educate, you know, on our side, we represent a lot of landlords, and you’re right, I’ve never seen a rental market this competitive in the last two decades. We have, give you an example. There was a in West Town, a two bed, two bath that my teammate Katia, who’s our leasing specialist, she had marketed for 3800 a month in rent, she ended up getting 25 applications, and the win, the tenant, the winning tenant, they bid up to 4500 a month. We tried, like talking to them and saying, hey, have you ever, like, looked at getting pre-approved? 40-$500 a month is pretty significant money. You can borrow 30 year fixed, you know, mortgage. But once again, they were a young professional, and they were like, ‘No, no, we’re not tied to Chicago. Like, we like to.. we, we get that, but we’re okay paying this, we can afford it, and we like the flexibility of, you know, knowing that in a year from now we can go somewhere else. So it’s once again, it’s this mindset piece around it. They understand, yeah, I know I can afford buying, but I don’t want to.
Jeff Malec 32:38
We just did a podcast a little while ago, with a former major league baseball pitcher talking through the path dependency of, like, but even these young athletes, I’m making $7 million a year, I could, I could spend a lot of money, I’m like, yeah, but you ain’t only been making that for three years, right? Right, like it’s better if you have this long term, so a lot of those people might be thinking, like, I can afford this, but over 30 years, can you afford it? Right, like just going to keep going up, whereas your mortgage will be exactly in there exactly. We’re a couple old men screaming at this guy. Hey, come on. And then just as we’re talking about rentals, what’s your take on converting rights? Happen more in New York is starting to come to Chicago, converting old financial buildings and office buildings into residential. Seems to me, I wouldn’t want to live down there on LaSalle Street, but maybe somebody know
Tommy Choi 33:31
that you know what that’s.. I remember it during the pandemic was Lightfoot, Lori Lightfoot, she was making a big push about converting a lot of that office space that you know people were vacating because you know people were working virtual and I’m like that there’s an inventory issue but also I always reframe it there’s tons of inventory in Chicago what there’s a lack of is what we call desirable in inventory, and so part of that is also I think you know, as an elected official, this is what we always try, and you know, lobby for is, hey, How do you make that undesirable inventory desirable, and a lot of that has to revolve around commercial corridors, right? If you bring more commercial retail into a neighborhood, it boosts, you know, the desirability, and so the loop to me is a very undesirable place to live, because there’s just no real amenities, there’s not much commercial quarter, there’s sure great food halls, there are restaurants, but they’re all, you know, 7am to 2pm right? Nothing really is open and conducive to the evening lifestyle. So I’m not a big fan of converting, you know, that kind of real estate that’s in an. Undesirable inventory that, in my eyes, now I think there’s a great opportunity where you can convert some of that commercial office space into hotel, you know, that’s we definitely need more of that event space, more reason for tourism to come, but for residential living, I think it’s tough, that the other part of this, too, Jeff, is that you know there’s a point after to that 2010 to 12 stretch where you know the financial and housing market just completely crashed, that a lot of developers, you started to see less cranes in the skyline that were being built for condos. The development that you saw were apartment luxury, what we call Class A luxury apartment buildings, and part of that became more developers looked at that rental market as a more desirable product filling a void, and it was also a better exit, right, where you know the occupancy rate in Chicago of back then was around like 91 92% now it’s like 96% You build a building for 30 $40 million you fill it to 92 93% capacity at Class A rent, which is, you know, the highest rental rates. You have a property manager that’s running that, you know, five six years later, you know, some PE company knocks on your door and says, like, hey, would you take 300 mil? Right, exactly.
Jeff Malec 36:40
Yeah,
Tommy Choi 36:40
that’s a pretty great return, you know. Why would I build condos and deal with, you know, building them out in phases, bar, you know, having to pay the bank back at certain phases. So we started just seeing more people do that. The problem now is a lot of the times people pitched it as, like, oh yeah, and then if there’s a need for condos again, someone will come and convert these apartments, just like they did back in the 90s, into condos. The challenges I always said this, and it’s come to fruition today, is that the way that these apartments were built, the footprints were way too small, because they packed in as many doors as they can, so you start to see these one bedrooms that are being rented out for, you know, like 2500 bucks, that’s, you know, 700 square feet, 600 square feet, you know, that’s not a condo product, I think someone’s going to be paying $400,000 for, right, so you can’t undo that, so I think, and, and, like I said, rent is such at an all-time high right now, the business model doesn’t support converting any of these, so you know, I don’t even know really if there’s much room for conversion outside of really the loop, and like I said, I don’t think that’s a really desirable product to, or area to, you know, even convert
Jeff Malec 38:04
my other condo problem is this happened to us, Royalton Towers, you know that building that for you on Orleans over eight years when we lived there, basically the price of owning it increased like 70% right, the electricity, all that, but the I’m forgetting what you call it, like your monthly, whatever, the HOA, yeah, the
Tommy Choi 38:24
assessments,
Jeff Malec 38:24
the HOA went up from like $200 to $900 yeah, a month, yeah. So then when we went to sell it, people are doing the math, like it basically, we sold it for the same thing over eight years that we had bought it for, but dude, the buyer’s like, well, it’s eight times more expensive than on a monthly basis than it was back then,
Tommy Choi 38:42
yeah.
Jeff Malec 38:42
So, yeah,
Tommy Choi 38:43
you know what I miss is the horse stable that’s gone that you see there down the street
Jeff Malec 38:49
might have been an insurance fire. Yeah,
Tommy Choi 38:52
yeah, it was a fire.
Jeff Malec 38:55
And then the realtor who sold us that place gave your profession a bang because she’s like, oh, see, everything under the L. They’re going to redo the L, and this is all going to be a dog park. And then, like, she was just making stuff up. Oh, yeah, totally. Sounds lovely. My second condo question is, what, what do you do with all these 1960s buildings? Like, how right we saw Miami, some of these condos started to fall down and fall apart when, when, and if that comes to Chicago, like, what do you do with all these really old buildings that have, right, some little old lady’s not gonna leave there, so you can’t buy out all the tenants.
Tommy Choi 39:31
Yeah, you know, I mean, that’s actually a very good point that you brought up, because we’re actually seeing a lot, because, and with that, that was in Surfside, Surfside, Miami, the building that, that collapsed, that had the structural issues, because of that, Fannie and Freddie, who, you know, they’re the majority of, you know, the mortgages that are in the country, they’re the ones that are underwriting all these. They have now, because of that, added into what they call a 22.1 disclosure, aka a condo questionnaire, that every loan Fannie and Freddie does, the underwriters have to send this to the property management company, or the HOA contact that fills out basically the health of that HOA, right, it’s contingent upon them allowing, approving a loan to borrow into a building, and what they added ever since that tragedy in Miami that happened is the structural integrity questions, right, asking about what the when’s the last time structure engineer came out, when’s the last time you did any sort of facade work, things like that, and a lot of these buildings have not done it, and so you’re sorry, you’re, yeah, you’re sorry, you’re starting to see a wave now of special assessments hitting a lot of these older condo buildings, because they are having to do a lot of this deferred maintenance work, and even, even buildings that have been, you know, pretty on top of it, you know, they’re they’re having to do more updated work to just stay compliant, because you know some of these buildings that don’t pass that questionnaire that Fannie and Freddie want, they deem them unwarrantable, and you cannot get, you know, conventional loan in the building, and we come across that a lot, and so you either have to be a cash buyer. Now, it doesn’t mean the building isn’t safe, and it’s gonna crumble one day. It just means it’s not meeting their standards of what they’re looking for in order to, you know, loan money into that building for someone to purchase. Doesn’t mean it’s
Jeff Malec 41:41
not not safe either, though. 100% 100%
Tommy Choi 41:45
So we’re starting to see a little bit of that, where a lot of you know a little bit, it’s a challenge of how does a buyer then find financing? Maybe you have to go to a bank that’s willing to do more of a risky portfolio loan, or you know, bank a mom and dad, and they offer that cash loan in order to do it, but you’re starting to see some buildings that are are doing more of the work that they need to do to deem them as warrantable, and that’s going to be showing up as some sort of form of a special assessment, you know, for that owner to take on,
Jeff Malec 42:24
and I always envision, like in Vegas, when they’re like blowing, imploding a casino, and it falls in on itself. It seems like we’re, we’re too tight on these things, we can’t do that. Yeah, you’d have to buy out everyone, and then like evacuate two blocks, and then pay for any damage you make, so that seems like the answer, right? Like, hey, this thing’s put in 100 years time to shift it to something else. Let’s use this land, but
Tommy Choi 42:49
right, I mean, because that’s that’s the thing. Some of those older buildings, they can do the maintenance to kind of keep it up to standards, but they’re going to continue to do that right. The only solution to do away from continual deferred maintenance really would be to start from scratch, and that’s that’s definitely not happening, because there’s just so many hoops to jump through in order to do that, I
Jeff Malec 43:23
So shifting gears a little, take me through like the personal side of what it’s like being a realtor, right? Do you have to give up your weekends, you meet all these people, they’re driving around in your car, like what’s the, what’s the personal side like?
Tommy Choi 43:37
It’s I always tell, I have this conversation weekly when people call because they’re like, ‘Hey, I want to do what you’re doing, you know. And a lot, especially on like social media, a lot of times you see the highlight reels of realtors, and you don’t see like what it took to get to that, or the behind the billion dollar number
Jeff Malec 43:57
you threw out. It sounds good, right?
Tommy Choi 43:58
It’s so what I tell people is it is be it’s like being a small business owner, right? I wake up every morning technically unemployed because I need to find new clients every single day, and if I don’t have anyone to work for, I don’t really have a job, and so it comes down to there’s not really much the real estate part, you know, I always tell people the gap between the knowledge I have and the knowledge someone, you know, just starting out, you know, it’s pretty wide, but that can get caught up in a day, in a month, in a year, right? That’s just like studying, getting at bats, understanding the nuances, that part’s easy. The real gap that’s hard for someone to catch up to someone like me, who’s on chapter 20 of their career, is all about relationships. So I always tell people, right, real estate, that’s the stage that we get to stand on the industry, what we get to perform daily. While we’re on the stage, to our audience is cultivating, curating relationships, so it’s really about the most successful real estate agents are the ones that are out there finding new relationships, establishing new relationships, and really curating those relationships that turn into these real estate opportunities and at bats to be able to see these pitches, and so how I always equate it to someone new is, you know, I always look at it like, you know, if I’m meeting you for the first time, Jeff, you look like an ATM machine to me, and what I mean by that is, and for the younger millennials, my boxy
Jeff Malec 45:39
face, yeah.
Tommy Choi 45:41
you know, I always have to preface any younger millennial that, like, was listening to this, an ATM is like a brick and mortar Venmo, right? Still exists, yeah, exactly. We still go to these things, but it’s no different than a Venmo, right? Or Cash App, it’s when you pull up to an ATM, you now you tap your phone, you punch in your pin, you have two action items, right? You can either make a withdrawal or you can make a deposit, and that’s what being a real estate agent is on a day-to-day basis. It’s finding these relationships, and when you identify someone isn’t a jerk or an asshole, you want to establish a relationship, you have two choices. You can either make a withdrawal, right, ask for business, ask for a referral, ask for an introduction, or you can make a deposit and provide value into that relationship. There’s really no right or wrong, right. One of my favorite books by Adam Grant, Give and Take, it talks about the mindset of a giver and a taker, and one person is not better than the other, but it’s understanding, just like if I make too many withdrawals from my bank account, eventually what will happen is I get that, that, that, that flash on the screen, you know, NSF funds, right? I don’t have any money to take, and that happens in relationships, and you, we all have those people in our lives. How do we know those people, who they are? They’re the people, when they call, we hit straight to voicemail, and we are like, what does this guy want now? What is he asking me for? I wonder why he’s calling. So I always tell people to be successful in our industry. It’s literally just making deposits of value into people, and when it comes time that you’re ready to make a withdrawal, the beauty in this is not only do they allow you to make a withdrawal, they’re giving you permission to make a withdrawal. They want to help you because they understand well what you want to take out of this relationship. You’re the reason why we even have this capital in here because of all the deposits you’ve made. Of course, I want to return the favor and help out. That’s that’s really what my day-to-day looks like. Is how do I find people where I can establish that they’re a good person that I want to build a relationship with, and what can I do to make a deposit into this person’s life to create value, and eventually what happens is when it comes time where I need to make a withdrawal, these people allow me to do that, and they give me, they make a deposit into me by introducing me to good people, to client that maybe is looking to buy or sell real estate, or maybe it’s them specific personally that’s looking to buy or sell real estate, and that’s ultimately what being a real estate agent is like, right? It goes beyond showing properties, finding these listings, right, putting deals together, it’s finding the people, establishing the relationship, so that you can be that conduit to helping them with the real estate goals.
Jeff Malec 48:48
I could change everything you just said to any industry, right? Yeah, that’s sales life, that’s right, exactly like, and we’ve all met those realtors and people in other business who, within 30 seconds of meeting them, they’re asking you for a sale. They’re like, “Hey, I just met you. Like, what are you talking about?
Tommy Choi 49:06
Exactly, exactly
Jeff Malec 49:07
the work, like the Sundays I’ve always thought of, like I could never be a realger. I want to go to my kids’ game, I want to do this, see all that, like. But that’s a little bit of the trade off.
Tommy Choi 49:16
That’s a little bit of trade off, and part of it also, I’ll tell you, is that’s part of the come up, you know, like I don’t show properties, you know, on the weekends, I don’t really show properties in general, you know, part of it is because my focus is now just on the listing side, but also I always empower and coach agents to like be a business owner, right, when when you are doing everything yourself, you’re really an employee working for the business versus being that business owner, and, and that big aha, exactly. And where you hit that big aha in a career, and you have that now, the choice, it’s a fork in the road to go the. It’s truly business owner entrepreneur side, or just continue to just work for my business, is when you realize there’s an inverse relationship between time and money, and sure, if I work on the weekends, show all these properties and all these buyers, you know, in the evenings and the weekends, when they’re available, I’m going to make so much more money, but I have zero time for myself. I’m probably going to be the worst father and the worst husband to my wife if I do that. I don’t want that, but then when you realize, okay, I can give up some money by hiring leverage, hiring a showing agent that’s going to take my clients out to physically show the properties, and I can still negotiate, because that’s what my strong suit is. I can hire an assistant to take care of my inbox and my calendars. I can hire all this leverage I’d take away from my bottom line, but now it gives me more time to go to my kids’ games to be a better husband to my wife. What I found is that the ROI in that investment ends up coming back tenfold. You still don’t really lose income because now you can take on more clients because you have more time to do this, you’re more efficient, and you can still have a personal life and take care of yourself and your family. It’s just that a lot of agents, because it’s such a hard industry to make it in, when they start to see that income coming in, they come, they become protective around it. Yeah, they’re just like, no, it’s okay. Like, my kids won’t remember me not being here, because you know they’ll have this, you know, nice lake house they can go to later in life, and you’re just like, I always try and tell them, like, trust me, they will remember you want to be, and you will remember that you weren’t there, you want to be able to be there, and paying someone 50 grand a year to leverage and getting back that time, trust me, you’re not going to miss out on that income, and you’re going to see a return on that investment.
Jeff Malec 52:12
Yeah, and that’s like the plot of every rom-com, like the guy who takes all that for granted and gives up the time for the money, and like it never works out, but you like, as you were saying, all that I was thinking of AI, right? Who’s now is kind of helping that instead of hiring these two people, maybe use some AI. So, what has that done to the your business in particular? And just overall, I think Zillow, right, launched something, and they were buying houses based on its model that went terribly wrong. What did I
Tommy Choi 52:43
work out for them?
Jeff Malec 52:44
Yeah, so what have you seen there? Is it, is it helping you? Is it what do you see in the future for AI in real estate?
Tommy Choi 52:50
Yeah, I’ll tell you what it AI is. How we’ve implemented into our business, it has helped with our profitability, because it’s it’s taken workload off of our operations and admin team that’s allowed them to focus in else elsewhere, that’s brought in more revenue. We’re still not at the place yet where I see it, where it’s going to replace an actual human role, where I can say, like, wow, I can get rid of this person’s salary, and I can now just have AI fully do that. We could get to that point one day, but right now it’s a tool that makes us work more efficiently, more effectively, and more profitably, and I really like that. I think the opportunity for our industry, the real real estate space, where AI can really change, is from a consumer standpoint. Right now, we’re, we’re one of the few industries where you know how you search for a home is still the same way it’s been forever. What’s your price? What’s your zip code or location you want to be? How many bedrooms and how many bathrooms? It’s, it’s archaic in my opinion, because right now if we log into our Amazon accounts, our Netflix accounts, even like our social media, our home pages look different because there’s an
Jeff Malec 54:26
algo running. Yeah,
Tommy Choi 54:27
exactly. Predictive analytics is taking over, and it knows what to recommend to you. I think the future of real estate and the company to get to do this is going to really win, is change that consumer experience where you log into my website or Zillow, or whatever, and now they, the algorithm will start to tell you what properties you will like, because they should be able to scan the data of, wow, look, based on your, you know, 12 month Grubhub order history, you’re. Ordering a lot from off-shave all, maybe you should be living in the Fulton market, right, based on where your Ubers are coming from, and spending, you know, time from work or socially. Maybe you should be living here. There’s so much data, you could even have, like,
Jeff Malec 55:16
a little counter that’s like, hey, if you lived here, you’d save $812 a year on Ubers,
Tommy Choi 55:21
100% I really think that the home search is so broken, and I get it right. It’s got to be at the end of the day, it’s got to be anchored by price point and bedroom count, but I think that can be layered on after the fact once someone, you know, an algorithm, predictive analytics, tell you, like, I think your ideal neighborhood is, you know, Wicker Park, because of what your personal life data shows you, right? So
Jeff Malec 55:50
it’s like you, you’ve ordered 7 million paper towel rolls, you need a lot of storage space. Exactly, exactly,
Tommy Choi 55:59
you have corporate Costco membership, you need a pantry, right?
Jeff Malec 56:04
But, like, part of home buying is such an emotional.. it’s like the biggest emotional financial decision, too, right? So, it’s somewhat.. yes, but then it’s like, well, if I’m just dad.. or maybe do you have customers that are just database? They’re like, ‘I don’t care, I don’t need to see the pretty house and have that warm fuzzy feeling. I just want this price, in this number of rooms,
Tommy Choi 56:23
yeah, I mean, it is 100% still very much, so you know, an emotional, a piece of it, so that’s why it’s like when people say, you know, and a lot of it, I think, is just like clickbait and rage bait, I guess, as a, as my 14 year old daughter would say, of article saying, like, oh, AI will replace a realtor one day, you know, because you know, you know a machine can negotiate and do all this stuff. I’m just like, there’s just so much emotional navigating nuances to a deal, and also a human element that you know, maybe some of the communication can be replaced via AI, but a lot of it still has to be, you know, in person, and you know conversations, reading people emotionally on one on a situation that I just don’t see that ever fully taking fruition,
Jeff Malec 57:21
and it seems like we’ve already, you’ve already survived the hardest parts, right? Like 20 years ago, when did we start being able to search online and see all the pictures? And so, yeah, it seemed like to me it was like, oh, everyone’s gonna be able to do this online, like real estate commissions are gonna come way down, you won’t need realtors, I just find the exact place I want and then use them for the last mile, so to speak. There was a
Tommy Choi 57:43
time when the MLS went from physical paper copy books, where you literally, like, you didn’t know until Monday morning what new listings were, because they were printed, to being digital online, and the entire real estate world thought the sky was falling, we’re going there goes real estate, like it’s going online, and the MLS is gonna be digital, like what, and everything’s worked out right. So you know, I just think that a lot of people, especially in my industry, is just they don’t like change and they fear it,
Jeff Malec 58:21
and it’s a weird.. my buddy in Palm Beach was talking about the massive.. that place has gone crazy. Oh my gosh, yeah. And he’s like, and where you have these friends from high school that couldn’t tie their shoes, and now they’re making like 10s of millions of dollars selling real estate, so we were both yelling at that a little bit, but he’s like.. and the crazy part is the homes have increased 10x but the commission hasn’t decreased 10x If that’s right, it’s come down to maybe a hair, and maybe in down there at like $100 million sale or 50 million, it’s it’s quite a bit less, but that’s a good like lever for you guys on the other side, right? As a businessman, like, hey, the prices go up and we stay the same.
Tommy Choi 58:59
Yeah, exactly, I all
Jeff Malec 59:10
right. I had one more thing with the national piece. There you were going to tell me about, because you were on the board of the National Association or something. Yeah, right.
Tommy Choi 59:16
Yeah, yeah. Sold current
Jeff Malec 59:18
board of director. There you go, so there was a big class action suit. What was happening with all that? And how did that check
Tommy Choi 59:26
out? Oh yeah, that was that was another sky is falling moment in our industry. It, you know, ultimately there’s a class action lawsuit of home sellers who felt that you know the way that the listing agreement used to work was, you know, Jeff, like let’s say I’m pitching to sell your home, and how we would pitch and explain the commission structure was that, you know, hey, it’s, you know, commission’s gonna be six. Percent of that 6% though I’m going to be paying 3% to the buyer’s agent that brings a buyer, right, but I’m in control as the listing agent of receiving that full 6% and it’s on me now to cooperate and give the other 3% to the buy side. Well, I’m sure there were a lot of people that weren’t fully explaining it, you know, that way, and a bunch of sellers felt like, hey, one, like, this is really confusing, like, you know, you told me that 3% right, but, but now you’re keeping like 5% of it, like what’s going on, and then the other part was the mindset was, hey, why, as a home seller, why am I paying the buyer’s agent to bring a buyer here, right? So you know what happened from that, the, you know, they had settled that lawsuit, and part of the settlement, you know, outside of the monetary financial side of it was changing rules around that, and so, or business practice, as they say, and so now we’re in this world where you know they have separated the commission, so now when I’m talking, speaking with you, Jeff, you know our listing agreement, now we’re just talking about how much you’re going to compensate me for my professional fees, you know, like, hey, you know, 3% is what you know you’re paying for. Now, the buyer side, they have their own agreement, a buyer broker agreement, which, by the way, is nothing new, that’s been around forever, right. We’ve always practiced that on our team, but a lot of people didn’t, because some agents are just scared to talk about how they make a living, which, you know, I’m like, you’re in sales, I don’t understand that, you, that’s not a taboo subject, right? You offer a service, you get compensated for service, so now that’s become in state of Illinois, I was the president last year of the Illinois Realtors, you know, which were, I think, like the fifth largest association in the country, 55,000 members, and what we help lobby to do is change and make it an official license law rule in Illinois, where you have to have a buyer broker agreement, right, because it’s we’re transparent for the client, so you have this agreement now where the buyer’s agent has with the buyer saying, like, hey, we’re going to ask the seller to cover, you know, my professional fees, but if they don’t, you’re on the hook for it, and you know everyone was like, this is a big deal, because now this channel drive goes to
Jeff Malec 1:02:40
zero, basically,
Tommy Choi 1:02:41
right, and you know, also part of the other rules change was that you know, in the past, in the MLS, it would state and showcase how much the buyer of agent commission was that was being offered, and so they said we got to take that away too, because that could create bias, because if now a seller is only willing to offer a little bit, it’s going to filter, a realtor will filter and not want to show that property, right? So that went away, and they thought the sky was falling. Well, fast forward, now it’s been the couple years that this has been in practice, and you know, guess what, everything is pretty much the same as far as how things have been done. I think it’s even better now, and I’m one of the few that is happy about how the settlement, because it does create a lot more transparency for the consumer, and I think that’s very important, and it creates more of a fiduciary, and it’s very clear, like, hey, I represent you on the buy side, this is my professional fees that you compensate me for, listing side, this is my fees, this is the value I bring, and there’s no confusion around it, and so I think ultimately it’s become a good thing, I think what the attorney that represented, you know, these angry sellers in this class action lawsuit thought that this was going to eliminate the need for commissions. Now, you, you see, no one’s going to see value in the realtor, obviously that guy was wrong, because we have not seen any change, we haven’t seen any devalue of professional fees of what consumers want to pay. If anything, it’s validated that consumers realize this is the largest physical asset that one purchases in their lives, and they want to hire a professional to represent them and advise them in this transaction,
Jeff Malec 1:04:43
and now you made me think of blockchain, which will be very quick on, but where do you see that all happening? Of like, hey, your title is on the chain, and we can cut out title people, and that will bring costs down to transfers and stuff.
Tommy Choi 1:04:56
I am such a big proponent of blockchain. Mean, and I think that it’s so needed in that, in the space, because it keeps, I mean, yeah, ultimately, like, there’s really no need for title insurance after that, because you know it’s a clear and free title,
Jeff Malec 1:05:13
right? Everyone should see it on, yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:05:15
you know, it’s been talked about for so long, and the reason why it’s not been adopted. There’s just too many hands in the pod when it comes to the workflow, because it’s the title has to be if the mortgage has to be able to also underwriting has to be in sync and accepting of blockchain technology in order for the title to be accepted that way as well, on the real estate side, I think that we’re the easiest side to accept that. Then you have the nuance of Illinois being an attorney state, so real estate transactions have an attorney involved. So now the attorneys, the way they make money is through the title insurance policy, right? So, how does that work? So, I think there’s just too many cooks in the kitchen right now, from a policy standpoint, that doesn’t allow that to happen, and also a capability part, but also when I hear that, I think about, you know, two days ago I ordered a sandwich and a little Coco robot brought it to me. If they can figure that out, I’m pretty sure we can figure out ways to incorporate blockchain into the real estate transaction.
Jeff Malec 1:06:31
I live right here at Hamlin Park, and they bought an AI robot that chalks all the fields for the baseball game. You’re one of the dads, is like, we used to have to wake up an hour ahead and do all this truck and take us an hour. Now this thing does all four fields in 15 minutes. That’s
Tommy Choi 1:06:47
incredible. Great,
Jeff Malec 1:06:50
great use case. All right, we’re gonna get on to some fun stuff. Any last real estate thoughts before we talk?
Tommy Choi 1:07:04
No, fine dining. No, I’m real estate at out.
Jeff Malec 1:07:08
I’m real estate at out. All right, you’re a foodie, as you alluded to in your first answer. Why Chicago? We’ve compared burger lists, so I’m gonna have you do four Mount Rushmores.
Tommy Choi 1:07:20
Okay, I think you’re up
Jeff Malec 1:07:21
for it, but yeah, so I like, I stole this from Benson, Bill Simmons, not Ben Simmons, Bill Simmons, instead of picking the best, right, he says Mount Rushmore, so you have latitude, you can do four instead of one, so we’ll start easy, Burger Chicago burger joint, Mount Rushmore,
Tommy Choi 1:07:37
okay, so I have to preface here, because my I think the most important category for me when I’m looking at burgers,
Jeff Malec 1:07:50
yes, is
Tommy Choi 1:07:51
cost, because right now people will throw out Armitage Ale House, which is all part of, you know the hog sauce with Josh Cheval, right, and everyone loves that burger, which I think is not really that great anymore, but yeah, sure, if you’re using Wagyu or a five meat and using the best ingredients, a $40 burger better tastes freaking good, so when someone says, “Oh, that’s you know, Armitage Ale House Burger is the best, I’m like, “Yeah, for 35 bucks it better be. I don’t count that right. I think price is a big piece, affordability. So I say that because for 100% sure on the Mount Rushmore burgers has to be Red Hot Ranch, because
Jeff Malec 1:08:42
which is right up the street from me here. Yeah, Ashlyn and Barry. Yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:08:45
it’s listen, a double cheeseburger, and you get fresh cut fries for $8 and it’s a great burger. It’s more of that in and out style, I think. It’s one of my favorites. It’s one of my ones I always recommend to people,
Jeff Malec 1:09:03
you’ve told, you told me, and I still haven’t been, even though you gotta
Tommy Choi 1:09:06
go, you have, you got three
Jeff Malec 1:09:07
times a week, all right,
Tommy Choi 1:09:08
and I’ll tell you, the fried, the great fried shrimp, too. So, Red Eye Ranch is on there. My, my personal favorite tasting burger in the entire city is a Mott Street burger. Okay, have you had Mott Streets burger?
Jeff Malec 1:09:23
Yes, we talked about that. Yes,
Tommy Choi 1:09:25
it’s different. It’s, it’s definitely got a little bit more of that umami to it. That’s definitely on my Mount Rushmore of burgers. I will say I think the best Smash burger in the city of Chicago is Levitt Street in their Smashburger,
Jeff Malec 1:09:48
it’s like right west of the highway over, yeah, yeah, and they just, they just,
Tommy Choi 1:09:53
they just like redid the outdoor space too, that they are, they are on my Mount Rushmore,
Jeff Malec 1:09:59
yeah.
Tommy Choi 1:10:00
And my fourth in speaking of in this world where everything is a smash burger now it is refreshing to just get a nice thick pub style burger and I think the best thick pub style burger legendary spot rootstock have you had root socks
Jeff Malec 1:10:21
into rootstock? Okay, all right. You have, you
Tommy Choi 1:10:24
have to wear the roots up. It’s Humble Park, ish, and they have just an incredible, thick, juicy burger that’s.. I think it’s like a. it’s definitely a short rib chuck blend, and it’s definitely like a 7030 so you got a decent amount of fat in there that that brings that juiciness. That burger is phenomenal. I will tell you, you didn’t ask for it, but you know the, if you know, just like you know, Trump wants to be the fifth president. Yeah, if there’s a fifth burger, I will say they’re relatively new, and it’s a pop – not, I don’t say a pop up, but they’re inside of.. have you ever been to the long room? It’s a bar,
Jeff Malec 1:11:12
yeah, yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:11:13
it’s next to Popeye’s on Irving Park, and like Ashland. In there, they have a kitchen, and the burger spot that’s in there is called Cash’s Kitchen. Holy crap, this burger is phenomenal, and it is definitely the guy, Travis, who’s owns it and is the chef. He has an extensive, like, culinary background. He got burnt out of just the bureaucracy and just the whole fine dining world, and just said, “I just want to make burgers, and he just did bet on himself, and this burger is like it’s incredible what he, what he does.
Jeff Malec 1:11:57
You ever thought of doing like a Dave Portnoy style, going around doing little be great at it.
Tommy Choi 1:12:03
I am anti-rating food, because it’s such a.. it’s such a subjective, personal. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, I got my favorite sandwich of all time is of McDonald’s filet of fish. Some people gag at that. I think it’s a perfect 10. That is literally like the pinnacle of of sandwiches for me, so you know that’s why raiding food, I think, is kind of just do it
Jeff Malec 1:12:28
and turn off the comments, you’ll be fine. Yeah, there you
Tommy Choi 1:12:29
- All
Jeff Malec 1:12:31
right, next dive bars, Mount Rushmore of dive bars,
Tommy Choi 1:12:37
man. I will say, okay, I don’t, I, it’s like, like it’s funny, because, like, now I feel like the hipster thing is to make your bar feel like a dive bar, but it’s like also like fancy cocktails now, but I’ll tell you, and it’s gonna be there’s a little bit of food connection to it. Okay, so my first favorite dive bar is Best Intentions. Have you been there? Yeah, I mean, once again, because they have cocktails
Jeff Malec 1:13:05
and cool, but, but, yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:13:07
but the drinks are really great there. I like best intentions a lot.
Jeff Malec 1:13:11
They had some homemade, like trail mix in this little bag that I was just like, what is this, right? So good, yeah, it’s incredible.
Tommy Choi 1:13:19
I love best intentions, there’s an awesome bar in Bridgeport called Electric Funeral that
Jeff Malec 1:13:28
never been.
Tommy Choi 1:13:29
Oh my gosh, it’s so divey, but also very.. it’s like a classy divey. It’s great, it’s a great spot. It’s just got, you know, cast of characters, phenomenal drinks and cocktails. I really like that. My, I think, creepy favorite dive bar is LNL Tavern, and I say it’s creepy because that’s where John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer used to hang out at, and they, they, they live by that, but LNL Tavern is just straight up like dark bike. I always,
Jeff Malec 1:14:06
not thinking of a Dell eye list, but
Tommy Choi 1:14:09
no, it’s in Lakeview on Clark, and just north of Belmont.
Jeff Malec 1:14:18
Yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:14:19
LNL Tavern. I tell friends, if you ever go there and you run into me and I’m by myself, like, call someone, I need help, right? That’s a place where I should not be hanging out by myself, but LNL is a really good one. And then, you know, once again, I don’t know if I would call this a dive bar, but small bar, you know, it’s been around forever, but they just have new, they’re under new ownership now for the last, like, I don’t know how many years, but I love small bar, and part of it also is because I love the cheeseburger that they serve out there, Patty Pleaser, yeah, the onion burger, yes,
Jeff Malec 1:14:58
yeah, I’ve had, but. And they also, we had like five vodka drinks that we ordered there, and it was still, I think, they’re full price, but small. Yeah, these are small drinks. Why is the bill so big? Like, oh, don’t worry about loving. We’re running out of time, so I’m gonna last one open dealer’s choice, your Mount Rushmore of places to go. I won’t even say restaurant, bar places to go in Chicago.
Tommy Choi 1:15:27
Wow, places go. Well, I’ll tell you what. You know, this one might sound cliche, but summertime, there’s no better place on earth than Wrigley Field. Amen. And whether, yeah, there you go. I’m still a little bitter that the Sox beat them, but
Speaker 2 1:15:48
yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:15:48
whether they’re good or bad, it’s just an incredible environment to go catch a game, even see a concert there. So I’ll say that
Jeff Malec 1:15:57
was that weird, new sidebar like that, that became such a high luxury real estate market, right around Wrigleyville, like back in the day, like, why would you want to live next to the stadium? Oh my god, drunks and all that.
Tommy Choi 1:16:09
Yeah, I remember my dad, because you know, they had the dry cleaners on Broadway and Cornelia, and my dad would tell me, like, especially in the 80s, he’s like, there’s only two reasons why you’d be on the corner of Clark and Addison, it’d be either because you’re going to Cubs game or you’re trying to buy crack. It was just like it was just a shanty little neighborhood, and now it’s so.. if I see you
Jeff Malec 1:16:30
there and you’re not going to a Cubs game. Exactly, that was
Tommy Choi 1:16:33
that was his message. Don’t, don’t be there without Cubs tickets. One of my other favorite things, you know, I’ll do this by season in the winter time, during the holidays, going to the museum and science of industry. They do this like Christmas trees from around the world exhibit every year
Jeff Malec 1:16:53
for like 100 years. Yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:16:55
yeah, and some of the trees are cheesy, how they’re like, you know, decorated, that’s the most like stereotypical stuff in the country, but it’s just a cool thing. I think part of me as a kid I would go there to see like the South Korea tree, and so you know they’re still in nostalgia in it. I still do it with my family, so I still love doing that. I always recommend people do that. Springtime going to Jackson Park and seeing the cherry blossoms, a lot of people don’t realize that we have a lot of cherry blossoms, and you have, like, a seven day window to do it, but if you can catch it, I think it’s super beautiful to do. I was just
Jeff Malec 1:17:35
with a guy out at a golf tournament, we were having a theological, philosophical debate of if God had it to do over again, he would have made things like cherry blossom spoon for like maybe four months,
Tommy Choi 1:17:46
right?
Jeff Malec 1:17:46
Right, like seven days is too short, like all these, especially in Chicago. Like, come on, stretch it out.
Tommy Choi 1:17:51
I feel the same way about tulips. I’m like, yeah, you know, they come up and then they go, and you’re just like, man, why couldn’t these be just around long?
Jeff Malec 1:18:01
This guy’s counter was, if it went away, didn’t go away as quickly, we wouldn’t appreciate it as much. Yeah, that’s
Tommy Choi 1:18:06
true, that’s true. I like that mindset. And the last piece I’ll add in, I feel like these are all touristy things to do, but this is why I love the city, like these are things that I do still. Once a year, we’ll go on an architectural boat tour, and I think it’s one of the greatest ways to see the city. It’s just a great time to be out and about, and I always learn something new that I didn’t know, and I think it’s, it’s a fun thing to do. So, I’d say those four things are my go-tos.
Jeff Malec 1:18:36
But I used to raise sailboats, I used to work like cleaning the boat in Montrose Harbor down there, not, yeah, not Montrose, on down south by McCormick Place, whatever that, oh yeah, so one of the boats where I must have been an extended tour, and they would come into there, and the tour guy be like, this is a America’s Cup boat, it won the America’s, I’m like, no, none of that’s true.
Tommy Choi 1:19:00
that’s hilarious, and I’m the one that goes back, like, did you know the America Cups, like
Jeff Malec 1:19:10
another good hack, you can take the water taxi from the aquarium to Navy Pier, it goes out in the lake, there you get a basically a $7 boat charter, see the skyline from that angle is always one I like to give people. Yeah,
Tommy Choi 1:19:23
that’s a good one. And
Jeff Malec 1:19:24
another hack we’ll throw out here, and then we’re gonna go go to the aquarium at night. This don’t get arrested, or don’t tell them you got it from the podcast every day. You go there at night, you walk around the back, and you can go right up to the window. Right, there’s a sideline, yeah, climb through some bushes, but you’re right up in the window, and the dolphins are just playing in there. There’s no fans, there’s no like, they’re not jumping through stuff, but they’re pushing balls around, and they’re doing their thing. Super cool.
Tommy Choi 1:19:48
That’s a pro tip. You know what’s funny is that you say that because when I’m like from the other side, like coming from Soldier Field, you always see that ledge that hugs that glass, and you’re always wondering like. Yeah, there’s got to be waiting, maybe not after
Jeff Malec 1:20:02
a Bears game, because the cops, yeah, that’s true.
Tommy Choi 1:20:05
Okay, I like that.
Jeff Malec 1:20:08
Awesome, Tommy, we’ll leave it there. We’ll put for all you listeners who want to buy some, take a, I guess they’d be making a deposit with you, you’re gonna do a draw. Yeah, we’ll put your info down in the show notes, but thanks again. Thanks for seeing you shortly. So, hopefully on a boat or at a Cubs game, or so,
Tommy Choi 1:20:26
or we gotta grab a burger.
Jeff Malec 1:20:29
Done.
Tommy Choi 1:20:30
There you go.
Jeff Malec 1:20:30
I think I’m gonna choose Root Stack. Let’s go to Rootstock.
Tommy Choi 1:20:34
Yeah, let’s do it. I’m done. Root Soc, I’ll
Jeff Malec 1:20:35
be a Root Stack. You’ll be awesome. Thanks, Tommy. All
Tommy Choi 1:20:40
right, man. Thanks for having me.
Jeff Malec 1:20:43
Okay, that’s it for the podcast. Thanks to Tommy for coming on. Thanks to Jeff Berger for producing. Thanks to RCM for sponsoring. We’ll be coming back with some more Chicago month next week, talking to two folks from one of Chicago’s famed exchanges, The Sibo. We’ll see you then. Peace.
