A conversation between Gordon Lamphere, J.D. of Van Vlissingen and Co. and Josh Bandoch, persuasion expert, TEDx speaker, policy advocate, and author of “How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion.” Transcript edited for clarity.
Josh Bandoch: Talking about ourselves generates the same feelings in our brain as sex and money. The human brain is wired to feel first, then reason. So instead of asking somebody what they think about a property, it’s actually not the best question. Ask them instead, how do you feel about this property, or how do you feel about this deal? In each and every personal and professional encounter, we’re faced with a choice: do I want to be right, or do I want to make a difference?
Gordon Lamphere: Hi, I’m Gordon Lamphere, and welcome to the Real Finds Podcast, where we have real conversations with key entrepreneurs, operators, and thinkers shaping the built world. Today’s episode features Josh Bandoch, persuasion expert, TEDx speaker, policy advocate, and author of “How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion.” Over the past decade, he’s developed an applied neuroscience-based persuasion framework across high-stakes policy environments, designed to influence how complex ideas are communicated and adopted. In the commercial real estate world, where outcomes depend on aligning landlords, tenants, and capital, persuasive storytelling isn’t a soft skill, it’s a core competency. That’s exactly why this conversation is worth your time. Josh, thank you so much for hopping on today.
Josh Bandoch: It’s a pleasure to be back, Gordon. Thank you so much.
Gordon Lamphere: Before we dive into your book, what got you into the world of real estate, policy, and persuasion?
Josh Bandoch: Persuasion is the difference between having a good idea and having other people embrace that good idea, whether in your professional life or your personal life. What got me interested in all three of those things was seeing so many people who had great ideas, whether a policy idea or something they were selling, a property or customer service, whatever. They had these good ideas, and they weren’t able to communicate them effectively or get enough people on board to support them. And you think, well, what’s going on, because the idea seems so good? It’s how they talk about these things. So often it’s not the what. There’s usually something good in the what of what we’re saying. It’s how we communicate it. That’s what persuasion is; there’s an art and a science to it. That’s what I talk about in my book. If you can take that good what and layer the how on top of it, whether you’re selling properties or selling an idea, you’re going to get way further.
Gordon Lamphere: In terms of persuasion, is persuasion manipulation? What is persuasion, ultimately? We often see conversations in the real estate world that are sometimes coercive, sometimes a little manipulative. What actually is persuasion when it comes down to it?
Josh Bandoch: Persuasion is something we do every single day throughout every interaction, at least I think that’s the goal. To understand what it really is, it helps to understand what it’s not. There are two really common misconceptions, which will tie back to your question about manipulation. The first is that people think persuasion is about winning. And Gordon, if I win against you, what does that make you? A loser. Think about the real estate business: if you’re an agent and you make everyone you interact with feel like a loser, are they going to send any business your way? If you make your clients feel like a loser, are they ever going to come back? If you get that reputation of being difficult, being a jerk, no one wants to work with you. That’s not good for long-term business. The second misconception is that persuasion is about convincing someone to think just like us. The trouble is that the Latin root of the word convince actually means to vanquish or to conquer, and conquest is barbaric. It’s not persuasive. And by the way, there’s only one person who thinks just like you, that’s you. I don’t even agree with everything I did yesterday. If I can’t agree with myself all the time, how can I agree with anybody else all the time?
If we can step out of those two traps, we can understand what persuasion actually is. Persuasion is shared action. It’s shared because it’s something we voluntarily do with others, and it’s action because it’s about getting things done; you actually want to accomplish something. That’s different than manipulation. All these strategies and tools in the book can be used for good or for bad. Think Star Wars, light side or dark side. Do you want to be Yoda or Luke Skywalker, or Darth Vader or the Emperor? Think about a knife; it can prepare a beautiful meal or do great harm. The difference is the intentions. If you go in intending to share action with somebody and get good outcomes for you and for them, that’s persuasion. If you use this stuff to manipulate people, that’s bad news. It’s bad news for the missionary reason, it’s wrong and we all know it, and for the mercenary reason that in the long run people find out, and it comes back to bite you. When people find out you’ve manipulated them, if you have a deal with them, they want to walk that deal back, drag their feet, and you don’t get deals with that person again. They tell other people, and then other people don’t want to work with you either. So don’t manipulate.
Gordon Lamphere: How do we get into the persuader’s mindset? I see it in this business all the time. The most successful landlords and agents always give their negotiating counterpart the classic Sun Tzu golden bridge. They give them something, sometimes a small win, sometimes a big one. Based on your leverage, that changes. We’re dealing with a deal right now that we’re going to walk away from, where the landlord didn’t give anything and basically told us to pound sand. Although it was a great asset, if you’re on a five or ten-year lease, you don’t want a relationship with that person. So how do we get into a mindset where we can get things done without being a conqueror or a pushover?
Josh Bandoch: What I call the persuader’s mindset is the best way to have repeated, durable deals, time after time, whether with an individual or in general. It’s the key to unlocking persuasive success. Let me start with a story. A couple of summers ago I had an intern, a smart kid, truly nice, goes to a good school. John was his name. John thought the best way to showcase how smart and talented he was was to talk. Talk a lot, talk first, wave his hand, hey, call on me, I’m John, I’m smart, I’ve got these great ideas. This even meant John thought it was appropriate to interrupt other people. He even liked to interrupt me. After a couple of weeks I said, do you like being interrupted? And he said no. So I had to do my Yoda thing with John and help him understand this wasn’t effective. What John did makes sense, because we’re wired to think and talk about ourselves. It’s a survival mechanism, and it feels good; talking about ourselves generates the same feelings in our brain as sex and money. So we adopt what I call a me-first mindset. The problem is it’s not persuasive.
John went on a nice journey throughout the summer. Once he understood that, he started to flip his perspective, put the team first, figure out what we needed, and perform better. It was funny, one time John came in and said, guess what happened last night? I said, what’s that? He said, I was talking to my girlfriend, she had a problem with her internship and started telling me about it, and I just started talking, and she got really annoyed and said, why can’t you just listen? And the light bulb went off. So he listened, reconnected with her, started asking questions to understand what she was going through, and eventually pointed toward a potential resolution. At the end of the summer, John was outperforming all the other interns, because he understood what we needed, put that first, and delivered. Then we said, hey, want to stay on? We’ll give you a promotion. So the key to persuasion starts with putting them first, putting your audience first, understanding them, connecting with them, demonstrating understanding of them.
Why do you do this? Two reasons. The missionary reason is that it’s the right thing to do; you want to authentically connect with other people. The mercenary reason, which is what you started to point us toward, is that when you’re listening to somebody and connecting with them and understanding their needs, they’re going to give you this bundle of needs, and there’s going to be overlap with what you want. You’re looking for that overlap, and that overlap is where it’s right to make not just one deal but deal after deal. If you listen and look hard, you’re going to find way more overlap. When people tell you what they want, and they’re checking off things you want too, you can let them feel like they’ve won. You say, all right, I’ve got seven things, you have to give me at least three of them, when you’d actually give them five. So you say, I can give you five, but then I need this thing too. You’ve gotten way more than if you’d just gone in aggressive, I want this, and if you don’t give it to me I’ll walk.
Gordon Lamphere: These are very effective mindsets, but how do I diagnose what the other side actually wants? People can tell you a lot of things. Is it just pure listening, or how do we get that?
Josh Bandoch: It starts with listening, which is hard, because just like John, we’re wired to talk first. People think that when you talk, you’re in control, let me tell you all the great things I have to say. But the listener is usually actually in control, because that person, particularly when you’re talking about real estate and deals, if you let your counterpart talk, they spew out so much valuable information, and it helps them feel connected to you. So it starts with listening; you’re looking for that overlap, figuring out where you two can work together, and it tends to be a much larger space than you’d think. But it doesn’t end with listening. Then you’re trying to understand the psychology of persuasion, how our brains work, and how you can use that to get what you want. That’s the second part of the book, the key things you have to understand about our wiring and how you navigate that wiring to move your counterpart toward actually sharing action once you know where the opportunities are.
Gordon Lamphere: Once you know where the opportunities are, people can open up, but often in these conversations people get really defensive. I would lose track counting in a week all the calls I have where people are incredibly defensive in the first ninety seconds, even on a cold call. Sometimes it’s a warm call, where they’ve reached out, and they’re still not sure if they trust me or want to work with me. Are there ways to reduce that defensiveness, particularly in high-stakes conversations? Real estate conversations are often the biggest transactions of people’s lives. How do we turn the Great Wall of China into at least a fence?
Josh Bandoch: Let’s dive into three super effective techniques, then zoom out and discuss why they work. When you’re trying to make a deal, we usually focus on, how do I get them to sign the deal? What I’ve learned in my decade researching and practicing persuasion is that it’s far more important to understand what is stopping somebody from doing something, to identify the barriers to them acting, because otherwise they’d already be doing it. So this is one of the most important things for your audience: every time you interact with somebody, ask what would stop you from X. What would stop you from signing this deal? What would stop you from working with me? What would stop you from partnering with us? When you ask that, people give you a quick, intuitive, honest answer, and it triggers a totally different way of thinking and responding. They could say any number of things. They could say, it really is just a matter of financing, rates are a little high right now, or I’m a little overleveraged. Or, I just don’t know about this property. Or, I’m choosing between three properties; this one’s great, it’s just that two more are also really appealing. If I think it’s a financing issue and it’s actually that they’re not sold on the property, those are totally different things. So just ask what would stop them, and they’ll tell you, and then you address it with emotional intelligence. That’s the first thing: identify barriers by asking people what those barriers are.
The second thing is to understand how the other side is feeling. Real estate seems like it’s a numbers game, right? Does it pencil out? And it is, at some level. But the human brain, before we are logic processors, and this is a tough pill for folks who work with numbers to swallow, who like research like I do, the human brain is wired to feel first, then reason. That’s what all the neuroscience says. Sometimes it’s feel, then reason; sometimes it’s feel, and we never get to reasoning. That means persuasion actually starts with feelings, so you have to understand how the other side is feeling. The logic-first approach, come on, this is a great deal, a great property, doesn’t work because we feel first. So here’s a stealthy technique: instead of asking what somebody thinks about a property, ask how they feel about it. Try it a couple of times, with friends, family, your spouse. It’s a magical question, because it unlocks the quick, intuitive answer. If they say, my God, this is amazing, I love this and this about it, cool, really positive. Whereas if they say, the property’s fine, I just don’t know if it’s worth it, that tells you where the problem is. When you ask what they think, they have to stop and go, hmm, what do I think, I’ll get back to you. The feeling question gets the quick answer, and in those feelings there is gold.
The third thing, and this goes back to your question about the ninety seconds of defensiveness: anticipate the potential negative responses you’re going to get, and then, the scary part, don’t pretend they aren’t there. You don’t address an elephant in the room by ignoring it. So if you’re cold calling somebody, instead of, hi, my name’s Gordon, can I get a couple of minutes of your time, and they’re thinking, what do you want, you call out their emotions. You know what they’re thinking: this is a cold call, you’re a random person, you want something. So say, hi, I’m sorry, I’m a complete stranger, and I’m calling because I want something from you, and I know that sounds totally crazy. Or, is it totally crazy to ask you for thirty seconds of my time? Fill in what they’re thinking and call it out, because it’s there, and that negative response is a barrier. Instead of leaving it there so they just say no, I’m good, and hang up, call it out and address it right away, then give them your thirty-second pitch. When you’re in a deal and you know there’s something negative, you have to call it out, because otherwise that negative emotion stays there as a barrier. It’s like a landmine; you can defuse it, or leave it there and probably step on it at some point.
Gordon Lamphere: One of the big landmines we tackle in this business, and do our best to defuse, and nine times out of ten we can, is municipal and community issues, particularly on the development side but also on the tenant occupancy side, where sometimes there’s a use that’s not directly compliant with zoning. When you’re talking with municipal decision-makers and communities, it’s not always individuals, sometimes it’s groups. How do we tackle that using the rules of persuasion?
Josh Bandoch: Emotional intelligence has to drive all of it, because we feel first. So what are a couple of things you can do to grease the wheels of shared action? This one’s going to seem silly: be likable. When you’re dealing with somebody in permitting or municipal work, anybody who has to approve anything, they have a choice. Do they prioritize you or not? Do they make it as difficult as possible or as easy as possible? As little as seven percent of how we experience somebody can be the words they say, so tone and body language are extremely important. Think about all those times you actually agreed with somebody on paper, but you didn’t like the way he was saying it, or you didn’t like that person, and you pulled back. So start by being likable. That doesn’t mean someone’s going to like you, but you have to be likable. A couple of weeks ago I had to call Verizon, a tiny issue, actually twice in three days. I had an ancient iPhone 13. I’m always super nice to these people, because they get beat up all day long, just like municipal bureaucrats do, everybody calling, I want this, where is it, where is it. So at the end of the call, super nice to the lady, she said, is there anything else I can do? I said, I don’t know, what do you got for me, you probably have some great deals. She checked and found a deal to let me upgrade from the ancient iPhone 13 to a brand new iPhone 17 at no charge. She didn’t have to do that; she chose to. Two days later I had to call again, another tiny thing, super nice to the lady, and at the end she said, does your wife want a new phone? My wife also had an ancient iPhone. I said, how much will it charge? She said, I’m going to waive that, let’s just get her a new phone. Imagine by contrast, if you’re unpleasant to that municipal bureaucrat, how difficult they can make your life. The inspector comes, you’re a jerk to him, he’s going to find everything; you’re super nice to him, he’s going to overlook things. It’s magical what being nice and likable will do. So start there, and truly understand them, back to the persuader’s mindset, what their concerns are, and address those concerns up front if you can.
Gordon Lamphere: It blows my mind sometimes how folks treat municipal staff. But sometimes you’re not just talking to staff or elected officials, you’re going before boards and communities. How do those scenarios play out in terms of zoning entitlement and redevelopment resistance and neighborhood opposition? How do you play that game with a crowd? It’s easy to be nice to an individual, but when you’ve got thirty angry folks at a village board meeting, it’s hard to go up to everyone and be the nice guy.
Josh Bandoch: Great question. I testify on a regular basis at different levels of government in my policy space. In addition to what we talked about, the biggest thing I’d add is, I said start with feelings, but what kinds of feelings? We all think negative feelings are persuasive, because that’s how we’re wired, and take a look around, we’re awash in negativity. But I’d ask you, who are some of the most persuasive Americans of the last hundred years?
Gordon Lamphere: In terms of people who really got things done, I’d say your JFKs, your Eisenhowers, folks willing to cross party lines, even folks like Tip O’Neill and Reagan together, they really got things done regardless of political party. Those would be the people I’d say are most persuasive.
Josh Bandoch: People always give the same intuitive answers. They say JFK, and what did JFK say? Ask not. They say Martin Luther King Jr., who had a dream. Ronald Reagan saw America as a shining city upon a hill. What do they all have in common? They were happy warriors. They generated positive feelings. How did they do that? They were for something. Nobody ever says Walter Mondale instead of JFK. People don’t say Barry Goldwater, because they didn’t do those things. So when you go and speak in front of a crowd, you have to be for something, to generate positive emotions, for two reasons. One, positivity is far more persuasive. JFK, Ronald Reagan, they were positive happy warriors, and that’s how people are motivated to work with you time and again. Imagine a leader of an organization who just goes around being negative all the time; it’s terrible. So you have to be for something. And that also diffuses negative feelings, because if you get up there as a negative jerk and say, you people are all wrong, look at the data, I can’t believe you oppose this, they dig their heels in and fight you even harder. If you get up there positive with a vision that resonates with them, the chances they oppose you decrease and the chances more people support you increase.
Take zoning debates. The really unhelpful way people frame this is YIMBY versus NIMBY. The YIMBYs say, you’re just a NIMBY. There’s a new acronym a guy who works in the space is trying to popularize, which I think is great: FIMBY, families in my backyard. What is he for? He’s for families. Why would we want to rezone this for multifamily housing? We want more families here. Why would we want to shrink lot size? We want more families here. Maybe some families only want, need, or can afford a townhouse, so pop a couple of townhouses instead of one single-family home. He’s for families. He doesn’t have to be against those people who don’t like these things. He’s for something. So when you’re going in front of a board, what are you for? Have that positive vision. When somebody gets up there and they’re so nice, so positive, so likable, it’s so much harder to oppose them and so much easier to work with them.
That FIMBY framing is exactly the reframe we broke down for Chicagoland investors in Why Every Chicagoland CRE Investor Should Know What FIMBY Means.
Gordon Lamphere: I think that’s a great way to restructure the debate. We go before all sorts of community boards, and I understand if you don’t want a toxic chemical plant next to your home. But if somebody wants to put in a granny flat, or turn an old abandoned lot into some sensible multifamily, that’s a very different conversation. I understand resistance, but resistance should be to the right things. When we’re talking about working with communities, the biggest thing is fear, and people always have fear of the unknown. How do you work with communities to reduce that fear? When we try to get things done, nine times out of ten that’s the block, some absolute boogeyman sitting on the other side of the fence. How do we show them that behind the curtain, maybe it’s not that scary?
Josh Bandoch: Great question. Fear is that barrier, that negative emotion. So you have to understand their concerns, take them seriously, and then address them, and the best way is to appeal to their values. Let’s say they’re afraid that allowing multifamily housing in their neighborhood is going to disrupt the character of the community. You mentioned granny flats; I’d love to see it much easier to build ADUs across the state. People will say, if you allow those structures, it’s going to disrupt the character of the community. So they say they care about the character of the community. What would I say? I’d say, the best way to maintain the character of our community, to make sure families can stay and grow here, to make sure we have housing that meets diverse needs, housing of all shapes and sizes, is to allow the construction of more ADUs. Because if you have a granny flat or an English basement, that actually maintains the physical character of the community much better. It allows somebody to live in that basement instead of moving thirty minutes away, where they’re not really part of the community anymore. So if we want to keep the community together and maintain its character, let’s make it easier for our friends and neighbors to stay here and have housing that meets their needs. I’m for that thing that addresses their needs. That’s a better way than saying, no, that’s wrong, that’s wrong. You’re essentially for something, which is indirectly saying you don’t agree, but in a way that’s not so disagreeable.
Gordon Lamphere: Sometimes things get really hot and heated in these meetings, or in a community even before the meeting. How do you know when to step back and slow things down? Sometimes you’re just not going to find a win-win. What are those moments, and what are some signs that trigger a more measured, slowed-down response?
Josh Bandoch: Part of persuasion is knowing when you cannot do a deal with somebody. Sometimes you just know it’s not possible. When you think maybe it’s possible, the question is, is now the right time to proceed? It could be somebody just doesn’t have the money or financing now, fine. It could be that negative emotions are overflowing and somebody’s in a bad spot, maybe not because of anything you did, just a bad day, something with friends or family or work. So you have to ask, is now the right time to engage? If somebody’s clearly not in the right state of mind, what you pointed to is one hundred percent right: pause, step back, disengage. This happens with friends and family too. You’re in a heated debate with your spouse, and it’s like, okay, hang on, this is not helpful, take a little break, we’ll reconvene later. Sometimes our impulse is, but I need this now. If it’s now or never, then it’s oftentimes never. If it’s now or in a little bit, that little bit gives time to breathe and calm down. So what can you do to help calm somebody down? Understand their negative feelings, about you, the deal, the situation, or just what they’re dealing with in life, and diffuse them. You do that by listening, because sometimes people just need to get it out, share their frustrations, and then it’s out there and they feel a little better. If that’s not enough, address those concerns and show them how what you want is going to be good for them, as they understand themselves, not as you understand it. This isn’t a you-hate-broccoli-but-kiddo-you’re-going-to-eat-broccoli thing. It’s, I get your concerns, they’re totally reasonable, let me validate those, and these are also some of your goals, and I think this might actually help you achieve some of them. How do you feel about that?
Gordon Lamphere: We have a lot of agents who listen to this podcast, and many are doing development like us, but some aren’t doing as large-scale projects. One thing they regularly engage in is landlord-tenant negotiations, on the landlord side, the tenant side, and sometimes both. How does this play into negotiation between professionals, and is there anything different?
Josh Bandoch: If you’re the landlord dealing with a problem tenant, trying to get them to do something or stop doing something, are they not paying their rent? You need to understand what’s going on. The easy thing would be to be frustrated and accusatory, and that’s probably not going to motivate your tenants to pay their rent in a timely manner. So understand what’s going on. Are they just disorganized? Are they strapped for cash? Are they intentionally being difficult? When you press them accusatorily, that’s not going to be helpful. Approach it with emotional intelligence. Say, hey, look, I’m going to seem like a really jerky landlord and you’re going to wish you’d never signed a lease with me, rent is due by the fifth of the month and yours usually comes in around the tenth, do you mind if I ask what’s going on? And then have them tell you. Sometimes they’ll give you an eminently reasonable answer: my God, I’m so sorry, I just forget to pay. And then you say, well, how do we make that better? They say, I’ll try to be better about it. You say, do you mind if I send you a reminder on the first and the second of the month? And they say, no, that’s fine, I’m really sorry. Whereas if they say, look, I’ve got some family stuff going on and it’s a real challenge, or, I was full-time but now I’m part-time and I don’t have the money, these are all different problems, and you have to figure out how to address each. But until you do that, you just think, tenant not paying, tenant not paying. Same with a tenant who’s loud or destructive. Understand it. If they’re loud at night and disrupting neighbors, why are they loud at night, and what can you do to reduce the chances they continue?
Gordon Lamphere: The real estate world is a long-term game. It’s not like I do one deal and ride off into the sunset. So beyond even the ethics of trying to be a moral person, which I try to be, though I’m not perfect, a huge portion of this business is your long-term reputation. So how do we go about getting what we want while maintaining our reputation so everybody doesn’t hate me in this business?
Josh Bandoch: The short answer is persuasion. Persuasion is not about doing a deal with somebody once; it’s about doing repeated deals with not just that person but lots of people, time after time. If you’re a real estate agent and you do one big deal and upset lots of people in the process, you’re costing yourself a lot of big deals later. So part of it is a mindset: in each and every personal and professional encounter, we’re faced with a choice, do I want to be right or do I want to make a difference? When you try to be right, you insist on proving your point, beating people over the head with your logic, sometimes being a little bit of a jerk. If you want to make a difference, making somebody eager to sign this deal, eager to tell people Gordon was awesome to work with, this is a great deal, you have to flip your perspective and ask, how would I feel on the receiving end of this treatment? Because if you’re thinking, yeah, I really got him, I haven’t told him about a couple of things but he’s going to sign, well, if someone did that to you, you’d probably find out, and you’d be upset, try to break the deal, drag your feet, tell everybody. Human beings have memories, and we’re gossipy creatures. If everybody knows that Bob is a real jerk, the community quickly knows, and no one wants to work with him. It’s a great property, but Bob’s got that one, no, I’ll look elsewhere. Especially in the Chicago area, you’ve got plenty of options. You don’t have to work with Bob; you’ll go work with John, because John’s a delight and Bob’s a jerk. So you’ve got to think long term, because that’s how you get what you want, time after time. It’s being great to work with, sharing action with people, and working with emotional intelligence.
Gordon Lamphere: If there’s one practical takeaway for somebody who listened today, what should it be in terms of persuasion and getting more out of negotiations?
Josh Bandoch: Start with feelings, because so much of what we talked about today flows from that: the persuader’s mindset, putting them first, identifying barriers by understanding when they feel good or bad about something. The barriers are the “I don’t know about that.” If you operate at that level, which also causes you to suspend judgment, you don’t have to judge everybody, you can just understand how they’re feeling and go from there. That’s a route to much more long-term success than judging and not liking what you think somebody thinks.
Gordon Lamphere: If there’s one thing our audience, or the industry in general, gets wrong about the world of persuasion, what do you think that is?
Josh Bandoch: A lot of people think sales is all about me telling you how great what I have is and why you need it. Lots of people approach sales from a me-first, salesman-first mindset. The problem is I don’t know if anything I’m telling you even resonates with you. So the key to sales success, whether you’re selling a property, a deal, or toothpaste, is to flip it. Sales success comes from putting them first. If I know Gordon wants something for this reason, I can appeal to that. But I might want it for a totally different reason, so if I’m appealing to my reasons, they may not resonate with you, or even worse, they might offend you. So instead, listen, understand. Gordon’s really interested in a long-term investment property, okay, cool, let me explain why it’s that. Versus, Gordon just wants to flip this, he’s only going to hold it three years, that’s a totally different goal. If I’m telling you this is a great property to flip and you want it for the long term, I’m not appealing to what you want. So flip it, put them first. Sales success comes from that.
Gordon Lamphere: Certainly great advice. If somebody wants to reach out for more, besides getting the book, which is great, what’s the best way to get in contact?
Josh Bandoch: Of course, buy the book, available at Amazon and anywhere you buy books. You can find me at joshbandoch.com, or on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with folks. Real estate is a space I’ve thought a lot about, so I’m excited to have more conversations about this. Those are the two best ways to find me.
Gordon Lamphere: Josh, thank you so much for hopping on today, and we have to have you on in the future. Thanks again to Josh. We appreciate his insights. If you enjoyed the podcast, please give us a like, a five-star rating, and a review. Your comments, interactions, and subscriptions truly matter and help us continue to get quality guests. You can find us on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I’m Gordon Lamphere with the Real Finds Podcast. Thank you for listening.
Van Vlissingen and Co. has been the Midwest’s oldest commercial real estate brokerage, development, and management firm since 1879, and today is independently ranked the #1 commercial real estate agency in Chicagoland, home to the #1 independently ranked agent, Gordon Lamphere, and the region’s #1 ranked commercial property management team. Whether you are negotiating a lease, navigating a zoning board, or positioning an asset across Lake County, the North Shore, the Northwest and O’Hare corridors, DuPage and the I-88 corridor, Will County, or southern Wisconsin’s Pleasant Prairie, Kenosha, and Racine markets, contact Van Vlissingen and Co. at 📞 847-634-2300 or 🌐 vvco.com. For a market-wide view of where these dynamics sit today, see our State of the Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate Market for Q2 2026.