Real estate broker Elliot Small of @properties strives to be the most-knowledgeable resource of Chicago neighborhoods for his clients, and even after 13 years in the real estate business, he remains committed to improving his game. “I spend a lot of my personal time in the Chicago neighborhoods where I work, visiting new businesses and trying new restaurants,” he shares.

While he’s comfortable working anywhere in Chicagoland, Small does most of his business in Lincoln Park, Downtown, Wicker Park and Bucktown, where he lives with his wife and son. While he has a specialty in first-time homebuyers and is extremely well-versed in multifamily investment properties, as he owns several himself, he welcomes all customer types.

Small is an expert at finding the bright side in otherwise unfavorable situations. After the financial crisis, he became a business-development manager for Home Partners of America, a role in which he served from 2012 to 2018. While there, he traveled the country procuring and maintaining hundreds of national brokerage relationships. “During my time at Home Partners, our team collaborated with Realtors to acquire 8,000-plus properties in 40 markets within 20 states,” he recalls.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Small purchased a four-unit investment property. Within months of renovating the property, he had rented out the entire building. “I felt accomplished to have completed this renovation project while also working full time to assist my real estate clients during the pandemic,” he says.

Small uses that lemonade-from-lemons attitude to make sure every experience is more than just satisfactory for his clients. That approach, plus his excellent communication skills, have led to Small achieving a number of industry honors, including the Chicago Association of Realtors’ Top Producer Award and a place on Chicago Magazine’s “Top Real Estate Agents” list. “Good communication is essential to success in real estate,” he notes.