During a recent Southside Builders Association event in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi talked about the disappearance of the $200,000 Berwyn bungalow. Those properties, generally speaking, are $300,000 or higher now, he said.

That creates one more challenge for today’s first-time homebuyers, who have more hurdles to entering the housing market than their counterparts five or 10 years ago did. Affordability is a problem, exacerbated by higher interest rates. Those homebuying factors will fluctuate, though. What remains consistent among most first-time buyers is a lack of experience.

I’m reminded of my first property purchase in the mid-2000s. Thankfully, I had a good agent who helped guide me through the process, but my ignorance made things difficult. I didn’t really understand how agents got paid. I didn’t have a clue about my loan options or how the closing process worked. Worst of all, I had unrealistic expectations about my housing investment. All I knew was that my friends and family were seeing big real estate investment gains, and I didn’t want to miss out.

Under that backdrop, I bought a new-construction loft in Rogers Park shortly before the market took a turn for the worse. Four years later, when my young family had outgrown the loft in the middle of the Great Recession, I sold at a hefty loss and walked away from the closing with a check for less than $1,000. My down payment from four years earlier had disappeared.

The silver lining was my real estate agent. She managed to sell our loft in an incredibly saturated market and at a price that allowed me to move on without writing a check at closing. I was then free to buy another property, this time when prices were lagging, not peaking. My agent served as counselor, sounding board and teacher. And that’s what many of today’s first-time homebuyers need from their agents as they navigate this ultra-competitive housing market.

In this month’s cover story, we examine how agents are working with first-time buyers, from explaining the basics to guiding clients through the complexities of the homebuying process.

Be sure to take a look at this month’s Top Coach feature, which offers an inspiring story about focusing on one’s health and how that can boost your earning potential.

Those features just scratch the surface of our July issue. I hope you’ll enjoy what you find.