My story
Born and raised in Chicago.
A late start, a lot of work, and a family worth all of it.
Born and raised in Chicago.
A late start, a lot of work, and a family worth all of it.
I'm Matty. Chicago, born and raised.
For a long time I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I watched friends walk out of college straight into good jobs, building careers, moving forward. And I was managing a bar. Good at it, but stuck. Every year I told myself this was temporary, and every year it wasn't.
What I did have was a work ethic. I learned early that nobody hands you anything. You outwork the room, or you go home. I was working hard. I just wasn't working toward anything.
The bar years weren't wasted. They taught me how to read a room, how to take care of people, and how to keep going on a bad night. I just needed something to build.
Real estate changed everything. It gave me a way out, and for the first time the hard work actually went somewhere. I finally had a direction, and I went full speed ahead.
I spent my first five years as an independent agent, learning the city building by building and neighborhood by neighborhood. Mastering the market. Then five more years onsite at some of the nicest buildings in Chicago and Miami, where the pace is different and the standard is higher. Ten years in, that adds up to more than a thousand leases and a lot of people who trusted me with where they live.
A few years in, agents started asking how I did it. So I showed them. First one at a time, then in classes, and every time the same thing happened: their numbers went up. At some point it was obvious this needed a home of its own. That became Luxury Leasing Academy, where I teach agents to build a real business around luxury apartments instead of treating leasing like a side job.
Today I still show apartments myself in Chicago and mentor agents all over the country. I wouldn't want it any other way.
Everything I do starts and ends at home.
My wife, Julia. She's the calm in our house and the reason it runs. She doesn't need any of this to be impressed by me, which is exactly why I want to make her proud.
My daughter, Viviana. The day she arrived, the goal changed. It stopped being about making money and started being about building something that lasts. I want her to grow up watching her dad chase something big, work for it, and finish it.
They are the why. Everything else is the how.
If you follow me anywhere, this is most of what you'll see.
The work is what I do. This is who I am.
Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks. And on Saturdays, the Buckeyes. I have opinions about all of them and I share them freely.
Midday at the gym, five days a week, no excuses. I treat it like a job because it works like one.
Super Tuscan, ideally with Julia, ideally in Tuscany. Antinori is the answer to most questions.
I write. Kanye and Wayne raised me on it. Someday you might hear what I've been working on. They don't call me Matty F Babyy for nothing.
I'm building for the long run. A business that outlasts me, agents who win because they learned it the right way, and a life where my family never has to worry.
The next chapter is already underway. I'm stepping into the business my dad spent twenty-five years building, learning it from him directly, and eventually taking it over. Same work ethic, bigger responsibility.
Twenty years in sales taught me one thing: effort is the only part you control. This is just the beginning.