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I’ve only been to a handful of weekend open houses, but from what I gather, there’s one basic rule that most agents observe: Don’t leave the sales center unmanned. I’ve even had agents hand me the keys to every unit in the building so that I can look around the building without pulling them away from their sales centers. However, yesterday at Clybourn Green’s open house, at 2401 – 2409 N Clybourn Ave, there wasn’t an agent to be found in the entire building.
I spent about 20 minutes taking photographs, reading the marketing brochures and wandering around Clybourn Green before giving up and showing myself out. I did find a furnished two-bedroom whose long, narrow hallway reminded me of some of the older apartments I’ve rented in Hyde Park.
One odd feature of this second-floor unit is that the living room’s bay window is so close to the traffic light that you could almost reach out and touch it (below, at left), serving as a reminder of the constant traffic jam below.
Even though there was nobody around, I could tell from looking around the sales center that insulation is important to the developer because there was foam lying around (below, at right), and there were a few window cut-outs in the walls (below, at left). Koenig & Strey GMAC Real Estate agents Tod Pratt and Elizabeth Lothamer recently posted an informative YouTube video explaining most of Clybourn Green’s green features including some information on the insulation.
- Rate and review Clybourn Green at NewHomeNotebook.com
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Mark Boyer’s article would have you believe that we had an open house at Clybourn Green yesterday afternoon, opened the doors to the buidling and the model, turned the lights on, and then maybe left to read the paper at the local Starbucks, while letting potential buyers fend for themselves while touring the building.
In fact, I am the agent who represents the developer of Clybourn Green, and I was the agent who was at the Sunday open house. Mr. Boyer says “there wasn’t an agent to be found in the entire building.” Well, he would not know that because there are five tiers to the building, and he only had access to the two tiers where the model unit is located.
It would seem a bit of common sense to me that if the open house signs are up, the doors to the building and the model are open, the lights are on, and it is a new construction site, that maybe, just maybe, the agent is somewhere else in the building showing units to a potential buyer that stopped in at the open house…which was the case when Mr. Boyer stopped by yesterday.
I can assure the readers of Yo Chicago that at our Open Houses (Wednesday evenings from 6-7:30 p.m. and Saturday/Sunday from 12-2 p.m.) we will be there!!
Clybourn Green is the first residential condo conversion building in Chicago to seek an Energy Star certification. Yes, there is traffic going by the outside the building, but you barely hear it inside due to the to the soybean based “Bio-based” insulation, and the ground cellulose insulation that is found in the exterior and interior walls, ceilings and floors!! Buyers at Clybourn Green will enjoy up to 70% less in monthly utility bills compared to standard construction, and a very quiet builiding in which to live.
All of the finishes throughout the building are “green”, and come to us within a 500 mille radius of Chicago, making for a small carbon footprint in the construction of Clybourn Green.
Mr. Boyer, sorry that we missed you yesterday. Please feel free to stop by at one of of our other open houses…We’d love to give you a tour…I promise, we’ll be there!!
Tod Pratt
Koenig & Strey GMAC Real Estate
O #312.475.4185
Tod,
Mark may have stretched a bit as to the “entire building” – perhaps because no one was there to tell him it had 5 tiers – but you’re also stretching.
It seems clear that buyers who showed up during the period that Mark was there were, in fact, left to fend for themselves.
It strikes me that the obligation to exercise common sense lies with the host of the open house not with the people who show up for it.
In the days when I hosted open houses at my developments if I needed to step away from the model I locked it and left a sign indicating to buyers when I would return. We didn’t have cell phones back then but it would also seem to be common sense to leave a cell phone number on the sign. If there were other residents in the building, or any security concerns in the area, I’d have locked the front door and left the sign there.
Here’s a bit of gratuitous advice, Tod. When you deliver an unwarranted lecture, don’t accompany it with a tedious commercial. We linked to your Web site and your video. Wasn’t that enough?
Tod could you spend a few $$ on repairing the cornice? It is really not finished.
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