Buying and selling real estate can be stressful, which is why Natalie Renna tries to absorb that stress for her clients and make the process as fun and easy as possible.

Renna, a real estate agent with Dream Town Realty, shut off the news in 2020, because it kept the fear inside of her, and ended up having a super successful year. “People on social media saw that I was constantly working and that helped grow my business through the pandemic,” she says. Renna stays in front of the buyers and sellers she assists in the city and suburbs — she does a lot of work in the West Loop, Logan Square, Lincoln Park and Lakeview neighborhoods — through her creative posts on Instagram and Tik Tok. She also gets clients to make appearances in Natalie Renna Cribs videos, to show off their homes and tell viewers why they fell in love with the property in the first place. “I think it’s important to have entertaining/creative content for my audience,” she says. “I keep mine interesting while providing knowledge through my posts.”

Renna always wanted to work in real estate. She grew up with a dad in the marines and her family moved a lot. She quickly learned how to make friends wherever she goes — a key aspect of real estate sales. Renna held a license throughout college but only did internships. When she graduated in 2008 with finance, marketing and real estate degrees, she felt lost due to the recession. She worked at Gibson’s steakhouse to network, went into pharmaceutical sales, quickly discovered it wasn’t for her and took the advice of a former boss who suggested she go into real estate. “This is what I wanted to do all along,” she says.

Renna earned a 2016 Remax Rising Star Award and reached Top Producer status, year over year, from 2017 to 2020.