Val Napadov is living proof that the American dream is alive and well – very well, indeed. Consider that less than 15 years ago, he, his wife Irene and their son Gary had just arrived in the United States as refugees from the Ukraine. Val had a master’s degree in mathematics and Irene had a degree in accounting. Neither Val nor his wife Irene were fluent in English. Neither had a job…

“The first thing I had to do once I got here was learn the English language,” Val recalls. He promptly enrolled in an English as a Second Language (ESL) course at Truman College, in Chicago. Within months of his arrival in Chicago in 1989, Val was a student again – and in 1990 he was accepted into a three-month corporate training program in the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog operation…

In addition to his desire to own his own home, he was interested in real estate because he “knew computers and I knew that working in the business required good computer skills” and, almost as an afterthought, he mentions that “I enjoy working with people and helping them, and I believed I could be successful in a sales capacity…

Val’s attitude toward real estate sales hasn’t changed. “I didn’t want to be in a situation where I had to sell a house to a client because I had to have the income,” he says. “That’s not how you build a business – or at least that’s not how I wanted to build my business,” he emphasizes…

Being “honest and trustworthy to buyers” is the cornerstone of Val’s philosophy, he says. “Five years later, those people will call back; that’s what builds your business in real estate. You cannot build a sustaining real estate business on walk-ins and people calling you about an advertisement…