A runner, biker and city explorer, Camille Canales can find her way around Chicago blindfolded. The team lead of the Camille Canales Group of Compass Real Estate’s Bucktown Office, she has lived in the city for 17 years.
Canales describes her team as “real people working in real estate” who are servicing their own communities. “Home is more important than it’s ever been,” she says. “Our mission is to help everyone find their place in the world. We guide clients through the home buy/sell process, educating along the way, so that they are empowered to make the best decisions on their homes.” She takes an educational approach with buyers and sellers, complete with “teacher handouts” and “homework assignments.”
Canales develops long-lasting relationships with her clients and prides herself on being a neighborhood expert. “My experience in buying, selling, rehabbing and working with construction sets me apart from the competition.” Fond of greystones, brownstones and worker cottages in Lincoln Park and Logan Square, Canales has worked with new construction throughout the city and scoured pocket markets for gems to put in front of buyers. A transplant from Austin, Texas, she came to Chicago in 2004 to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on a scholarship.
In 2006, Canales and her family settled down in the city, learning the ins and outs of rehab projects and eventually applying everything they knew to their own Logan Square two-flat. At the time, Canales was an arts educator when one of her students, who happened to work as a broker for Jameson Sotheby’s, suggested she get a real estate license. “The rest is history,” Canales says. She recently sold that two-flat and moved on to another renovation project for her family: Remodeling a 1990s single-family home in the West Bucktown neighborhood near her beloved 606 trail.
After six-plus years in real estate, this award-winning top producer is thrilled to blend her passion for teaching with real estate and lead a team. “There are so many facets to the business, it’s nice to have colleagues around for support, stability and to be in multiple places at one time during the busy season,” she says. “Teamwork makes the dream work.”
