Back when Matt Nagy’s job involved selling real estate instead of gaining ground, he left the same impression on people.

“What I remember about Matt was he was somebody who always wanted to learn, always a guy asking questions, hungry for knowledge,’’ said Barb DiBrito, a colleague at Keystone Custom Homes in Pennsylvania when Nagy worked as a real estate agent about 10 years ago. “He always had such energy.’’

Nagy will need it at his new location, the NFL version of a fixer-upper. When it comes to hope, the next Bears coach enters a buyer’s market.

Local confidence in the Bears organization has dipped to historic lows, making Chiefs coach Andy Reid’s endorsement of Nagy more valuable than general manager Ryan Pace’s. Remember that before scoffing too quickly over the hire out of habit.

Reid’s opinion alone offers the strongest argument for everyone to keep an open mind on Nagy, 39, who called plays as the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator in Saturday’s AFC playoff loss to the Titans and agreed to become the Bears’ 16th head coach less than 48 hours later.

Hey, at least Nagy knows how to execute the hurry-up offense.

A decade ago, between selling houses, Nagy was calling plays for Palmyra Area High School near Lancaster, Pa. On Tuesday, he officially will take the job George Halas and Mike Ditka once occupied.

Lancaster — where Nagy spent his formative years — is, by the way, about 270 miles east of Aliquippa, which is Ditka’s hometown. About 80 miles north of Lancaster is Hazleton, Pa. — from which Cubs manager Joe Maddon hails. At least the Bears had the good sense to shop for head coaches in a state that has been good to Chicago sports.

Had the Bears poached a Chiefs assistant, I would have suspected special-teams coordinator Dave Toub, based on readiness for the job. But Nagy fits the criteria Pace established more closely, a bright, young, offensive-minded coach whose resume shows he can bring out the best in young quarterback Mitch Trubisky. Nagy also possessed Reid’s confidence enough to call plays for the final five games of the season, and Reid protects play-calling duties like a teenager guards his iPhone. That trust enhanced Nagy’s stature around the league as much as the statistical progress the Chiefs showed in December. It was Reid who called Nagy, while he was showing a house to a couple, with a full-time coaching offer that changed his life.

In November, SiriusXM radio host Adam Caplan reported Reid called Nagy the assistant who is more qualified to be an NFL head coach than anybody he ever developed on his staff — and Reid’s coaching tree extends to Jon Gruden, John Harbaugh, Ron Rivera, Sean McDermott and Doug Pederson. That doesn’t mean Nagy will enjoy the same kind of success as those guys as head coaches, but it suggests the Bears hired a guy who checks all the right boxes.

In truth, the list of six coaches the Bears interviewed was underwhelming without a clear favorite. Leaguewide, a scarcity of home-run head-coaching candidates existed. The word that comes to mind is meh. That doesn’t mean the impact Nagy immediately has still can’t be dynamic — especially if they talk defensive coordinator Vic Fangio into staying. Nobody really knows at this point, and anybody guaranteeing success or failure for Nagy is just aiming for web clicks or ratings points.

For reasons only Pace knows, he passed on offensive coordinators with previous head-coaching experience in Josh McDaniels of the Patriots and Pat Shurmur of the Vikings in favor of Nagy. (Small-world department: When Nagy was an Eagles coaching intern in 2008 working with quarterbacks, his position coach was Shurmur.)

Something must have happened during the course of the interview process to convince Pace that he and Nagy would enjoy a collaborative process more conducive to winning than the others. Maybe they found common ground reminiscing about their respective Division I-AA careers in the late 1990s, Pace a defensive end for Eastern Illinois and Nagy a quarterback for Delaware. Whatever helped them connect, it appears Pace found his Sean Payton — a confident, accomplished FCS-level quarterback who developed an edge by falling just short of the NFL and later established a reputation as a respected offensive coordinator in the league.

Only Pace knows why Nagy made a deeper impression than Eagles assistant John DeFilippo, the people’s choice, but Nagy’s stable, successful tenure with the Chiefs likely gave him a slight advantage.

Nagy joined the Chiefs staff in 2013 as Reid’s quarterbacks coach after four years toiling as a quality-control coach with the Eagles. A record-setting quarterback at Delaware, Nagy threw for 18,866 yards and 374 touchdowns during a decorated Arena Football League career. If the Bears lead the league in motion penalties in 2018, you’ll know why, but imagine all the innovative plays and formations Nagy stole from his AFL experience.

Forget overanalyzing whether the Chiefs blowing an 18-point halftime lead at home to the Titans says anything about Nagy’s worthiness for the Bears job. It doesn’t. If the Chiefs became too pass-happy with the lead, remember Nagy called plays for Reid, not independent of Reid. That’s a big difference. Nagy’s body of work has impressed too many smart NFL people to be marred by a single blemish. It bears repeating that the 49ers have no regrets about hiring coach Kyle Shanahan after Shanahan’s Falcons blew a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl LI. Shanahan finished his first season in San Francisco with the arrow pointing up.

After a quick search for their next coach, it’s understandable why the Bears believe theirs is too.

dhaugh@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @DavidHaugh

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