- Lily Jang grew to become a serious-estate agent in 2017 after doing work generally as a broadcast-information anchor.
- She obtained into actual estate simply because she’d had undesirable ordeals with brokers and wished flexible hrs.
- To stand out to her clientele, she offers social-media marketing, residence staging, and Tv set placement.
Prior to she was a effective serious-estate agent closing on almost $28 million in discounts in 2022, Lily Jang was a information anchor for KHOU-Television in Houston.
She under no circumstances would’ve left the broadcasting earth, she informed Insider, experienced the Television set station not absent by way of a management adjust and subsequent layoffs.
“You generally know in the back of your head this could occur: New management will come in, and they are heading to cleanse property, and you could be a casualty — and that is just what took place to me,” she stated.
The blow was specially hard for her simply because a single of the major causes she moved to Houston was to consider care of her ageing mother and father, in particular her father, who has Parkinson’s ailment. Unlike other broadcasters who could pick up and transfer to a different metropolis for a career, Jang wanted to continue to be and get care of her household.
“That was the most devastating time in my existence. Any one else would’ve springboarded to Chicago, New York, LA, or Miami, but I could not,” Jang, who experienced labored in other states just before moving to Texas, said. “I sat in a corner and cried for two weeks, but I stated to myself, ‘I’m going to have to pivot. I have to figure this out.'”
And determine it out she did — by the stop of her initially yr at Keller Williams, she’d shut $8 million in serious-estate transactions and surpassed her salary as a information anchor. In 2021, four several years just after she obtained her commence, she designed almost $900,000 in gross earnings.
“I took my profession as a news anchor, my advertising and marketing abilities, and leveraged anything I had and who I was, and I used that in real estate,” Jang mentioned. “I designed my journalism career on associations, conversation, and integrity, and I parlayed all that into my new profession fairly seamlessly.”
Here is how she designed a organization that’s thrived by way of social media and organic advertising and marketing.
Creating the pivot
Jang’s curiosity in real estate was spurred by her encounters purchasing for residences.
“I had purchased and marketed households in the previous, and I understood how minimal my Realtor did for me,” Jang claimed. “I was like, ‘I can do this much better than you, and you are not even advocating for me.'”
Another profit, she added, was the possibility to be her have manager and established her possess perform hours.
In 2017, following paying out approximately a month doing a six-part on the web class with the Champions College of Genuine Estate, Jang announced her profession alter on Fb and right away begun getting messages from outdated large-college good friends and colleagues asking whether she would consider on their listings. A few months later on, she experienced a few properties in her portfolio — two of which were luxurious residences priced at more than $750,000.
Jang worked 80-hour months for the to start with six months.
“I try to remember crying at the close of some weeks from pure exhaustion,” she said. “I realized that my enterprise was only dependent on me locating a way to market myself otherwise and on a more substantial platform when there have been tens of countless numbers of other Realtors out there.”
Right now, Jang has discovered a greater do the job-daily life balance and has outsourced many elements of her enterprise, like employing a transaction coordinator to take care of paperwork and a whole-time licensed assistant to aid in many jobs.
Using social media and Television set to appeal to consumers
Jang mentioned her distinctive tactic to providing helped her make a small business solely from referrals and organic and natural lookups from sellers, consumers, investors, renters, and fellow actual-estate brokers. For her customers, Jang gives movies, house staging, and Instagram publicity on her account, which has 35,000 followers.
“I have never ever made a single chilly phone, and I have under no circumstances knocked on any doorways. My organization is 70{9104a15e8d43cffaa82b7b4c643401a24474a83108be38dc3b050cba43a4940d} referral from working day 1 and 30{9104a15e8d43cffaa82b7b4c643401a24474a83108be38dc3b050cba43a4940d} social media,” she claimed. “My Television history gave me an organic system of people today who felt they realized me, trusted me, and wished to get the job done with me.”
On social media, Jang walks by means of several of the lovely, shiny attributes of a house but also points to instructional articles that prospective customers would want to fork out awareness to, like ceilings that have experienced past repair operate, wall corners that give clues to the ailment of a home’s basis, and other things that indicate the structural integrity of a home.
Jang also shares on social media what she does off the clock, like her abroad journey and wonderful eating. She explained this is underrated between authentic-estate brokers, especially when they want to operate with luxurious purchasers, several of whom probable want enter on fantastic restaurants and vacation places.
“It reveals men and women all the levels of who I am, how I vacation, what my hobbies are, and what actual estate appears to be like like in other elements of the planet,” she explained. “Men and women perform with individuals they like and sense most related to.”
Jang has also been ready to use her broadcasting history to her edge, very first with a community segment named “Lily’s Record” on KPRC, then, immediately after that was canceled since of Hurricane Harvey, a 30-minute authentic-estate present called “House 2 Dwelling with Lily Jang,” where she functions household listings as effectively as interviews with loan companies, builders, inside designers, and other actual-estate pros.
Jang’s connections and experience in the broadcasting globe helped her url up with Jerry Martin, the now retired common manager of KPRC. He brainstormed numerous authentic-estate-display concepts with Jang in advance of landing on the thought for “Lily’s Checklist” just after Jang confirmed him a online video sample of what she had in brain.
“I feel I shut three transactions in the small six months we were on the air,” she reported. “‘Lily’s List’ was just as vital as social media for me in achieving probable shoppers.”
Advertising houses in the latest market
Though fluctuating interest costs and slowing demand from customers might make other serious-estate agents anxious, Jang is just not much too concerned about the transform of rate. She said that nevertheless inventory is lower, she’s even now seeing numerous presents on residences with vital attributes, such as wonderful neighborhoods and the ideal selling price issue. Jang’s tips to all those acquiring in Houston is to usually obtain a residence zoned to respected, perfectly-rated colleges.
As for her self esteem in how she’ll execute in a tighter, much more-competitive market, Jang stated she’s glad to convert a web page on the wildness that 2021 and early 2022 brought. She reported there was an influx of “tens of 1000’s of new” serious-estate agents who benefited from traditionally minimal curiosity premiums, which manufactured serious-estate transactions more rapidly, much easier, and extra lucrative, but now times are a great deal more durable.
“When the market shifts like this and normalizes, there is a systemic exodus of agents because not all agents are earning sales they’re utilised to in buy to make a living,” she said. “The Realtors who benefited from a robust sector are now not developing as substantially.
“They have dues to spend without the need of closings, so our market has normalized and new brokers who obtained into the game in the course of the surge of file dwelling income failed to always want resourceful marketing abilities, enterprise arranging, and putting in the get the job done and hustle to produce sales, and numerous have to convert to a salaried career with much more security.”
Jang reported she believes the serious-estate brokers who will do well are the types completely invested and integrated in the discipline, as opposed to all those devoid of a “pulse on the current market every one working day.”