Long before flipping houses became a national pastime and nearly half a century before HGTV convinced a large portion of the country that real estate made for entertaining television, Bess Poulos was bitten by the real estate bug.
In the years following World War II, with a nationwide housing boom in full force and a family that included three young children, Bess and her husband Jimmy, set out to find a new home for their growing family. At the time, Melrose Park was known as Winston Park, and the newly built model homes there bore names such as the Ashley, Beverly and Canterbury.
Bess remembers that time fondly. “We were living in a four-flat in Oak Park, and we never thought we could afford new construction, but we went to look at a model one Sunday after church. The houses all had pink appliances and fancy tiles. We couldn’t believe what we could get if we spent a little more money. Before I knew what happened, we decided to buy a home, and my sister and brother in-law bought next door. My husband convinced his parents to look at one, and they bought the house right across the street from us.”
As the years passed, two more children joined the Poulos clan and the family business hit hard times. Bess set out to find a job.
“I started out in payroll because the employment agency told me that it paid more than any other job I could do. By the time I moved on in 1967, I was the highest paid woman in payroll at the construction company at $300 a week.”
But Bess wanted to be out among the people and working in sales.
“I was always interested in sales and the people side of the business, so in 1967 I went to work for DeMoon Real Estate.”
This was before the days of the multiple listing service (MLS), so Bess created her own in the form of a two-ring binder.
“I’d see an ad in the Tribune and staple it into my notebook and then take notes about the house description, names, reason moving,” she recalls. “I’d draw my own surveys of the property and technical details. There was no market analysis then. I had to remember everything.”
While she was learning the ropes and climbing the ladder at DeMoon, Bess was one of the first students to take real estate classes at Triton College, eventually earning her broker’s license in 1969.
“It was all these men taking the test, and I was the only female, but I was already having success,” she says. “My first year, I sold 52 houses. One day, I walked into my class at Triton, and the instructor could just tell that I was walking on air, so he asked me to share my news with the class before we got started. I had sold three houses that day, so it was a pretty good day for me.”
As Bess worked for DeMoon, she enlisted her family to help her business by any means necessary.
“I had to pay for my own ads in those days. I didn’t have enough money at the time to mail my flyers, so we went door to door. That’s where my kids came in. They helped me pass out flyers. One time, I had a listing near a Greek Orthodox Church, so I wrote a flyer out in Greek and had my kids put one on the windshield of all the cars in the church parking lot.”
When Oak Park banned for sale signs, Bess got creative. She used her car as a moving advertisement.
“I had an all cash buyer approach me because of the car, and that night at a card game at our neighbor’s house, they told me the couple across the street had been transferred. I was at that couple’s house at 8 a.m. the next morning to present an offer, and they hadn’t even told their own kids about the transfer yet. They were surprised, but we worked out a deal.”
There’s a humorous saying about Bess Poulos that still floats around the local real estate scene. “Don’t let Bess into your house, or she’ll sell it.”
“I knew what was going on in the neighborhood, and I think that helped,” she says of her success in the business. “Also, I didn’t use any sneaky tactics like some brokers might have. I was fair with clients and other agents, and they were fair with me.”
As Bess moved on, establishing her own real estate agency, Bess Poulos Agency on North Avenue in River Forest in 1975, she continued to make a name for herself.
Few women opened their own real estate agencies in the 1970s, and fewer did so with Poulos’ flair for style. She’s always been well-known for her fashionable hats.
“When I started, I had pitch-black hair. As the grey started coming, I had to wear wigs because I didn’t have time for my beauty appointments. The wigs were too hot, so I switched to hats. The hats were so easy, and I always looked completely dressed with a hat. People treat you differently when you wear a hat. Gentlemen hold the door open for you.”
Soon, the more sales Bess would make, the more the hats would pile up.
“At first, when I had a closing, the commission money always went right to the bank for the family. Then, I decided that every time I sold a home, I’d buy myself a hat,” she explains. “By this time, we’d moved to a home in River Forest. When we sold that house many years later, I donated over 200 hats, but I still love to wear hats.”
Over the years, Bess, now in her 80s, has continued to sell homes, earning industry awards and the thanks of countless pleased customers. She’s weathered tragedies, including her own diagnosis and treatment for ovarian cancer and the death of her beloved younger son, Lou. She remains an active agent, working with her son Tom at Prudential Premier Properties, which was formed through a merger of Bess Poulos Realty and another firm in 1998.
“My enthusiasm, my love of people has kept me in it,” she says. “I am now in the realm of so many people, with so many stories, and it has kept me going.”