WORLD
FAMOUS BEST-SELLING AUTHOR MARK B. WEISS IS TRULY A RENAISSANCE MAN.
Thousands have read his six published works both fiction and non-fiction and view Mark as an accomplished author and speaker.
Yet Mark may be best known in real estate and financial circles through the company he began in 1988, Mark B. Weiss Real Estate.
Mark B Weiss Real Estate has maintained a prominent role, and become well recognized nationally as a leader in the sale and management of commercial and investment property for financial institutions, private owners, corporations and trusts and as a developer of vintage property renovations throughout Chicago's neighborhoods.
A graduate of Von Steuben High School and DePaul University in Chicago.
Mr. Weiss is past President of the Lincoln Park Builder's Club.
Mr. Weiss is a member of the Northern Illinois Commercial Association of Realtors.
Mr. Weiss was a member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Association of Realtors and served as the Chairman of the Association's Commercial Committee chairing and moderating monthly programs and seminars for his contemporaries. Mark established the first commercial convention for the Association.
Mr. Weiss was asked to become a founding member of the City of Chicago's Permit Advisory Board under the direction of the Mayor's office and the Department of Buildings for the City of Chicago. Mr. Weiss is a member and past director of the Illinois CCIM Chapter, a member in perpetuity and past director of the Chicago Real Estate Council, a member of the National Association of Realtors, the Realtors National Marketing Institute, the Real Estate Investment Association, the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, the National Association of Auctioneers, and the City Club of Chicago.
In 1991, Mr. Weiss became a CCIM, a Certified Commercial Member of the Commercial Investment Real Estate Institute of the National Association of Realtors. CCIMs are experts in the disciplines of commercial and investment real estate. The CCIM designation is awarded to Real Estate Professionals who have completed graduate-level courses in financial analysis, commercial brokerage, market analysis, tax planning, managing and marketing troubled assets, decision analysis and negotiation, and fulfilled professional experience requirements and passed a national exam. Of the estimated 300,000 commercial real estate practitioners nationwide and in Canada, approximately 10,000 currently hold the CCIM designation.
Since renovating his first vintage residential 6-flat in 1992, Mr. Weiss has been awarded multiple "Good Neighbor Awards" from the Chicago Association of Realtors for excellence in vintage renovation of historical residential properties located in many of Chicago's neighborhoods.
Mr. Weiss is the author of six books: Landlording and Property Management, Real Estate Flipping, The Everything Homebuying Book, Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Developer, Condos, Co-ops, and Townhomes, and The I Can't Get Enough Club. Mark is currently writing three additional books for publication in 2011.
In his adult life Mark has never worked for others he began his business career when he was 19 years old in 1972 when he conceived the idea and then opened the Uncle Dan Army-Navy Stores in Chicago and began their international mail order catalog business. After selling the business in 1981 Mark began Egel-Weiss Ltd., a fashion boutique specializing in active workout wear and designer clothing for both men and women.
In 1984 while pursuing a doctoral program in clinical psychology and after becoming one of Illinois' first divorce mediators, Mark became interested in the dynamics of systems decision making and then changed his focus back to business and the brokering of commercial real estate transactions.
From 1991-1993 Mark studied at Second City in Chicago. After completing their training program Mark preformed at the Second City ETC Stage with his peers.
In 1997 Mr. Weiss helped organize NCB Holdings, the holding company of the New Century Bank which was chartered in 1998. Mr. Weiss was a member of the holding company board of directors and was instrumental in site location and hiring the initial staffing of New Century Bank. Mr. Weiss was a board member of Ontario Street Investments, a financial planning and investment firm, also part of NCB Holdings. Mr. Weiss along with others in the bank's leadership sold their ownership in NCB Holdings in 2006.
Beginning in 1989 Mr. Weiss has been appointed by numerous Chancery Judges as Receiver in Cook, Lake, Kane and Du Page Counties. He has frequently been retained as an expert witness in legal cases involving a variety of private, bankruptcy, and disputed real estate matters. His vast legal knowledge of the foreclosure process and municipal matters is often requested by judges, lenders and counsel.
Mr. Weiss actively sells property conventionally and is well versed in traditional sales as well as sealed bid and public call auctions. Mr. Weiss as a licensed auctioneer acts in the capacity of the auctioneer.
Mr. Weiss has taught at the Latin School of Chicago's Live and Learn program and at the Learning Annex from coast to coast. With a curiosity for seeing what the public school system offered the nation's children, Mark was a substitute teacher in the Chicago Public Schools in the early 1980's.
Because of his celebrity and expertise in the field of Real Estate, finance, and business, Mr. Weiss often appears on both radio and television programs as a real estate expert for interviews and panel discussions. Having been featured on CNN, FOX, CNBC, PBS, NBC, WGN, XM RADIO, KARE, WCIU as well as other media, Mark is a "Go To Guy" often quoted in Time Magazine, Money Magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, Jane Magazine, CBS Market Watch.Com, BankRate.com, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The St. Petersburg Times, The Detroit Free Press, The Florida Times Union, Woman's World, The Estates Gazette, UK, Realtor Publications as well as other newspapers and publications both national and international.
When reading his book Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Developer (published December 1, 2004), read page 20, where Mark simply predicts the reasons for the forthcoming recession of 2008-2012.
In 2004 Mark was honored by the State of Israel Bonds Real Estate Division as their first Real Estate Honoree. He is currently the Chairman of the Real Estate Division for State of Israel Bonds, and a member of the Board of Governors for State of Israel Bonds.
The Mark B Weiss Foundation is a charitable entity which reaches out to assist those in need.
In 2006, Mark became a founding board member of Arts at Large a non-for profit, dedicated to uniting emerging musicians and artists with diverse audiences in a wide array of unique settings. Mr. Weiss conceived and helped launch the children's music program "Mini-Musicians."
Mark is the Executive Director and Founder of the Chicago School of Hot Yoga and one of the design architects for the signature class of the school "Benyamin Yoga."
A world traveler and photographer, Mark often displays his work and speaks to groups who listen with great interest of his grasp and simple explanations and descriptions of the world's most interesting places, world history, politics and events.
Mark is a principal in the Benjamin Mandel Publishing Company, the current publisher of his work.
Grateful Dead and percussion