One word that consistently comes to clients’ minds when they think of Penny O’Brien is “hustle.” With more than 100 reviews, O’Brien, a broker with john greene Realtor, is the top-ranked individual agent in Naperville on Zillow.
Serving the western suburbs, O’Brien sold more than $23 million in real estate last year, placing her among the top 1 percent of all Naperville agents — a huge accomplishment for an individual agent working only with a part-time assistant.
O’Brien’s creative and aggressive marketing strategies earned her the 2018 Innovative Property Marketing Award from john greene Realtor. “I don’t just market myself,” she says. “I market a home in every one of my advertisements.”
A certified stager and Seller Representative Specialist, O’Brien loves meeting with sellers to discuss pre-market home improvements and guide them to make their home “showtime ready” when it hits the market. She strongly believes in professional staging and offers it as a complimentary service. With a reputation for “good-looking listings,” she helps clients realize a higher return and quicker sale. “Staging transforms a home from average to amazing,” she says, noting she likes to tell clients, “Every home has a story, and we’re going to tell yours.”
O’Brien says her secret to her success is listening to what clients tell her, molding her approach to suit their needs and communicating with them in the way they prefer to keep in contact, noting that “real estate is a personality-driven business.”
In addition to working with sellers, O’Brien also enjoys assisting all categories of buyers: first-timers, downsizers and movers-up, in finding them homes to suit their particular stage in life. As a certified Real Estate Negotiation Expert, she lands the best price and terms for each client. In multiple-offer situations, it’s her broad negotiation experience that helps win the home. And many clients say they appreciate her candor in telling them what they need to do to sell their home, as opposed to what they want to hear.
For fun, O’Brien likes to bike and participate in bootcamp-style workouts.
