In many ways, Andrew Castillon was destined for real estate. While he didn’t go directly into the industry—spending several years climbing the corporate ladder—some early indicators pointed to this career. 

“When my father got the Sunday paper, he’d always take the Front Page and Sports sections, my mother took the weekly sales, my sister would grab the Comics, and I would grab the Real Estate/Homes for Sale section,” Andrew shares.  

With a crisp Homes for Sale section of the newspaper firmly in his grasp, young Andrew would circle the houses he liked the most, get on his bike, and set out on his own Sunday home tour. “My favorite thing to do was to walk through new construction sites afterhours; take in the scents of lumber, paint, and new carpet; and visualize what they would become. It all fascinated me,” Andrew recalls. So much so, he would later take residential architecture and drafting classes in high school and even win multiple statewide competitions.

Not only did self-motivated Andrew plan his own home tours from the Sunday newspaper, but he also got his first taste of sales when he entered and won the annual magazine sales drive at his middle school. He spent an entire weekend walking the subdivisions of his Michigan neighborhood alone, knocking on every door and giving his sales pitch to complete strangers, doing whatever it took to win. “I came up with a plan, stepped outside my comfort zone, executed, and achieved,” he says. 

And that’s how Andrew has attacked every opportunity since then, even when there wasn’t one. For example, when he graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in pre-med human biology, a field that he didn’t feel right about pursuing, it was during one of the worst job markets of all time (2008). While most of his friends were moving back home to wait for the job market to improve, Andrew decided to move to Chicago and start building a life for himself. 

With his minor in business management and marketing, Andrew landed a job with a startup company, working in logistics and supply chain management. Starting out as an entry-level sales rep, he worked his way up to senior sales rep, then regional sales manager, and finally to director of sales. Thrust into this fact-paced, high-energy environment, Andrew fell in love with the quick sales cycle and the ability to sit in front of C-level executives, land large accounts, and mentor others.  

“I worked on branching out divisions of the company, and I created international divisions that soon became large and profitable. However, when the company went public then merged with another competitor, compensation packages were layered with shades of grey, as is common with large mergers and acquisitions,” explains Andrew.

Becoming more and more discontent with the corporate world, Andrew began to see real estate as an industry with unlimited potential. In it he saw more opportunity, longevity, and happiness. While it wasn’t an easy decision, in March of 2018, he left his six-figure salary with benefits for a career that promised nothing, but would ultimately tell him his value according to how much he put into it. Because of that fact, Andrew wasn’t afraid.

That’s not to say he didn’t encounter his share of challenges. In fact, Andrew didn’t even have a car when he started in real estate. “I used to Uber clients around until I was able to save

enough money to purchase my first car. That’s how bad I wanted it,” Andrew emphasizes. “I also quickly learned how to effectively vet and qualify clients because I had that transportation cost variable to cover: if I couldn’t do my job well and make sure clients saw their best options, I was going to lose money.”

Andrew has built his business on organic relationships—nearly 100 percent of his business comes from his friends, family, network, and referrals. “I value getting to know my clients from the initial introduction through to closing and long after ” he says. 

“While I’ve only been in this industry seven years, I’ve seen it change rapidly, and there’s even more change on the horizon. While experience will always come first, I believe we are headed to a future where strong client–REALTOR® relationships will be the heavy focus, and I plan to continue to excel at both, ” he continues.

Just this past year, Andrew took another leap of faith: he left his team to go out on his own with Compass. It paid off. He’s had one of the best years of his career, strictly from a units and volume standpoint. This recent success, he says, leaves him extremely humbled. “From day one, I’ve always believed in the saying, ‘growth through gratitude,’ and that will always be something that’s engrained into my practice, as will always remembering where I came from,” Andrew expresses.

True to form, Andrew is perusing new goals and taking another leap of faith: he will be expanding his business into Michigan this year alongside Compass. Andrew enjoys being able to spend time in his home state, where he can visit his family and spend summers at their cottage on Torch Lake. He also enjoys health and wellness, and starts his day by working out, which he calls his “morning meditation.” Among his favorite hobbies and interests, however, are architecture, design, food, wine, and travel. Andrew plans to support more charitable organizations in future, but his heart will always sit close to the Illinois Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.  

As Andrew continues to live out his true destiny, having upgraded from bike and Uber tours to running a well-oiled real estate referral machine, there is little doubt that he will see much more success in the years to come.