Welcome To The Real Finds Blog: Commercial Real Estate Insights for Chicago and the Midwest
Welcome to The Real Finds Blog, your daily briefing on commercial real estate trends across Chicagoland and the Midwest. Published by Gordon Lamphere, a fourth-generation commercial real estate broker at Van Vlissingen & Co., this blog delivers sharp, actionable insights for CRE professionals navigating a changing market. Every article connects macro trends—interest rates, automation, supply chains, policy shifts—to local real estate strategy across high-demand submarkets, including:
- Downtown Chicago – office space, adaptive reuse, capital markets
- Elk Grove & O’Hare – industrial leasing, logistics infrastructure
- Kenosha & SE Wisconsin – warehouse development and distribution hubs
- Oak Brook & Schaumburg – suburban office leasing and reinvestment
- Naperville & the I-88 Corridor – flex space, R&D, life sciences
- Bolingbrook & the I-55 Corridor – fulfillment centers and industrial site selection
- Lake, DuPage, Will, Kane, and McHenry Counties – land use, entitlements, development opportunities, and tenant migration
From daily blog posts to in-depth strategy guides and transcribed podcast interviews, Real Finds turns global uncertainty into hyper-local market intelligence for investors, landlords, tenants, developers, and brokers New posts are published every weekday.
How Regional Brokers Beat The National Flags With Kurt & Stewart Jensen – RFP 99
Kansas City vs. Chicago: How Two Midwest Industrial Markets Compare in 2026 The Midwest industrial market is often discussed as...
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Key Criteria for Your Industrial Space Search
https://youtu.be/bWNjcjX5BnISelecting the right industrial space is a critical decision that directly impacts the efficiency, productivity, and growth of your business....
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Valuing Chicago Data Centers and Adjacent Properties
Data Centers vs. Moore's Law: How Should Chicago Area Investors Value Data Center and Adjacent Properties Until roughly 2022, a...
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Five Generations, Five Submarkets: How to Pick Chicago Office Space in 2026
Solving for Five Generations in the Workforce: What It Means for Chicagoland Office Demand Workforce demographics rarely make the lease...
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Why Every Chicagoland CRE Investor Should Know What FIMBY Means
FIMBY: Why The "Family In My Backyard" Movement Should Be On Every CRE Investor's Radar For over a century, American...
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Brownfields to Billions: The Hidden CRE Opportunity With Sam Haydock – RFP 98
Brownfields to Billions: Unlocking CRE's Most Overlooked Opportunity Drive through almost any older industrial corridor in the Midwest and you...
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Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion With Josh Bandoch – RFP 97
The Persuasion Framework Every Commercial Real Estate Professional Needs Most commercial real estate professionals spend enormous energy on market knowledge,...
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Chicago Industrial Space Manufacturing multifamily Office Space Quantum & Data Centers Real Estate Real Finds Podcast Retail Warehouse
State Of The Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate Market 2026 – Q2 – RFP 96
State Of The Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate Market The Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate market stopped waiting. Here is what that...
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The Return Of Main Street? Commercial Real Estate In A Car Light Society
The Return Of Main Street? Commercial Real Estate In A Car Light Society For seventy years, American commercial real estate...
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The Battery Real Estate Play & Return Of Main Street With Aaron Shavel – RFP 95
The Battery Real Estate Play & Return Of Main Street With Aaron Shavel - RFP 95 Aaron Shavel is a...
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The Density or Growth: Building a $400M Small Bay Industrial Portfolio With Frank Forte – RFP 94
Building a $400M Small Bay Industrial Portfolio With Frank Forte Frank Forte did not take the conventional path into commercial...
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Local Advertising Tactics for Industrial Property Sales and Leasing
Effective local advertising can significantly enhance the visibility of your industrial property and attract potential buyers or tenants. By leveraging...
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Redefining Productivity: Smarter Metrics for the Return-to-Office Era
Return-To-Office And Measuring Productivity Work has undergone a transformation over the past few years that few could have predicted. Remote...
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The Smart Investor’s Guide to Small-Batch Strategy in Industrial Real Estate
Introduction Industrial real estate continues to be one of the strongest-performing commercial asset classes, driven by the rapid growth of...
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Crafting the Perfect Industrial Listing Description
https://youtu.be/leJCEcvBvAw Why the Listing Description Is Your First Negotiation In industrial real estate, deals are made long before a tour...
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Creating a Seamless Move-In Plan for Your New Office
Why a Move-In Plan Matters? https://youtu.be/zyQGzGZYmN4 Relocating a business to a new office is one of the more operationally complex...
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This MIT Startup Is Rewriting The Rules Of Commercial Real Estate With Honghao Deng – RFP 93
Most commercial real estate decisions about office space are built on occupancy data that is, at best, incomplete. Badge swipe...
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Creating Competition: How to Leverage Other Industrial Spaces
Leveraging Industrial Spaces As A Tenant https://youtu.be/9Ayt6Z616yI Why Lease Negotiation Is a Market Competition Problem Industrial tenants routinely leave significant...
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