By Agent X
It’s interesting how much our industry has become such an enormous part of everyday living.
The industry we love, live, eat and breathe is not only the talk of our conversations, it has reached new heights by capturing the attention of linguists, grammarians, historians and scholars.
With this being CA’s annual Mortgage Issue, Agent X did some digging and discovered that the word “subprime” was chosen as the 2007 Word of the Year by a distinguished group of wordsmiths at the annual convention of the American Dialect Society in December.
Although the word has been around for a while, it seems that lately everyone is saying subprime this and subprime that. I asked a friend’s 19-year-old son how his first quarter of college went and his response was, “Oh, very subprime.” This coming from a film major.
Another real estate buzz word, “green,” finished a close third as word of the year, but topped the category of “Most Useful.” It also used to be my favorite color to eat in the Crayola Crayon box.
On that note, I welcome you to the first submission of Agent About Town, our newest column aimed at insightful gossip, uplifting tidbits and delectable dirt. Though my eyes and ears are always open, I need your help in locating any and all hearsay, rumor or tittle-tattle I can get my hands on between the publishing of our bimonthly issues. Please submit at will to
agentx@chicagoagentmagazine. And don’t worry, I never reveal my sources.
Mary Anne D’Ambrosio, Realtor at Re/Max of Naperville, used to wonder if either of her daughters would be famous — not anymore. One daughter, Nicole, finished third last season on Donald Trump’s “Apprentice.” Her other daughter, Donielle, was recently featured cutting a male model’s hair on an episode of “Make Me a Supermodel.”
Prudential Preferred Properties named Dennis Dooley, who grew the Habitat Company in Chicago from 45 agents to 123 right before it was sold, as VP managing broker of the Lincoln Park office. Rick Sobin was named to the same position at the Lincoln Square office.
Speaking of Prudential Preferred Properties, Jim Roth, former president/managing partner, recently opened the doors to his new venture and completely avoided using any words starting with “P” in the company name so there would be absolutely no confusion. His new venture, The Real Estate Group, can be found at 2869 N. Lincoln Ave.
Heading for the greener pastures of the suburbs took on a whole new meaning as Prairie Crossing of Grayslake was named number four out of ten on a national list of Top Green-Built Communities by Natural Home Magazine.
Sources at Wells Fargo made a joint decision to “weed out the slackers and deadweights” in their goal to make 2008 a great year … Whoa! And after attending the Annual Builders Forecast, moderated by former Wells Fargo executive Bob Shields, Agent X was told we could not use any information or quotes from Mr. Shields and that “further explanation would come in 30 days.” Hmmm…
Finally, the January Birthdays of Marc Churchill of National City Mortgage (29 again) and Michael Golden of @properties (actually 39) mark the final year that either of them will be eligible to be considered for the 30 under 30 and 40 under 40 awards respectively, ever again.
We all had fun celebrating Aimee and Ted’s birthday at the New West party, and I bet they’re still waiting for their cars.
Agent X
Keepin’ the “real” in real estate
Got gossip? Submit it to Agent About Town at
agentx@chicago.staging312.com.
Copyright 2008 Agent Publishing LLC