The beauty of the luxury market, and the real estate market in general, is that there will always be gorgeous homes to see. As a Realtor, do you ever stop for a moment and take in a listing and see it for the true beauty that it might possess? Sure, there are many many clunkers out there, but each and every home has something that makes it special. Do you still love looking at homes, or is it now just part of the job?

In the luxury market, it is much easier to spot the beauty, which can often be breathtaking. For our cover shoot, we headed out to Barrington Hills to take pictures of a massive estate overlooking Goose Lake. The home is listed by Gregg Bernadette of Baird & Warner, and the recent price reduction is an amount higher than the number that many attribute to the base price for luxury. On the outside, the custom home was modeled after George Washington’s Mount Vernon estates, and the inside was covered in marble with chandeliers and extra rooms at every turn, including a wine cellar, theater room and swimming pool. As often happens for the luxury issue, we had a hard time choosing which of the many rooms would be the best choice to demonstrate the opulence.

As with any niche, the luxury market requires special skills and techniques that won’t appeal to everyone. There is a requirement to be sensitive to the needs of the buyers that sometimes have high profiles, and also just because a buyer is looking at a $15 million house doesn’t mean the sky is the limit and anything goes. If you’re a longtime luxury veteran or just starting out, it never hurts to take a look at what the experts are saying. In our cover story, we found four Chicagoland luxury agents who know how to get these deals done. Most admit that the market has required them to work harder, but anyone out there who isn’t working harder probably isn’t an agent anymore.

We’ve got luxury from cover to cover in this issue, from the Agent Snapshot to the Great Listings, so start turning the pages and dive into the beauty of luxury!