Matt Laricy Group

How Chicago’s #1 Realtors Turned Personal Tragedy and Market Uncertainty into Their Best Year Ever

Matt Laricy’s Raw Honesty About Loss, His Skepticism of AI, and His Belief in Chicago’s Urban Revival Reveal Why Authenticity Still Wins in an Algorithm-Driven World.

While other major metropolitan areas stumble through post-pandemic uncertainty, Chicago’s real estate market is staging one of the most compelling comebacks in the nation. The Laricy Team, a division of Americorp, with founder Matt Laricy at the helm, the city’s #1 ranked real estate agency with over $2 billion in sales and 7,500 transactions closed, has watched the urban exodus reverse course in real time. Laricy’s third-generation perspective on the market, combined with his team’s position at Americorp Real Estate, give him a front-row seat to what he believes is a fundamental shift in American living patterns.

“We’re starting to pick up, we’re getting better,” Laricy says. “Slowly but surely the inventory levels are dropping, and prices are slowly inching up. I’ve been talking about this for years: when suburbs start to depreciate, cities start to come back, and that’s what we’re seeing right now.” He points to Florida’s transformation from the biggest seller’s market to a buyer’s market, and Toronto’s struggling condo inventory, as proof that the five-year cycle he predicted is playing out exactly as expected.

The return-to-office mandate has become the catalyst for urban revival. Chicago’s office occupancy hit 58.7% in September 2025, outpacing the national average as companies increasingly require in-person attendance. “RTO is a real thing,” Laricy explains. “You want to get promoted, you have got to be in the office five days a week. People are also kind of sick of just the slower pace of life. We’re humans. Our DNA hasn’t changed. People are attracted to energy.” Job relocations tell the story most clearly. Laricy notes he’s helping more doctors relocate to downtown Chicago than he has in years, drawn by some of the country’s best hospitals clustering in the urban core.

The Tale of Two Markets

Chicago’s recovery reveals a striking paradox that challenges conventional real estate wisdom. While Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and Westtown experience what Laricy calls “next level hot” demand, the traditional luxury corridors of River North and Gold Coast present unexpected opportunities. “Like Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Westtown, Bucktown—those areas are next level hot, like 2022 suburbs hot,” he says. “It’s out of control. Never have I seen it that high before. Not even close.”

The disparity creates a counterintuitive investment thesis. Properties in River North and Gold Coast now sell for substantially less than their 2016 valuations, prompting Laricy to reframe these historically premium neighborhoods as “up and coming.” When he shares this perspective with media outlets, the response is skepticism. “They laughed. ‘No, really what’s up and coming?’ Because those are the most expensive areas in the city,” he recalls. “No, they’re the cheapest areas in the city right now. They took the most losses, so they depreciated more than any other area.” His logic is simple: up and coming means highest ability to grow, and no neighborhoods have more room to appreciate than those currently undervalued.

The city’s competitive advantages go beyond pricing. Chicago offers something coastal markets cannot: climate stability. “We don’t have any fires. We don’t have sharks, we don’t have hurricanes,” Laricy notes. “We don’t really have any big natural disasters to worry about, no earthquakes.” This affordability factor, combined with Chicago ranking 10% below the national average in home prices according to recent market analysis, positions the city as an increasingly attractive alternative for buyers priced out of traditional coastal hubs.

Authenticity Over Algorithmic Marketing

The Laricy Team’s marketing transformation in 2025 reads like a masterclass in breaking industry conventions. After years of following scripted property tours that generated minimal business, Laricy made a decision that his marketing team initially resisted. “I was getting these scripts, and I was getting upset, like ‘say this is the kitchen and this is the bath.’ I’m like, this isn’t who I am,” he recalls. “Everybody’s like, ‘well, you have got a raw personality, and you can offend people.’ And I was like, you know what? I’ve been doing everybody else’s way for five years and I’m not that guy.”

The pivot to unfiltered, one-take video tours produced staggering results. Lead generation exploded. “We went from averaging about one lead a month on our listing videos to 130 leads a month,” Laricy says. “We are constantly closing deals over it. We’ve been selling two listings a week just from these.” His Instagram following grew to over 41,000, with street recognition becoming commonplace. The approach took advantage of current trends showing authenticity driving engagement rates far beyond polished, corporate content.

Beyond social platforms, the Laricy Team revived an old-school strategy with modern execution. His weekly market newsletter combines deeply personal storytelling with hard market analysis. One recent edition detailed his high school breakup and subsequent conversation with his history teacher, weaving the emotional narrative into observations about buyers backing out of contracts as they realize initial enthusiasm doesn’t equal lasting commitment. “I think a lot of it comes from me talking about it a lot,” he says of the authenticity trend. “A lot of stuff’s gone viral on it, and I think that’s been big.”

Strategic Adoption of AI and Technology, Not Blind Faith

While the real estate industry rushes to embrace artificial intelligence, Laricy maintains a measured skepticism that sets them apart from competitors claiming technological mastery. “AI is such a buzzword right now, but it’s just not there,” Laricy says bluntly. “To me, it’s like AI is going to be there to help automate emails, to follow up, things of that nature. None of it works yet. I know a lot of people talk about how they got it perfected. It can’t really do anything you need efficiently yet.”

His team experiments with ChatGPT, Grok, and other tools for content generation, but Laricy describes the workflow as cumbersome. “It kind of makes it more annoying because I feel like it doubles my workload because I have to double check it,” he explains. When his marketing assistant faces creative burnout after uploading ten listings in a day, AI provides inspiration rather than finished copy. She inputs prompts, reviews suggestions, then edits the output into usable material.

The technology the Laricy Team actively pursues solves genuine operational pain points. His team is building proprietary tour automation software to handle the most punishing aspect of high-volume sales: last-minute showing requests. “It’s 9:00 PM at night on a Saturday. You’re just getting home. A client says, “I want to tour these five properties tomorrow at 9:00 AM on a Sunday,” he describes. “It burnt out one of my assistants and she quit over it.”

The system will automatically request access to properties, arrange them in logical touring order, and send confirmation emails to clients who can track appointment status in real time. This practical application denotes his philosophy: technology should eliminate friction, not create it.

Resilience Through Tragedy

Early 2025 brought Laricy face to face with loss that would derail most businesses. Catherine Holbrook, the agency’s first agent and the team’s biggest producer, died during childbirth just two weeks after Laricy’s own fourth child arrived via emergency C-section. “Catherine was the heart and soul of the team. Catherine was my best, best friend,” he says quietly. “She was the biggest producer for the team, but she was also the biggest cheerleader for the team.”

The circumstances remain painfully vivid. Laricy spoke with Holbrook moments before her scheduled induction, joking about getting back to work once the baby arrived. Hours of silence followed. What should have been routine became catastrophic when her heart rate dropped during delivery, triggering an emergency C-section. Doctors initially gave the baby a 5% survival chance and airlifted the infant to specialized care. While medical teams focused on the baby, Holbrook went into cardiac arrest from an amniotic fluid embolism. The baby survived and thrives today. Catherine did not.

Rather than retreat, Laricy’s team rallied. He delivered her eulogy and brought Holbrook’s husband onto the team, ensuring any business from her former clients generates income for her daughter’s future. “Her mom told me at the luncheon that Catherine would want us to kill everybody and just win this year,” Laricy recalls. “I took that to heart.”

The losses compounded. His main assistant took maternity leave during peak season. Another assistant quit from burnout. A top producing agent relocated to Florida. Yet the team is posting its best year ever, surpassing all previous records. Laricy opened the Hinsdale suburban office that Holbrook was meant to lead, climbing from #45 to #38 among 4,500 agents in DuPage County within months.

The Superman Feeling: What Fuels Laricy’s Unstoppable Drive

The origin of the Laricy Team’s relentless work ethic traces back to a childhood defined by low expectations. “Most people always told me I was stupid. Most people always told me I would never amount to anything in life,” he says. “That was just kind of the general theme of my life.” He was brought to a speech therapist as a young child because he spoke so infrequently that adults suspected a developmental problem. The shy boy who barely talked grew into a man who sleeps four to five hours per night, works seven days a week, and takes fewer than 18 days off annually.

The Laricy Team scores a 20 on the ACT, a result that traditionally signals limited academic potential. Yet he never internalized the negative messaging. “I always believed in myself. I didn’t believe I was dumb, and I didn’t believe that I couldn’t be whatever I wanted to be,” he explains. A childhood friend once described his energy as a “superman feeling,” the unshakeable conviction that he could conquer anything through sheer effort. “Not because I expect to get it, but because I am willing to work for anything I want, and I will stop at nothing to get it.”

His team philosophy echoes this intensity. Most agents dream of hundred-person teams; Laricy maintains nine people including himself in the downtown office. “My nine people, my nine are better than a hundred,” he states. “I like my people to be super busy to where they’re going to have a panic attack.” He seeks agents who view real estate as identity, not just income. As Chicago’s urban renaissance accelerates and Laricy’s competitors embrace conventional wisdom,  the Laricy Team’s instincts and tireless execution continue to separate them from the field. As for Laricy, the kid told he’d never succeed now defines success for an entire market.

AT A GLANCE

Who: Matt Laricy Group

What: A real estate firm specializing in Chicago’s downtown and suburban markets – ranked #1 in Chicago for transactions with over $2 billion in sales and 7,500+ closed transactions; a division of Americorp Real Estate

Where: Chicago, Illinois

Website: www.mattlaricy.com