Suzannah Martin does not consider herself a real estate salesperson, but rather a client advocate. She is honest to a fault with her thoughts and clients *really* appreciate her advice. During her years in real estate, she has learned a tremendous amount about common inspection and appraisal issues and has built a team of resources to protect her buyer and seller clients from the resolvable problems, leading to safer homes and worry-free clients.
Real estate appeals to many of Suzannah’s obsessions, which are exploring houses and neighborhoods, investigating architecture, running data, understanding building and renovation details, negotiating, and problem solving, while fostering her naturally cynical/questioning personality. This is always helpful when eyeing a property or a neighborhood and looking for clues to the "real story" behind a sale or offering.
Suzannah moved to Chicago in 1987 from Vermont, and after graduating with a BA from the University of Chicago in 1992, she co-founded a wildly successful computer consulting company in Chicago. Bootstrapping a business from one person to 50 employees within a year while being a CFO and mom to her two daughters was an exciting challenge and forced Suzannah to juggle many balls at all times. Through running her business she learned flexibility, out-of-the-box thinking, strategic negotiation, contract development and presentation, and how to provide top-notch customer service with humor and grace, which now serves her well in her real estate business.
Suzannah’s move from a larger broker to Dream Town was due to its reputation of being a tight-knit family of productive agents, a home where quality trumps quantity, and where dialogue is encouraged-- not for the benefit of the broker or the agency, but for the primary benefit of the client. Dream Town provides her with a non-corporate environment that is closer to the culture of a small business (such as her own, back in the day) and less of the behemoth others have become.
After 11 years in the city her family made a move to northwest Evanston, drawn by large yards, diversity of architecture, and a progressive political climate, where they could enjoy the beautiful lakefront while still being close to all the city attractions. Suzannah specializes in Evanston and North Shore but is also very familiar with most neighborhoods from Lincoln Park on north.
She spends most of her free time rehabbing her house and has become a pro at drywall repair. She also loves to travel and has been all over the world—mostly on her collection of frequent flyer points and miles. She has two beautiful children and three step-children whom she adores. Her tastes are eclectic: She prefers non-fiction historical novels to fiction, independent music to radio, weird foreign movies to popular ones, and any book/theater/band that her friends and family are in to anything else on the planet.