Interior design and architecture are involved in every transaction, and that makes real estate all the more exciting to Diana Marcus.
Marcus, an award-winning real estate broker with @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, elevates the client experience with home styling, staging, decluttering and photography. She has achieved over $50 million sales volume over her nine years in the industry.
“My personal and professional relationships with other brokers are instrumental to my success in the real estate business,” she says. “Being able to collaborate well with others and knowing how to finesse a sticky situation keeps a deal together. I pride myself on being transparent and honest.” Marcus assists buyers and sellers in the North Shore, where she currently resides. In addition, she still has city clients and helps buy and sell in Bucktown/Wicker Park, the Gold Coast, River North, River West, Lincoln Park and Lakeview. She advises clients strategically, weighing the numbers and data, and reconciling that information with the emotional process that sometimes comes with a home purchase.
Marcus entered real estate at the urging of her mother-in-law, long-time agent Michele Vold, whom she collaborates with and considers a mentor. “When we first moved to Highland Park 10 years ago, we purchased my husband’s grandparents’ house,” Marcus recalls. “I oversaw the gut rehab and was hooked.”
After graduating from business school with an MBA, she went to work for a sustainable chemical company as a brand product manager. “In real estate, each listing is unique and requires its own set of marketing tools and strategies,” she says. “Developing a brand marketing strategy and paying attention to every detail translated to this career with ease. Oh, and sales … you have to be able to sell a product.”
With many buyers vying for scant inventory, she helps sellers select the best offer, one based on what’s important to them. “All of my transactions this year have managed to stay together in spite of some long odds,” she says. “I negotiated three separate transactions this year where the buyer was from out of town and purchased the house sight unseen.”
