From the start, Laricy had a good eye for opportunity. “I focused on the downtown markets in Chicago,” he recalls. “I wanted to win. I knew it was a tough market, but I had a will and a way and a positive attitude and we went from there.” Laricy also began with a clear vision of the kind of business he wanted to run, a vision that remains intact to this day, in his role as CEO of the Laricy Division of Americorp Ltd.
“First and foremost, we are very business orientated, with great systems in place,” Laricy explains. “A lot of realtors say they ‘love the flexibility’ of the sector, but if you love your job there is no flexibility. Your hours are whatever your clients’ hours are.”
A Business-like Business
Laricy insists on running Americorp Ltd like a business, with systems in place to make sure clients’ needs are taken care of, and that they are informed of developments quickly and efficiently. As Laricy says, all clients care about is that the things they ask for get done and that they are kept informed.
“A lot of people don’t think that,” Laricy laments. “They will put things off when things are busy, but that can ruin your customer experience.”
Laricy has also driven Americorp Ltd to create and innovate on a technological basis.
“We are always trying to reinvent ourselves. In 2020 we had the best year of all time, and we rebranded our company completely, not because there was anything wrong with our existing branding, but because we knew we could do better,” Laricy says. “We had to let go of the marketing staff because we wanted to get away from that status quo. We want to be at the forefront of the industry, even as a small boutique company. We are trying to strive forward and be the best.”
Of course, you don’t get to be the best without encountering a few challenges along the way.
“Lately our biggest challenge has been that we live in a big city,” Laricy explains. “Most markets in the US have been at a record high, but we have been on the opposite track in downtown Chicago. It is affected by crime and people are not yet going back to their offices. We have struggled to convince people that cities will exist again in the way they did before, with people going back to work and eating out and attending concerts. That has been frustrating over the last few years.”
Despite these huge shifts in the market, however, Laricy is optimistic about the future, believing simple human nature will take us back to the status quo.
“I am a history buff. Since the dawn of humanity humans have gotten together with other humans,” Laricy says. “That’s why things have been crazy these last few years, and as the world reopens we are seeing people return to eating at restaurants, going to concerts again, and so on. Things are going back to normal, back to our DNA. We are creatures of habit.”
Laricy believes we have already seen the beginning of that. He points out that office rates are hovering at around 50% of their pre-pandemic price, but believes that circumstances are about to change.
“As our recession comes to fruition, employers will soon be back in a position of power, forcing people back to the office,” Laricy observes. “The more people come back to work, the more demand for office space there will be.”
He jokes, “For me the worse the economy gets the better!”
The data backs up Laricy’s thinking. As his competitors’ inventories are rising, Laricy is seeing his own shrink.
Punching Above Their Weight
But while Americorp Ltd has developed a robustly professional attitude to the market, supported by the latest technology, it is still an underdog, a boutique company in a market ruled by giant corporate brokers.
”You’re always going against big brokers with more money and more recognition. You need to make waves without the resources they have,” Laricy says. “But the internet has levelled things.”
The market has certainly moved on a long way since Laricy first entered the sector back in the noughties.
“When I first got into the business most people were on flip phones, with a few iPhones or Blackberries,” he recalls. “It used to be that the only way to get listings was from someone’s office, with an open house to see if it was listed. So big brokers had access to those listings and a huge advantage. But the internet has levelled everyone’s competition.”
Where the large brokers have a lot of red tape to get a property to market, Americorp Ltd is free to come up with ideas and implement them on the fly on nothing more than Laricy’s say-so.
“It takes seconds rather than weeks. If someone has a new idea at one of those larger brokers, they might have to go through four layers of approval to do it, but I own the company,” Laricy says. “If an idea looks cool, I can give it a try and if it sucks it’s no big deal.”
That approach means Laricy is very careful about just who he brings into the company. It is made up of a smaller group of people, mostly recruited through word of mouth, people he grew up with, or people he met in college.
“I’m pretty picky,” Laricy says. “There is no shortage of people reaching out to be hired. I try to make the right hires. The problem most companies get is they rush into things, ruining what they had in the first place. We can stay successful and draw in talent because it is easy to maintain staff who want to work hard.”
Regarding Americorp Ltd’s plans for the future, Laricy’s plans are refreshingly straightforward.
“I want to take over the world,” he says. “That’s our goal, world domination!”
Laricy’s plan for world conquest is to continue to be the best company it can be in its existing sectors. In 2022 the company finished the year with the largest number of transactions in Chicago, and it will continue to dominate that market.
“Who knows what the future will hold?” Laricy asks. “We may go into other cities, but for now we are content to be the face of Chicago.”
