Ep. 12: Living in Albany Park feat. Chris Clepp!
Meet Chris Clepp, a long-time financial planner and resident of the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago! We discuss Chris's journey and experiences in various Chicago neighborhoods, focusing on Albany Park's affordability, walkability, and vibrant community. The episode delves into Chris's work-life balance, his approach to financial planning, navigating the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system, and the unique aspects of Albany Park, highlighting its family-friendly atmosphere and diverse food scene.
The Living in Chicago Podcast is where I, Jake Lyons, get to interview all kinds of people about the Chicago neighborhoods they live in, work in, and play in. This way, you can learn about the lifestyle pros and cons of various neighborhoods directly from the people who live there (or maybe even learn something new about your own neighborhood!)
More From Chris Clepp:
amazon.com/More-Than-Money-Financial-Planning/
Follow/Watch Living In Chicago:
youtube.com/LivingInChicagoPodcast
instagram.com/livinginchicagopodcast/
facebook.com/livinginchicagopodcast
Want to be a guest on the show?
livinginchicago.com/guest-form
About The Host:
Real Estate in areas discussed:
thechicagohomesource.com/albany-park/
Real Estate Quick Start Questionnaire
https://www.thechicagohomesource.com/form/
Local Businesses Mentioned:
Kebobi Grill
Website: kabobigrill.com
Instagram: @kabobigrill
Noon O Kabab
Website: noonokabab.com
Insta: @noonokabab
Maman Zari
Website: www.mamanzari.com/menu
Insta: @mamanzarichicago
Kim's Home Cooking
Website: kims-home-cooking.business.site/
Khepri Cafe
Website: khepricafe.com/
Insta: @khepricafe
Khepri Cafe
Website: khepricafe.com/
Insta: @khepricafe
Somethin' Sweet Donuts
Website: somethinsweetdonuts.com/
Insta: @somethin_sweet_donuts
El Tezcal
Website: eltezcalauthenticrestaurantil.com/
Note: the following transcript was generated automatically and not checked closely for spelling, grammar, or accuracy
Jake Lyons: Hello, and welcome to Living in Chicago, the podcast where I get to interview real Chicagoans about the neighborhoods that they live, work, and play in. My name is Jake Lyons.
I am your host. And in this episode, I interview Chris Klepp, who is a longtime financial advisor and resident of the Albany Park neighborhood. If you're not familiar with Albany Park, that's okay.
A lot of you might not be. It's not one of the more talked about neighborhoods, but in this episode, we are going to explore the reasons why that should change because Albany Park has a lot of things going for it, very cool, very eclectic neighborhood. And it is located, it's on the north side, kind of northwest side, not, you know, all the way out by the airport, but kind of somewhere in between the airport and the lake, I suppose. The boundaries, the kind of geographic boundaries of it are a little hard to pin down because a lot of it borders along the river, which is cool in its own right because that means there are lots of really nice, like riverfront parks and trails and things that you can find pretty much all throughout like the outskirts of the neighborhood. But then from north to south, it starts at Montrose Avenue and goes up north to Foster Avenue for parts of it and to the east it borders the river, like I said, and then to the west it more or less borders Elston Avenue.
And that's, that's, that's all I'm going to go into for now. I'm going to go ahead and let the interview speak for itself in terms of what all there is to do and things to like or maybe not like about the neighborhood. And let's go ahead and get right to the interview with Chris Klepp.
So that he can tell you what it's like to live in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago. All right, I am very pleased to have Christopher Klepp on the show. Christopher is the owner of Building Towards Wealth and is a longtime financial planner who is passionate about working with business owners who benefit from having an objective partner in their financial lives, which we'll definitely get into a little bit more in detail a little later. He's a husband, a father of three, including two little ones that take up a lot of his free time. And to the topic of this specific show is a resident of the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago. Chris, how are you?
Chris Clepp: I'm doing great. I really appreciate you having me today as a guest on your show, Jake. Absolutely.
Jake Lyons: Thank you for coming on and trusting this despite the fact that we've only met each other once. I appreciate the trust in seeing that. So yeah, hey, so you are in Albany Park. So let's just go ahead and start there. Are you from the Chicago area to begin with or what's been your journey to here?
Chris Clepp: Yeah, I'm born and raised in Chicago. I grew up on the northwest side right by Harlem and Irving Plaza. So my dad was a police officer. So like many of my fellow grade school classmates, we all live just a little bit inside of the city limits.
And so that was pretty common back in the day. I stayed there until I went through high school. I've moved away twice from the city of Chicago. I went to I lived in Houston when I went to college. I moved back and then I moved back to Dallas for a few years in the in the 2000s. But I have lived on the northwest side. I've lived in a couple different places in Logan Square in Humboldt Park in Avondale. And and now what is assumably my my forever home with my young children in in Albany Park is where we decided to to settle on in Chicago. And I have come to realize that I am I'm Chicago through and through and I'm not I'm not going anywhere.
Jake Lyons: Nice. Love it. Yeah, that is interesting about, you know, you mentioned a lot of police and firefighters and people like that do tend to stay along the the outermost edges of the city.
I know like Edison Park and some, you know, places like that tend to have a lot. What what do you think it is about that? Why do you think that is?
Chris Clepp: Well, so I think a lot of it comes with the cost of living. You know, the I know where you know, living downtown or, you know, even, you know, in in Logan Square or Humboldt Park does not come come inexpensively. And so they tend to, you know, so they tend to move towards the outer rims of the city, which makes it a little bit more affordable for them to stay within the city limits.
I know that was, you know, a concern when we were growing up was finding an affordable place to live, you know, within the city. And then because I think obviously, policemen and firemen tend to tend to have other policeman environment as friends so that wherever they end up, they sort of start congregating in in higher and higher concentrations. I mean, I know I have two nephews on the force and they live they live just in, you know, in one lives up in in Norwood Park. One lives up on the, you know, not far from where from where I lived. It's it's been a long time on our tradition for the Chicago City workers to live along the the outer edge.
Jake Lyons: Mm hmm. Because of course, they have to live in within city city limits as that's kind of a stipulation of their of their positions, right? That is correct. Yeah. What was so you spent some time in Texas, you said Houston and in Dallas?
Yeah. So, you know, this, I guess I was a while ago at this point, I know Dallas especially is very different. And even now than it was, you know, what five, 10 years ago, I mean, that places is the growth there has been insane. But what what was your experience like in those places as compared to, you know, the Midwest, Chicago area where you spent majority of your life?
Chris Clepp: Yeah. So Houston was my college years. So I definitely had a really good time, maybe sometimes too good of a time, I think in my college years in Houston. I met a lot of really, really great people that are that are still my still friends today that have quite often quite often moved across the country and and we still stay in contact. So you know, so you mentioned I have two little ones, I have a three year old and a five year old at home, I also have a 26 year old that coincided with the with the college years, right? And so then I moved back to Dallas to be closer to her.
I also opened up an office of an insurance brokerage that I was a partner in at the time. That was the reason for me moving back to Dallas. And there is a lot of things that go into into Dallas, but not my not my favorite city in the country by any any stretch of the imagination. I think that that was one of those things that ain't anywhere that you're at.
There's obviously some warps to it. You know, I always joke that, you know, in Chicago and Houston, pretty similar in Chicago, you don't want to go out go outside in January, February, March. That happens to be July, August and September in Houston is just for polar opposite reasons, right? We have car starters on our cars up here to warm up our car in the winter.
They do it to turn on the air conditioning in the, you know, in the summer. You know, so no matter what you can always find something that that you don't like about it, but you have to find the things that are most important to you. And, you know, in Dallas, you know, Dallas is it doesn't really have I don't think a lot of time to do. There's not really a lot of great nature out there. And not that you know, the Midwest is is nationally known for its, you know, its beauty. But we have, you know, an amazing lakefront to go to right downtown. You know, Dallas was up and coming in the food scene. Like I'm a big, you know, I love going out to eat. I love one of the things that I love most about Chicago is the quality of the dining around here and Dallas can't hold, you know, can't hold a candle to it at all. So I, you know, I've been around, you know, I've been to most of major cities around this around this country, spent spent a little bit of time obviously vacationing a little bit different than living. But my wife and I, you know, we made a very conscious decision, you know, in 2021, when we bought our house in Albany Park, you know, it was in the middle of the pandemic.
My practice had gone virtual. My wife can work just about anywhere in the country that there's some, you know, some medical research. You know, we thought about moving to Knoxville and Ann Arbor and, you know, Salt Lake City and Denver and all, you know, we could have moved anywhere that we wanted to. And we decided that we wanted to stay in Chicago because we loved everything that Chicago had and the people that we know and all that all that Chicago has to offer, we specifically decided to move to stay here as opposed to anywhere else in the country that that we could have gone to. Well said, agreed.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, and I mean, even, you know, to cling on to the point about the nature and not, you know, not having a whole lot to do is true. I mean, you know, obviously, you know, Chicago is no like Denver or Northern California or anything like that. Seattle, you know, there's going to be more stuff to do outside in those places, obviously. But, you know, yeah, you mentioned the lake front and then even, you know, don't sleep on some of these, some of these forest reserves and things like that that we have around here. I mean, if you're willing to, you know, go out anywhere from 45 minutes to, you know, two hours tops from the city, there are some really beautiful, you know, parks and forest preserves full on, you know, waterfalls and, you know, you really don't feel like you're in the Midwest anymore when you go to these. You might as well be in California for some of these places. So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, I mean, listen, as someone that appreciates the fact that if I want to, I can jump on my bike and ride from my house pretty much unobstructed all the way up to the Botanic Gardens along the riverfront trails and through the forest preserves, it's absolutely amazing. And having lived in Dallas and spent some time in Houston, those are not very walkable cities. I am someone who enjoys walking. I try to get some of my physical fitness in by walking lots of places, you know, and Chicago is an amazingly walkable city. And it's one of the reasons why we did decide to stay here, you know, on a permanent basis is because we love being able just to get out and walk to the, you know, the little corner bakery and the little corner grocery store and pick up what it is that we need and have all these great, particularly for Albany Park, all these mom and pop restaurants right around the corner.
Absolutely phenomenal cuisine from just about any ethnicity that you could think of. And then also the Chicago Park District does an amazing job. There are probably a dozen parks that are within for us, you know, a walk, which is, you know, within a couple miles and some larger parks like Horn, you know, a Horner Park, Independence Park, some smaller parks along the way that our kids love the playgrounds. I could tell you, which has the best, I can give you the swing set review for just about every single park in the area. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: What's the, is the grading system for swing sets? Is it just the degree of WD-40 that it needs on any given day?
Chris Clepp: Is that? Well, for my son, it's the right blend of, you know, of being fun without being too scary for him, although he's now at that point where nothing's too scary.
And my three-year-old daughter, she's always been a daredevil. So I guess our grading scale will be changing as we move along. But yeah, absolutely. It's a lot about how bright the colors are, I think, for him and how great the slides are.
Jake Lyons: I bet you're thrilled at the development of their double ways.
Chris Clepp: Oh, listen, I, you know, my wife and I are two sides of the coin in that I love my children to be daring and my wife is definitely of a more cautious nature. But I think it provides a good balance for us to have kids that are adventurous without being reckless. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: And you know, you're a financial planner, so you probably have good insurance. It's fine.
Chris Clepp: We have great insurance. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: Very good. Yeah. So we can let's, let's have her here around the Albany Park topic then. So of all the places that you have lived in the city and could live in the city, which is the whole city, really? Why Albany Park? Why'd you choose that?
Chris Clepp: Yeah. So, so that's a great question. I mean, obviously, I think, you know, Albany Park is, you know, is, is afford is very affordable in comparison to a lot of the other neighborhoods in Chicago, you know, to get what we want, you know, and to be reasonable in our expenditure, not just what we could afford, but what made sense and what was the value for us. It was important for us, you know, being close to public transportation is important.
We're right here at the end of the brown line, which makes it, which makes it really easy. Again, I love, you know, I don't, I'm not a big fan of the areas of Chicago that have, you know, West Loop certainly has its place, but it's not something I would want to want to live in. I like sort of the, you know, the real city feel like, you know, I was in Logan Square and I got a little too developed and I moved to Hummel Park and that started getting more developed, right? And so like I'm always moving sort of to the next neighborhood along the way.
Avondale now is becoming more and more and more built up. I love the real feel of Chicago. I love the feel of being able to go, you know, walk in, you know, walk down the street into the bakery and get the best conchas in the city and then be able to go.
You know, two blocks and get some of the best foe in the city and, you know, in the best Persian food and so on and so forth. So I love really the diversity and everything that it has to offer. And so it's a very, very walkable neighborhood. I can get pretty much everything that I need without needing a car, which is, you know, which I, you know, which I really, really enjoy and the neighbors around here are absolutely, you know, are absolutely fantastic. So it really just added up to everything that we, everything that we wanted in, you know, in a place to raise our children. Mm hmm.
Jake Lyons: Very good. You've lived here, you said in 21. So going on three years now.
Chris Clepp: Yeah. So yeah. So we moved it. We moved into our place in October of 2021. And so we were in Avondale for a few years before that. And so we own, we own a apartment building in Avondale. And so I, you know, once our daughter got up and mobile, you know, I felt really bad for our downstairs neighbors. Having to hear not one but two children get up and start running around, you know, and, you know, and we own the building. So it's not like they really could complain too much. But obviously we wanted to be mindful that and we just needed some more space for, for them to be able to grow up and we were able to find a great place with a, with a, with a nice roomy yard and we ended up on, for us, what was the perfect block we've gotten to meet a lot of our neighbors, a lot of, a lot of children on the, on the street and it's been fantastic. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: So in the, in the couple of years that you've been here, what are some of those sort of hidden gym restaurants and shops and things like that that you've really taken a liking to?
Chris Clepp: Yeah, I would have to say, you know, first and foremost, kebab e grill on Kedzi is absolutely my, my number one go to easily the place that we order take out from the most in the area. But that whole, that whole strip of food, whether it is noon kebab, which is, you know, a classic in the neighborhood, Mamunzari, which is now, you know, the elevated tasting menu Persian right there and tepli, which is Turkish, just north of there, all very, very good.
And the other one is the food, anti Kim's, which is over there as well, which is Korean food, moving a little bit further down, down Lawrence, El Zangrito, which is a phenomenal Mexican. So I guess that's starting to get almost over into to Lincoln Squarish is, you know, is always really, really good. We love Keppri Cafe to stop in for coffee. We love our something sweet donuts for the kids that absolutely is their, you know, is their favorite place to, to get into and get their sprinkled donuts. And that's just, you know, that's just a few of the places El Tezcal, which is for our Berea, all sorts of great places in the neighborhood for sure.
Jake Lyons: Time for the real estate stats corner presented by me, Jake Lyons, real estate advisor here in the Chicago area with app properties and my website, the Chicago home source.com. All information provided here is courtesy of info sparks and rentometer. In this section, I am going to provide you with three statistics that I believe at least give you a general sense of what real estate prices are looking like in the Albany Park neighborhood as of January or 2024, which is the most recent data that I have as of the time that I am recording this. I do this because, well, a, I'm a real estate agent, a little bit biased, but also what really is a neighborhood without real estate, right?
So I think that these things are super relevant to any discussion about any neighborhood for all kinds of different reasons. So the three statistics that I'm going to be thrown out there are the median sales prices for a two bed condo for a house of at least three bedrooms and then the rental median price monthly rental median price for a two bedroom apartment all in the Albany Park neighborhood. So the first stat, two bed condos in Albany Park as of January 2024, the median sales price on that we can go ahead and just round that up a couple hundred bucks here and to say $225,000. That's the median sales price for a two bed condo in Albany Park. And again, that's median sales price of 50% for more 50% for less. That is just the price that occurred right in the middle of all the prices for all the condos that were sold over the last year basically is how this stat goes. And if you are more interested in a house in Albany Park, the median sales price on that is $530,000.
And if you are more interested in renting a two bedroom apartment in the Albany Park neighborhood, the median monthly sales rental price on that is coming out to $1625. So there you have it. That is there's obviously way more to it than just the median sales price. There's all kinds of different variables of play here. But we can get on the weeds on that another time if you are interested.
But if you want to see more of what all is on the market right now in the Albany Park neighborhood or really anywhere in Chicago, you can go to the Chicago home source.com and you can find that in the show notes. Wow, you were really ready for that question.
Chris Clepp: Liz, I think a lot about food. Let's be honest. I think. Yeah, that's great.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, man, I'm so bad at remembering the names of restaurants. I'm always kind of like, oh yeah, that's the place that served this kind of food there on that corner. But as soon as I leave, it was just like another place that serves food.
I don't know. I need to get better at remembering names like that because that was yeah, that was great. What about just so that was that was on the food, the food levels or any kind of like little eclectic shops or anything, anything like that. I know like Lawrence Avenue has a ton of little things like that.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, so I mean, we, you know, for us, it's it tends, it tends to be a lot more about the grocery stores around here for us. You know, Chicago produce, Lindo, Mihaquan are our two sort of two sort of staples that that we that we do. I do, you know, fair. I do all the shopping and cooking for for food in the house. So my wife, you know, one of the things that works out really well is my wife doesn't like to cook and I love to cook.
It's a good it's a good division of the of the responsibilities. And to your point right about about remembering restaurants names my wife remembers none of these places. She could not tell you any of these things but I am sort of relied upon a lot amongst my friends to give recommendations for for restaurants or little places to stop in so I think that has cemented some of these names into my memory a little bit more than the normal because I have to give them out on a regular basis to people for places to stop in that.
Jake Lyons: That makes sense. Repetition helps. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'd like to talk a little bit about I'm always interested in exploring the when somebody makes a conscious decision to raise their children in the city because I you know I think such the sort of average or common, you know, route is living the city for a little bit get married have kids go to the suburbs for XYZ reason you know insert whatever the reason is here it's going to be different for for all of them but what what goes into into that choice for you to kind of kind of shun that that common, you know, route and say no I'm going to raise my kids right here in Albany Park in the city and they're going to be raised this way.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, and listen I I I understand people's decision making process and in going through that and every and every person needs to make the decision that they feel is best for themselves and and their children especially and and that was the decision process that we made. There is no doubt that there are some issues with Chicago public schools and and the system in which you get into those schools. One of the things that I find, you know, to generally be true is that the people that that complain about CPS the loudest though are the people that don't have children in CPS and then even people that are in CPS they may say, Well, XYZ school is not good but then but their children are not at XYZ school they're at ABC school right and and we found that in talking with people that are at these individual schools.
They often they often like the school that that they're at. In addition to that, you know, the the lottery system and the the you know the Magnus schools and things like that are are certainly something that is something to an obstacle to overcome if you're going to keep your children in the Chicago land area I you know there's a company that that I was introduced to college Chicago GP. And so what they did they do is they do some seminars and helping people understand actually how that how that system works. There's a tier system that's based on socioeconomic indicators and so there's four tiers within the city. There's some apportionment for to each of these schools based off off of that particularly when you get to the selective enrollment schools.
And so I came to the belief that if you have enough, you know time energy and resources you're going to be able to navigate that system. In addition, I am someone who was who did go to a Catholic school my entire you know my entire life right I went to St. Priscilla's on the Northwest side I ended up going to high school in Oak Park and Fenwick. So I believe you know that the Chicago Catholic school system still has a, you know, robust education system here, you know, in Chicago not maybe what it was in the 80s and 90s when I was going to it but that is also a backup for people that are able to afford private school if that if that's the you know the fallback and and quite honestly when we made that decision, we felt that we would be able to get our children into you know into a school that we felt comfortable with, and that if we weren't then we would just send them to say a St. Benedict's or something like that which is not, you know, not far from from the area so we're fortunate in the fact that our son was able to get into Edison, which is is located here in Albany Park, I get to walk my son to school every day. Five blocks to school it's my best it's my favorite 2025 minutes of the day is that that little walk with him to school is just me and him talking about talking about the day. And, you know, Mike, there is obviously a concern that we have right now because Mayor Johnson and his, you know, head of CPS is talking about getting rid of the best high schools in the city like Peyton and Jones and you know these are crown jewels of the education system not only for the city of Chicago the state of Illinois and are some of the highest rate of high schools in the country and they're talking about getting rid of these.
That is an entire soapbox that I could get on to, but my hope is that they will not mess up the good parts of the Chicago public school system and be able to elevate the other levels I think that there's a lot of people that do have good intentions that are that are involved in here and I think that the that CPS is is generally overlooked there obviously are some some problems with the system but I think that you can get to that and I'm also a firm believer that in in all of these scenarios the involvement of the parents is going to be the number one overriding factor on success or failure. We are my wife and I are fortunate to be in a position where, you know, we're able to spend a lot of time with our children that we both generally work from home. My wife works in home three days a week.
I'm my own boss and running my own practice. So we're able to have a lot of flexibility to deal with any of the bumps that that come along the road not everybody is, you know, is as fortunate to that so we spent a lot of time, you know, with our children and and so far, our experience admittedly relatively limited which is about four months now of the Chicago public school system has has been absolutely fantastic. Good to hear. Okay.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, that's that is interesting about wanting to take to get rid of those schools. I have so many follow up questions on that, but I'll just Google it later. Because yeah, but yeah, interesting. So the magnet, the magnet programs and the lottery and all that might some reason my understanding was that that's that more comes into play when you get to high school age is that is that those are a thing on the elementary level.
Chris Clepp: Absolutely. So, you know, so I was I was a little surprised to when when I learned that my then four year old son would be going in to take a test to figure out whether or not he would get into any of the gifted and talented programs here in Chicago. I don't know what that test even looks like they give you some general ideas but so but there's that there is, you know, so you know, we you essentially get to apply to you have a you have a neighborhood school that you automatically get into right so ours is, you know, ours is Hogan. There are 20 there are you can put 20 other schools on your list. And you may get into one you may get into 20 other schools and then you decide which one it is that that you eventually want to go to. So we, you know, so we were, we got into Edison which is a gifted and talented program. We were fortunate in, you know, in that aspect, we got into two other two other schools that were also highly rated that we would have been very happy to send send our, our son to would have been a little bit more of a commute to get to it but we would have been fine with, with any of those choices but it is a it is a nerve wracking procedure and understanding the acceptance rates and the tier you know in the tiering system and in all of these different components. Again, can be very daunting and I could understand why it will cause a lot of stress I mean quite honestly it caused my wife, a ton of stress, me a little bit less so because I was fairly confident on the statistical probability of getting into one of the schools that we really liked. Anyone, it wasn't a probability to get into any one school but getting the probability of getting into one of the schools that we liked was was was pretty high.
Jake Lyons: You ran your Monte Carlo scenarios and it came out came out looking good.
Chris Clepp: Did a strong risk assessment. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: Yeah. Well, it's good. I'm glad your son was able to add an elite level identify, you know, apples as red and bananas as yellow and I mean whatever that test could have looked like as a four year old.
Chris Clepp: Johnny had five red apples and Lisa had three three yellow bananas how many pieces of fruit did they have, I guess. All right.
Jake Lyons: So yeah, thanks for thanks for going down that the road of schools and all that whenever I have a chance to explore that I always always like to because I always get good, you know, always get good responses from parents talking about the school system here rather good for good for better or worse.
I will get responses, you know. All right, so back to this Albany Park if someone were to visit Albany Park for just one day, what how what would be the perfect way to spend that day? I'm guessing there's going to be some food involved.
Chris Clepp: I mean, listen, I, you know, obviously I am an extremely food driven person. I, you know, I travel on my stomach. You know, when my wife and I, you know, we're dating. And even after we got married, you know, one of our favorite things to do is what we call a walk about, which is where we would we would get our exercise in by going to walk, you know, six, seven, eight miles, but we might stop off at four or five, six places along the way and you walk another mile and you stop for a drink and you walk another mile and you get another a bite here or a snack there.
So, you know, so I think the, you know, some of the places that, you know, you know, I'd already mentioned were, you know, were fantastic stopoffs for you for people, you know, you get to get the donut at at something sweet the latte at, you know, at Capri Cafe. Maybe you go wander off to the to the riverfront trail, you know, go walk a little further north. You know, so there's always where I catch myself right because like I always think of, you know, of Albany Park, you know, probably expanding beyond what the actual technical limits of it. I like I if you ask me where where Albany Park stops and starting I probably couldn't tell you, you know, 100%.
You know, if you consider River Park that goes up north, I don't know if that's technically still in, you know, in Albany Park or East Albany Park. But I think that that's a fantastic, a fantastic little trail to stroll upon is, you know, as you as you walk around, you know, as you walk, walk up north and be able to get a get a feeling and you get that interesting little feel of being out of the city but you really, you know, but you're really back, you know, but you're back into, you know, but you're back into the city. You know, pretty quickly, I think you can't, you can't go wrong whether you're whether you're taking your tour, you know, down Lawrence or, you know, or down Kedzie are, you know, are a few of my, you know, a few of my favorite, you know, all the restaurants that are there. For me, I love Frank's Barbershop. If you need a little haircut, so you can get a little, a little touch up, you know, during, you know, as, as you walk around, you know, so just so many, so many great places. It's hard for me to think of what, because, because for me, like, I guess if you have kids, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of stop stopping off into the parks that, you know, we end up over at Ravenswood Manor or Horner Park, which are a little bit outside the outside the Albany Park. You know, limits, but we definitely walk, walk through those areas and great playgrounds for the kids at either of those and the, you know, the playground at Hogan also is really, really great for you for your kids to play with so a lot of a lot of what, a lot of what I end up doing right as, you know, is either it tends to be walking with kids to playground so so I think that that probably shades my experience around here, around those, around those areas. Nice.
Jake Lyons: Is there anything that has surprised you so far about Albany Park or maybe, maybe a misconception that people have about Albany Park?
Chris Clepp: Um, so one of the things I think I was surprised a little bit about is, you know, and this, you know, and this tends to be about our block, you know, in particular, is just the number of families with young children over in this area, which I think is absolutely fantastic.
You know, I grew up, you know, at a time where we were, you know, where we would be running and running around outside with the neighborhood kids at all hours and play pick up, you know, play ball at the local baseball diamond. And for for us here, you know, we've had we have a couple block parties a year we have our, you know, our blocks, our block sale every year, you know, there's really a great sense of community, particularly in our area that I think is, you know, is absolutely fantastic. It's very, very friendly, very, very welcoming, very, very walkable for everything that it is that you want. I think a lot of people don't really know a lot about Albany Park quite honestly until, you know, when when I when I mentioned Albany Park, a lot of times, even to people that live in the city, like, Oh, where is that again? And so you can tell Lawrence and Kimball and they have a general idea, I guess, about where, you know, about where that is, but they're not always super sure where on the map actually Albany Park is. You know, so this very much I think having lived in Logan Square and seeing while there still are some mom and pop shops in Logan Square, a lot of that stuff is sort of has sort of died out. And I think that what people may remember, you know, Logan Park, Logan Square being, you know, 1015 years ago, you is much, much more prevalent, you know, in this sort of area in around Albany Park and Ravenswood Manor and things like that. I think that's what you're what you really, what you really get now up here.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, I find if you just say, you know, the end of the brown line, the Kimball stop people can at least kind of place that a little bit because they've at least, you know, looked at a map of the CTA a few times if they are familiar with Chicago at all so they can kind of, you know, make that connection that way.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, maybe the biggest surprise for me right is how pleasant the brown line is to ride into the city. It may be a little bit slower. Yeah, blue line getting in the city, but because it is above ground the entire time you can see so much of the city and it's so interesting. It's such a such a great way like I've, I've almost entirely given up driving into the city because I can take the brown line in and switch off to the red at Belmont if I need to get a little bit further into the city and configure it out pretty well from there.
Jake Lyons: Oh yeah, now the brown line is the Cadillac of the train lines for sure. I would agree with that. Or is that an outdated reference now I guess Cadillacs are still cool but with that what would the thing be now more is the bends the the Audi of that whatever you would say.
Chris Clepp: I'm going to go with Cadillac. I'm with you. I'm of that generation with the Cadillac where everything was Cadillac it was top end. Yeah, there you go.
Jake Lyons: And of that generation you know what that's actually going to be a great a great segue into talking about your business. I do have one one question that can also tie into that so how has either Albany Park but you know you haven't you've only been been in Albany Park a year and a half or two but you know just Chicago in general or Albany Park if you can tie that in. And how has how have those areas influenced your your your business and creative endeavors.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, so I think for me, you know, obviously I think you know, being in Chicago the vibrancy of Chicago, less so in January and February but but more so in the spring and summer right. You know, obviously the city is so full of energy. And, you know, and I really feed off that type but you know, I'm very much someone who needs to feel that to, you know, to sort of energize myself. I think that does tie directly into my business right so you know what I do is I run a wealth management practice for Gen X and Gen Y business owners and Henry's right which are high earner not rich yet, because I love the energy of, you know, of entrepreneurs and people that are that are out there trying to trying to do good in life and to better and be builders in life and those people that are running around with their hair on fire all the time, like I am and that's you know and so it all feeds into that I love the city that has the energy that that that you can feel you know, you know, April may come around in Chicago and the and you can almost feel like the energy is just ready to explode in the city as it warms up and and I think you know entrepreneurs business owners, you know, high earners generally are walking around like that. Most of the time right they have this energy that this that's always keeps them propelling forward and those are the type of type of people that I that I like working with right and and we really focus on comprehensive financial planning. We help our clients understand that their most valuable asset is their time. And how can they get back more of that while still knowing that they're going to be financially secure and that's what we're really going to help our clients with is that you know they all want they all want to have you know more time, less stress and pay less than taxes. We're going to help them with all three of those things.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, you know, time, literally the most valuable resource in the known universe. So it's definitely definitely important to get as much of that as you can and the businesses building towards wealth is that the name of the business and that is your the URL which by the way as somebody who has spent a lot of time on go daddy researching various domain names for different projects and businesses myself building towards wealth calm. Remo love it.
Chris Clepp: That was a good find. I'm not going to lie that I was pretty I was pretty stoked when when I came when I came across that one. You know because we're building for builders. Right.
And so what are the things to always pay attention. I have nothing to definitively back this up but but more than a few, you know, anecdotes about people talking about how with go daddy if you go search a name, you better be ready to buy it if you find the right one, because a lot of times there is like there there it seems that if you are ready if you're not ready to buy it at I don't know what $10 or whatever it is and you go back a day later. Amazingly now it costs $100. And so, so I own I own a few different URLs for different things that like if it comes across my mind that I might want to do it I just go buy another URL. But yeah, the building towards wealth is the is is the name of my company.
It embodies everything that we do. We don't you know we're not working with retirees. We're working with people that are building towards their wealth. A lot of our client you know our clients are our entrepreneurs that just want to try and figure out you know how one day maybe they're going to be able to get out of their business what what do they actually need to have to be able to recreate their income. How they're going to figure out what their next chapter is going to be a lot of a lot of business owners don't actually want to retire they just want the autonomy to know that they can walk away when they when they want to and that's what we're really focusing on on them to do and then also helping them, you know really be that that partner for them because a business owner has a lot of people a lot of professionals are dealing with their life they have their accountant and they have their business attorney and their state planning attorney they have their commercial real estate agent. You know if they're trying to exit they may have have an investment banker and a business broker and all these people right and they all speak a slightly different different dialect of business language. So myself as a business owner and a financial planner I can sort of help those business owners, make sure that all these different professionals are pushing in the same direction, because most business owners have never had their, their business attorney and their state planning attorney or their accountant, have any sort of communication between them. And it's required on the you know it's expected that the business owner is going to sort of push all these people in the same direction but the business owner oftentimes does not know what direction it is that they're supposed to be pushing them in. And that's a lot where we can step in and help them make sure that everybody is is is rowing in the same direction pulling in the same direction on that rope to so that the business owner, or you know can get whatever it is that they want out of life right and we have clients that are working on trying to, you know be done working, you know, by 50 and we have people that are trying to create multi generational wealth to pass off, you know, to family members down the road and everything in between and, and so we want to again, what the biggest thing for us, Gen X Gen right so that's like that 35 to 57 year old business owner or if you're a Henry right like which is higher internet rich yet which is, you know your doctors or your attorneys, your tech, you know, your tech, those are the people that their time is best spent doing something else. That's the highest and best use of their time and let me do, let me do all these stuff that they don't want to want to think about that will move the needle but doesn't really elevate them to be excited I mean listen, not everybody gets excited about not tax planning as I do.
Jake Lyons: Very few I would say yeah. Yeah, so that's a good that's a good value so basically you're saying that you can you can come in and be sort of the translator for all of these different dialects that are going on in the business owners world and almost sort of become like the sun that all these different other entities and professionals and attorneys and planners and agents and whatnot can kind of orbit around from the perspective of your of your client and is that is that kind of is that a decent way to put it or.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, I mean listen, this I mean the you know a business owner has their business plus all other personal pieces to the puzzle. And there's a big difference between having a pile of puzzle pieces and having a puzzle that fits together right and and so what we want to do is we want to make sure that that puzzle, all those puzzle pieces fit, you know, fit together for for that for that client because you know your your account may be doing what's really makes sense for them in their mind and your and your benefits broker may be really doing what makes sense for them in their mind. But if they're not if there's not a communication between the two of them there can often be negative ramifications for for the for the business owner. Mm hmm.
Jake Lyons: So, so why the decision to mainly focus on gen X and and the you know kind of baby boomer generation and why do you hate millennials and Gen Z.
Chris Clepp: Well, so no so Jen why so Jen so Jen X and Jen right way so Jen why technically is millennials right. I don't know. So older than Jen X is is the boomers right. Yeah. And so, you know, so at least in part of it is because I need to make sure that whoever I deal with can use DocuSign and zoom properly. But no, so quite honestly, I you know so the someone who is you know who is 70 either they've made it or they haven't made it right there's you know there's some cool tax planning stuff that we could do for them, but we're I don't feel like I'm making a huge impact in the overall quality of their life in the same way that I think that I can make an impact for someone who is who is in their 40s or early 50s who may have 1020 30 years of working life still ahead of them. There's a lot that we can do and you know and so you know it's one of those things where you know if if you're you know a mile away and you turn one degree, you're not changing the changing the direction that much.
If you're 100 miles away and you change one degree you can have a huge you know you can have a huge effect on them just by making some small changes for them and that's and that's what elevates me and quite honestly, you know I'm a 48 year old business owner with three kids two of them small. I'm just solving for my problems the same the same over and over and I'll be on like, you know, if you ask me about social security strategy as it stands today for someone taking it today. Like, I'm, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that because my clients don't do that. By the same token someone who deals a lot with retirees isn't really thinking about proper risk management and in some of the some of the important choices that a 40 year old should do.
So if they're if that person's client base is mainly older people, I don't think that they can really connect with the needs and desires for, you know, for someone who's my age and vice versa.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I just this whole time leading up to this interview I just thought it'd be fun to ask you that question that way. But yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's just not your core competency and you know, yeah, you're gonna you're naturally going to serve the clients that are the most similar to you. I mean, that's why, you know, in my in my business, I do a lot of first time home buyers and people that are looking to get, you know, small multifamily buildings and things like that because I'm in my early to mid 30s and those are the kind of people that I'm, you know, around all the time. And I said, yeah, it makes perfect sense.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, I mean, listen, you you you can you can identify this you can identify with that right and and you know with the people the people that want to buy that are thinking about or wanting to buy, you know, small multifamily units as speaking as an as an owner of one right it's you know you got to make sure that they're the right type of people and have the right type of mindset to do it. Yep. Yep. 100%.
Jake Lyons: What is what will be the best way I have kind of one one more roundup question on the Albany Park stuff but you know before we even do that what would be the best way for somebody to get a hold of you if this if somebody's out there listening and you know says hey that's for me I need that.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, the I mean the best way right so is is going towards going to my website building towards wealth.com it's building towards wealth.com on there you could see, you know, blogs that I have written, you know, I write all the blogs that are on there they go back for four years there's if you want to have a conversation with me you can go right there. You can also find find the building towards wealth YouTube channel.
You can also find me at Chris Clep on LinkedIn that's last name is Chris last name is Clep C L E P P on LinkedIn you can always reach out to me there. And I think you know the important thing is that anybody who's out there that that needs some help right you know so there's a lot of times where we talk with people that are like well I'm not sure I really need a financial advisor. Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they don't sometimes they just need, you know, sort of an ABC plan like hey these are the 33 or four things that everybody should be doing and we'll point in towards resources that will help them do that so that they can get to the point where they actually do have enough complexity that they would benefit from having a real a real financial advisor. All right.
Jake Lyons: Very good thanks for that. And last question I have for you on on the Chicago and Albany Park stuff is just a bottom line here. Why should somebody want to live in Chicago to begin with and if they go that far why should they want to live in Albany Park.
Chris Clepp: Yeah, so I think that Chicago certainly gets a bad rap and Chicago, like any other city is not a perfect city. But if you enjoy a diverse city that is very walkable is very has a great park system has a great library system always has something to do with the city.
And I think that's a good thing to do for for you as an adult for if you're a parent if you want, you know always want something to do for your children there is there is an endless array of things to happen here. I think that the crime largely gets overblown. Certainly it is the you know it's it's worse in certain neighborhoods than others. But you know as someone who has lived the majority of their life here. I've never really had, never really had problems not in the same way that you know people that I've known that in Denver or Houston or New Orleans or Abilene or any other place really has as have right. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I think that there's a lot to a lot to love about it if if you value those things.
You know for someone that wants to drive everywhere and doesn't want to know your neighbors and things like that and then maybe the the suburbs or someplace else is you know is better for you. So Chicago is Chicago certainly has some some interesting weather as we're about to find out this week, you know with 10 inches of snow but I'm someone who even when it's 10 inches of snow. I have my snowblower I snowblow both sides of my block. It's one of my favorite things. It's what it's one of the ways I made friends with my neighbors I guess because that was something that happened at my old place in Avondale is we had someone who pulled out their big snowblower did both sides of the block so when we moved to this new house I bought the big snowblower so I could do both sides of the block.
I like I don't let that bother me. And so I think you know Chicago just again just has has everything that you would want and it's certainly more affordable than you know then then New York or California and having spent a fair amount of time in Denver over the last couple years and having some clients out there. It's less expensive to live here than Denver these days. It's a little little insane some of these these housing markets that are out there. So Chicago is not perfect but it's just it's you know it's better to me than than all the other places that that exist out there. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: Yeah it's a good point about the about how every time there's a really big snow. I actually really I mean you know I I hate it and love it in other ways I mostly hate it I guess but it's cool that it can it can really bring out sort of like the best and best of humanity in us a little bit because there's I mean pretty much every time I see I've been on the receiving end and the giving end of you know strangers helping each other get out of jams you know the place I lived in before we parked in an alley that never got plowed or anything and or salted or anything so pretty much every time there was a snow it was like. All right yeah let me get the shovel let me help this guy or they'll help me or you know do the try to do the trick where you find some like piece of cardboard and put it under the tire to try to get traction and it never works but you always you at least feel like you you know tried to help and yeah it's just kind of a cool thing to see but then on the other hand you know people calling dibs and putting chairs out on this on the street and all that kind of stuff to save their spot so I mean I guess you have a little bit of that too but.
Chris Clepp: Yeah I think I think the human I mean I think that Chicago like there still is that warm midwestern spirit. I mean we were talking about down like that was one of the things I know it's about Dallas Dallas you know most of the most people wouldn't didn't seem very willing to land at Linda helping hand you know I get that feeling when you know and in southern California to a lot I think Chicago you get a lot of you know just a lot of humanity out of out of the people there so.
Jake Lyons: Yeah I didn't know it was supposed to snow 10 inches though I haven't put it in the weather.
Chris Clepp: That's what they're saying Friday so we'll see it see it see if that happens.
Jake Lyons: Part of the deal as you know that's January in a nutshell though we earn our summers that's why the summers in Chicago are so great because once it comes around is this everybody's so happy that it's not winter anymore you know you're not going to get that in a place that's the same all year round but.
Chris Clepp: Well listen talk to anybody in southern Southern California I mean listen if it's 68 and rainy they go they go to pieces right because it's just it's just horrible for them you know in by by their estimation that. That that it that it should even dane to rain on them and they sort of take it take it for granted so when you when you have a little bit of the not so great weather you appreciate the great weather a little bit more. Exactly. Exactly.
Jake Lyons: Well hey Chris that's all I have for you we did it. Fantastic. Yeah anything.
Chris Clepp: I appreciate you having me having me on the show this was this was fantastic I figured I guess we figured out what to talk about for the last hour.
Jake Lyons: I guess so seems didn't seem too hard at all. Yeah anything before I you know hit the stop the record on this any other any other things you want to highlight or promote or anything like that.
Chris Clepp: Yeah so the last thing that I would say right is that so we I was I got to be part of the an absolutely fantastic book. So we wrote I'm one of 28 authors in this book called more than money. So it talks about what the real life stories of financial planning are in all of the proceeds are being donated to financial education and to and to promote equity and inclusion in the the financial planning world because.
We do end up tend to be a lot of crusty old white guys in in my profession. So so that was what we donated that money to we're currently in the process of writing more than money to. So that'll be out but that probably won't be out till it's 2025 because it is crazy how long the the publishing process is. But if you if you want to go to Amazon and get more than money and find out a little bit more about about what real financial planning can can make an impact in people's lives that would be fantastic.
Jake Lyons: That's amazing. Congratulations for being on that and I'll have I'll have a link to that in the show notes. You say is this on Amazon. Yeah it's on Amazon. OK I'll have your website and Amazon a link to the book and the show notes. Fantastic. All right. Chris thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. If you've made it this far and you're still listening you are truly one of the real ones and I just wanted to take a second to say thank you so much really appreciate you giving this podcast a shot.
I hope that you are getting a lot out of it. And if that is the case please give this podcast a like a follow some stars five if you can a thumbs up whatever it is on whatever platform that you're consuming this that will tell that platform that you like this that you want more of it and that you think others should like this as well. And hey if you want to be a guest on this show there's a link in the show notes that will take you to a guest form that you can fill out and we can get the ball rolling from there. So if you live in Chicago and you have some interesting things to say about it and especially if you have any kind of entrepreneurial or business or creative endeavor that you would like to promote that's not necessary but it is encouraged. Then let's talk let's chat and I would love to have you on the show and let's learn about your neighborhood and teach others about it as well. So I just want to say thank you again and if you wanted to follow us on some other platforms we are also on YouTube or on Instagram or on Tiktok we're going to be on whatever else you can be on I don't know can you be on LinkedIn we'll figure that out for I ramble too much just want to say thank you again and that's all thanks bye.
