Agents can’t be the only ones building relationships. Doing so is just as important for brokers and can lead to long-term success and stability.

Over the past few years, building relationships took a backslide for many in the industry. Pandemic-related restrictions and a market frenzy made it difficult to find the time and bandwidth to get to know people. The market is on the other side of that now, but tight inventory and high prices mean industry professionals are back to playing the long game, which requires cultivated and trusted relationships.

“If you are respectful and honest, then everything falls in your lap,” says Michele Harrington, AHWD, CEO of First Team Real Estate in Newport Beach, Calif. She also serves as federal political coordinator for the National Association of REALTORS® and as a director for the California Association of REALTORS®.

Relationships are the cornerstone to long-term success in real estate, which is just as true for brokers as it is for agents. From your community to business partners to your own office, taking the time it requires to build relationships could make the difference in your brokerage’s success.

Your Agents

Your agents are one of your most important assets and building a relationship with them signals that you care about more than their production numbers.

“Real estate is one of the most stressful industries. It’s a roller coaster ride,” says Monet Yarnell, broker-owner of Sell 207 in Belfast, Maine.

At Yarnell’s office, health and wellness are high on the priority list. She lets her agents know that she’s invested in them by supporting their health goals.

Each team member wears a performance monitor that tracks cardiovascular health, sleep and fitness metrics. It analyzes data that to show what them what they can do to feel better daily. Since the profession is stressful, she says, the monitor is a useful way to help mitigate that stress and boost team morale.

“This builds a relationship on a human level. If we aren’t feeling good, we won’t perform well as professionals,” she says. “We try to work out together and go to a fitness class together.”

She also makes it a point to support agents’ individual fitness goals. One of her agents is in the military, so she’s participating in a fitness challenge sponsored by the U.S. Army.

“We encourage her as she trains for that. What’s important to them should be important to you, too, and you need to show up for each other,” Yarnell says.

Harrington has more than 2,000 agents, so it’s hard to build a bond with each of her agents in the same way that Yarnell can, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just looks a little different.

“You want to be available, and you want to respond when they are reaching out to you, even with just a quick reply,” she says. Communication is a key component to creating a cohesive and inviting environment.

Harrington sends out an email each Monday with a motivation for the week. If someone replies to the email, she makes sure to reply to ensure her agents know that she’s an active participant in the communication and that she’s available. “It takes five seconds, and it’s really important to do it,” she says.

It’s also important to have great relationships with your managers, because you might not be able to make contact with every agent, but your managers do. “Your clear vision of what you want for your company should be [communicated] constantly to your managers so you have a united front,” Harrington adds.

She does schedule one-on-one meetings and mastermind meetings with top agents, with free-flowing conversations.

“I get to know them, and they get to know me,” she says.

Office Staff

Agents often look to members of your office staff first, since they’re readily available, Harrington says. These staff members are an integral part of the team and help to ensure everything runs smoothly. They will look to a broker for leadership and support, and they should be treated as a valuable resource.

“They really need to know who you are as the leader of the company. Meet with them in groups. Ask them what’s not working in your company. They will know,” she says. “If they call you, you will answer the phone and be available to them, so they know they are important.”

Culture is another important fundamental in building an office that is cohesive and successful.

“But culture is different to different people,” she says. “Some don’t care about a happy hour or a mastermind meeting. Some just want to go to a baseball game together,” she says, speaking from personal experience. So, in May, a group event allows team members to attend an Angels game together.

If you want your office staff and your agents to be happy and performing well, figure out what culture means to each of them. Ask them what they want, and then be prepared to deliver in a way that makes sense for you.

Industry Partnerships

Symbiotic, professional relationships help lead to a successful career when it comes to real estate. A strong network of industry professionals helps agents succeed, which in turn helps the office prosper.

Working with loan officers, title offices and even carpet cleaners, Yarnell likes to offer value. Relationship building is a long game, she says, especially in business.

“If there’s a way to provide value with no expectation of getting something in return, that’s a way to start a friendship and business relationships,” she adds.

But if she shows up and plays pickleball with her favorite loan officer every Tuesday, then they begin to build that relationship naturally. That way, when a need or a business opportunity arises, the relationship is already established.

The Community

One of the best ways to build relationships in the community is to invest in them. Your agents are already a part of their communities, and many of them are doing work to improve their neighborhoods. As a broker, you can help them make a difference.

“Your agents are an extension of your company. They are the face of your brokerage,” Harrington says. “So, it’s important to make sure you are supporting their efforts in the community.”

That means getting involved in the efforts of your agents. Find out what they’re doing, where they’re volunteering, and ask how you can help.

Another way to get involved is to jump in at the brokerage level. The 2023 Member Profile report found that 67% of NAR members are already volunteering in their communities, and as the broker, you can build giving back into your business model.

Harrington says that her office rallies during the holidays, throwing its support behind neighborhood initiatives like trunk-or-treats and toy drives. But giving back is more than a holiday-season affair. If there’s someone they know working through a tough medical issue or has been affected by a disaster, her office works to help raise funds or rebuild.

Yarnell offers her brokerage’s building to groups or organizations for meetings and events. The building is centrally located downtown with access to parking.

“I’ve found the different organizations that use it really appreciate that they aren’t kicked out by 8 p.m. like most of the meeting places,” she says.

Yarnell’s office has become a central hub for events and meetings happening outside her brokerage, which establishes her office as a central community builder.

National Association of REALTORS®
Reprinted with permission

Massachusetts real estate forms are now available in multiple languages, thanks to Paul Yorkis.

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” —President John F. Kennedy at his 1961 inauguration speech.

Paul Yorkis, watching President Kennedy’s speech as a teenager with his parents at their home in upstate New York, took Kennedy’s words to heart and made them his lifelong mission statement. “Kennedy had his personal flaws,” says Yorkis, CRS, AHWD, president of Patriot Real Estate in Medway, Mass., “but I think about the Peace Corps and other things he did to make the world a little bit better place. In my own small way, I try to make the world a little bit better place for others.”

Twenty years after watching that speech, Yorkis moved to Massachusetts to take a job in higher education. “After many years of working as an administrator in higher education, he says, “I had the opportunity to work for myself and help folks pursue part of the American dream, and it is a decision that I am very happy I made.”

‘We Can Do Better’

An interaction with an immigrant family in 2017 gave Yorkis one idea for making the world a better place. He was showing a home to a Portuguese family that relied on their 7-year-old son to interpret. “That’s not how our profession should be practiced,” Yorkis says. “None of the required forms were in a language that was accessible. So I talked to people in the state government and I said, ‘We need to change this.’ ”

A ‘P.I.A.’ in the Very Best Way

In 2021, at an event with then–Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Yorkis seized the opportunity to begin lobbying. “I introduced myself to Karyn Polito, because I’m a shy person,” Yorkis says, with a hint of sarcasm. He explained the form language issue, and Polito connected him to a member of her staff. “Eight weeks later, the agency disclosure form had been translated,” Yorkis says. During that period, Yorkis was diligent about ongoing communication and regular follow-up.

With Yorkis as the driving force, state forms have been translated into seven languges, such as Portuguese, Spanish, Creole and Mandarin Chinese.

Yorkis is a self-proclaimed “P.I.A.” (pain in the “a—”), but building relationships with government officials is one of his superpowers. In 2017, Yorkis served as president of the Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®, a position that connected him to state leaders. “I had a bully pulpit, so I started leveraging that activity, and I was able to get people’s attention,” he says.

Mass. Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll swears Yorkis into the Norfolk County Agricultural High School Board of Trustees.

“Paul has been a strong advocate for equitable housing policy and has been a true partner in increasing access to housing opportunities,” says Mass. Gov. Maura Healy. “His work spearheading language access in Massachusetts shows his commitment to this state, and it’s due to his work that people are able to use our state’s resources—regardless of what language they speak.”

Jonathan Schreiber, who serves as legislative and regulatory counsel at the Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®, has witnessed Yorkis’ activism in action.

“Paul puts a ton of thought and intention into what he’s doing. If he reached a decision about something, it’s because he truly believes it’s good for the industry and especially for people in need,” Schreiber says. “We have a team of people to try to influence government institutions. And Paul will just take it on himself, and he’ll succeed because he will follow up and follow up. He doesn’t take no for an answer—but in a very positive and constructive way that gets outcomes.”

With Yorkis as the driving force, additional forms have been translated into seven languages, such as Portuguese, Spanish, Creole and Mandarin Chinese. And two forms dealing with lead paint disclosure are on their way to translation.

Lighting the Torch

Another passion for Yorkis is inspiring young colleagues to advocate for their own causes. A conversation at a recent event led to a new collaboration with Ashley Gendreau, an agent who is also an American Sign Language instructor. Yorkis teamed up with Gendreau and Catherine Taylor, director of education and associate counsel for the Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®, to work through NAR’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion grant application process.

Yorkis talks business with Cynthia Nina-Soto, broker-owner of Nina-Soto Realty and a REALTOR® in Salem, Mass., who uses the translated forms every day.

“This grant will create a training program for one member from each of the local REALTOR® associations in Massachusetts to be trained in American Sign Language so that they can be a resource to other real estate professionals,” Yorkis says.

“It’s an example of how we demonstrate to the residents of Massachusetts that we want to provide services to everyone, including people who are deaf.

“Ashley can now take a skill set she acquired in college and combine that with her real estate skill set and make our state a little bit better than it was before,” Yorkis says.

Continuing to expand homeownership opportunities while inspiring the next generation of real estate professionals to do the same, for Yorkis, is what it’s all about.

“I just try to advocate and make a better community. If I can help another agent or broker do good for their community, I’ll spend as much time as I have to; that’s just how I am,” he says. “Isn’t that what President Kennedy’s hope was for everybody?”

National Association of REALTORS®
Reprinted with permission

Through political advocacy and a long-running radio show, Shad Bogany guides Houston’s Black community to homeownership.

As a teenager, Shadrick Bogany woke up nearly every Christmas morning in a different home. Living in subsidized housing with his brother and mother, Bogany moved frequently within Houston. “I had a ringside view of how families can be disrupted, how hard it is to make friends when you’re constantly moving, and the stigma of living in a housing project,” Bogany says.

Until he was 10, Bogany had lived with his dad, who owned his home, invested in other properties, and eventually retired early from bus driving to live on his rental income. The contrasting experiences had a profound effect on Bogany. By the time he was 18, he had purchased his first home with the money he earned from his job at Montgomery Ward. While he attended the University of North Texas in Denton, his mother moved into the house to assume the payments. And when he graduated—with a wife and baby in tow—he was able to move back into the house.

“I realized early on that home-ownership was a great way to build wealth,” he says. He eventually parlayed the equity in his first home to start his own real estate brokerage and purchase his next home. “I felt like if I could do it, everybody else could do it,” he says.

Bogany, ePRO, who heads the Shad Bogany Team at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate—Gary Greene in Houston, says too often people in the Black community don’t believe homeownership is possible. Without a family member or peer providing a real-life example of how to grow wealth, the idea of owning seems out of reach.

At the Houston Association of REALTORS®, he was instrumental in making a down payment assistance finder and financing primer, available at har.com/downpayment. And as vice chair of the Houston Area Urban League Community Development Corp., he has helped veterans and others secure homes.

“During his decades-long career, he has relentlessly worked to address systemic barriers that impede equal housing opportunities,” says retiring Houston Association of REALTORS® President and CEO Bob Hale. “His actions have not only transformed individual lives but also reshaped entire communities, making them more inclusive, prosperous and just.”

A Teacher at Heart

Bogany has executed his mission in two ways: educating as many people as possible and volunteering with numerous Texas housing agencies in service to the community. On the education side, Bogany often teaches courses and workshops, instructing practitioners about fair housing and consumers about buying and selling. He’s routinely tapped for insights about affordability by the Houston Chronicle.

His biggest educational platform is his live, weekly radio show. “Real Estate Corner,” on gospel station KWWJ 1360 AM, has run every Tuesday night for nearly 34 years. Bogany uses the show to discuss everything from down payment assistance to REALTOR® advocacy.

He Talks, People Listen

The show has imbued Bogany with local and state clout. “That’s why the mayor knows me. Politicians come on my show. I’ve had Republicans and Democrats. I’m proud that I’ve been respected on both sides of the aisle, and that’s because I do the right thing.”

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry appointed him to the board of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, the agency responsible for affordable housing and other community programs statewide, where he served for seven years. At the Fort Bend County Housing Finance Corp., where he is currently president, he has partnered with for-profit developers to help build apartments using the low-income housing tax credit.

At the Houston Association of REALTORS®, he was instrumental in making a down payment assistance finder and financing primer, available at har.com/downpayment. And as vice chair of the Houston Area Urban League Community Development Corp., he has helped veterans and others secure homes.

One developer asked Bogany to help combat NIMBYism jeopardizing a 125-unit, $14 million affordable project. Bogany says the councilman and the neighbors were adamant. “People had bought into this thing that we don’t want ‘these people’ in our neighborhood. ‘It’s going to bring our property values down.’ It was like a disease spreading,” he says. “There’s no evidence. It’s all myth. I put a tax credit apartment right down the street from my house, and my value has tripled.” (A recent Georgia Institute of Technology study supports Bogany’s claim. The researchers studied property values in the Los Angeles area before and after the addition of affordable housing and compared the changes to similar neighborhoods without affordable housing nearby. The study found affordable housing developments could help raise nearby prices by 3%–5%.)

Residents near the proposed project showed Bogany a brochure to explain the type of complex they’d prefer. It was one of Bogany’s own tax credit developments. “I said, ‘Tell me what it will take for us to do this.’ We did everything they asked us to do. They voted to support us. And we had a two-month waiting list the moment the complex was finished,” he says. “You would never know it’s a tax-credit deal. It has computer rooms, a business area with internet access, even a day care.”

One of the programs Bogany talks about in classes and on his radio program is the Housing Choice Voucher program. Many people are unaware, he says, that it enables Section 8 recipients to use their housing benefit as a source of income for a purchase under certain eligibility requirements (though not every housing authority participates). “Homeowners gain stability. And their mortgage payments, aside from taxes and insurance, remain the same. The government benefits because it doesn’t have to increase assistance to cover rising rental costs.”

One client he recalls was a waitress with kids, including two she took in after her sister died. Bogany helped her use a Section 8 voucher to buy a four-bedroom home. “When I gave her those keys, she hugged me. The kids hugged me. It made me cry,” he says.

For Bogany, those keys mean her kids will be able to stay at one school, make friends, and have a house of their own to come home to each night. That stability, he says, is the key to a vibrant future.

National Association of REALTORS®
Reprinted with permission

With a mom who set the example, and a fierce personal drive, Eve B. Lee has become a legendary housing advocate in Illinois.

For more than 60 years, Eve B. Lee, AHWD, has served as a leader in expanding housing opportunities in Lake County, Ill. As a testament to her work, the village of Libertyville, Ill., recently approved a $20 million plan from the Community Partners for Affordable Housing (CPAH) for the development of 34 affordable apartment units for seniors. The development will be called Eve B. Lee Place.

Lee knew from a young age that people deserve equal treatment, regardless of their economic status, age, color, race or ethnicity.

“For reasons that I don’t quite understand, fair play was doctrine for my mom,” Lee says, maybe because she understood deeply what it was to struggle. Lee’s parents battled alcoholism and financial problems.

“They divorced when I was 12. After that, I was raised by my maternal grandparents” in Mundelein, Ill., 40 miles north of downtown Chicago. Lee’s grandfather, who had once been mayor of Mundelein, died when she was 14. “That background taught me how easy it is to lose everything because of circumstances beyond your control,” she says.

Although she couldn’t afford it, Lee had dreams of furthering her education. “I wanted badly to go to Middlebury College. It was my most cherished goal. We didn’t have the money, but I couldn’t let it go.”

In high school she studied Latin, served as editor of the school’s newspaper and was a National Merit Scholar. She applied for every scholarship she could find, but it wasn’t enough to cover the cost of attending the elite Vermont college. Lee’s mother reached out to a member of the Heinz family, which as a major benefactor helped to connect her with financial aid for tuition.

Lee’s moral compass was put to the test in 1964 when her sorority reinstituted a blackball rule that effectively allowed for the exclusion of Black women. Lee, at the time president of the Middlebury College chapter, chose to leave the sorority. Later, facing her own personal and financial struggles, she left Middlebury without graduating. She went home, married a childhood friend and soon had her real estate license.

Fair Housing Gains Ground

It was a time when the Civil Rights Movement was gaining ground in Chicago. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. took up temporary residence in the city to fight unfair housing practices through the Chicago Freedom Movement and a fair housing organization he helped to found, the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities. When an LCMOC employee named Bob Cizek came to her brokerage to talk about how to integrate Lake County, she volunteered to advise him.

In 1968, Lee read a study showing that an estimated 15,000 affordable housing units were needed in Lake County. “So I got myself appointed to the regional planning commission.”

Thirty years later, in 1995, she became the first real estate agent appointed to the LCMOC board of directors. She made it clear she would serve only if the organization would help implement training and agree to the use of professional standards hearings, rather than lawsuits, for pattern-or-practice violations. Lee also negotiated a meeting between National Association of REALTORS® General Counsel Laurie Janik and LCMOC Lead Attorney Bill Caruso that resulted in a historic détente between the two organizations.

Filling the Gap

Lee served as board chair on the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities with Aurie Pennick, its former president and CEO.

In 1968, Lee read a study done by Northshore Gas Co. that an estimated 15,000 housing units were needed to serve the population in Lake County. Lee went to the chairman of the county board to find out what efforts were being made. “They were doing nothing at the time, so I got myself appointed to the regional planning commission,” she says. She later chaired the commission and ensured that affordable housing was included in the county’s Framework Plan. That work spurred her appointment as a founding member of the Lake County Affordable Housing Commission, which studies housing needs and finds funding opportunities.

When her old friend Bob Cizek became executive director at the Lake County Housing Authority, he reached out to Lee. The agency had received several million dollars in federal funding for the planning and building of affordable housing. “At the time, housing authorities were not able to borrow money, so he came to me to help figure out how we could make the best use of the money,” she says. She co-founded the Lake County Residential Development Corp., a nonprofit that worked with developers, builders and investors to create 1,300 affordable housing units across Lake County from 1978 to 2019.

In 2017, Lee initiated a strategic planning process that resulted in the merger of the three largest affordable housing nonprofits in Lake County. CPAH is the merged organization, and it has changed the affordable housing landscape by creating a continuum of housing services, including HUD-certified housing counseling, down payment assistance and accessibility improvements. Lee served as the new entity’s first board chair.

Arc of the Moral Universe

In the 1980s, when she served on equal opportunity committees for both the Illinois REALTORS® and NAR, Lee called for mandatory state and national fair housing training for real estate professionals. In 2023, her vision was realized when NAR’s board of directors passed a fair housing training requirement for members; it goes into effect in 2025.

At a vibrant 80 years old, Lee says her work is not yet done. “Now my mission is to make affordable housing more accessible,” she says. “You cannot have fair housing without affordable housing.”

National Association of REALTORS®
Reprinted with permission

There’s never an easy time to be an agent, but right now it is particularly complicated. Work with your agents to build confidence so they can find their footing.

For many practitioners in today’s market, confidence is in shorter supply. Experienced and newer agents find that strategies to build confidence that worked before are no longer cutting it. So, how can you help your team boost their mojo? According to Tim and Julie Harris, of Tim and Julie Harris Real Estate Coaching, the bottom line is encouraging them to remain active—even if they’re feeling discouraged. “They shouldn’t wait to have a stellar mindset before getting into action. Once they get into action, a stellar mindset will follow,” says Tim.

Here are eight strategies brokers, managers and team leads can use to boost their agent’s self-assurance.

Throw Them Into the Fire

“The conventional wisdom is to sit around and think, but the problem there is you don’t build momentum,” Tim explains. That’s why he and Julie prescribe 90-day “massive action plans” to coaching clients newer to the industry. Read: they get them out of planning mode and into the activities of real estate as quickly as possible. Along with shadowing experienced agents, this involves spending two straight weeks previewing properties. Segueing from the bottom to the top of the market (including new construction), they visit 10 listings per day for four to five days a week. While there, they learn about each property and how to show it. “Knowledge equals confidence, and ignorance equals fear,” Tim explains. So, the sooner agents become knowledgeable, the more quickly they’ll build their confidence.

Let Them Fail Early

“We want agents to fail in such big, horrible ways right when they get their licenses because they’ll realize it wasn’t that big of a deal,” reveals Julie. “Otherwise, they’re living in fear of the monster under their bed.” For instance, if they lose a buyer because they neglected to give a buyer presentation, they’ll learn not to skip that step next time. “By making mistakes, you can course correct faster,” she adds. 

Encourage Proactive Lead Generation

Discourage agents from spending time and money on speculative activities, like social media marketing, Tim advises. “It’s ego-satisfying for agents to say they’re building their brands. But if they don’t get results, they’ll lose their confidence and blame themselves.”

Often, these efforts take a long time to build, if they result in any measurable profit at all. “Agents are being told to do social media marketing and branding, but that stuff will be ubiquitous,” he projects. “AI will make everyone an Instagram and YouTube star and at such a frequency and high level. So, agents who think they’ll differentiate themselves with branding are 100% wrong.”

Instead, suggest your agents focus on proactive lead generation strategies that get them in front of actual buyers and sellers. Time-tested strategies, like attending open houses and door-knocking, tend to be more effective, in their experience. As a result, agents will experience success more quickly, expediting their path to confidence.

Suggest a Nourishing Morning Routine

“Control all your inputs,” Julie advises their coaching clients. Instead of scrolling through news feeds with doomsday headlines or nasty comments on social media, your team members can work on proactive lead generation or read inspiring biographies. “Salacious news headlines can get you in your head and take you off track.”

Emphasize Presentation Skills

Recommend your agents dress one notch above the local market, suggests Tim. Think linen pants and lace-up shoes in an area where jeans are the norm. Also, encourage them to build their communication skills by joining a Toastmasters group and steering clear of texting mainstays, like emojis and acronyms (“SMH,” “IRL,” etc.). To sound relaxed and articulate when communicating with clients or prospects, they should rehearse their presentations and scripts, ideally in front of colleagues.

Teach Them That Confidence is a Team Effort

It’s human nature to want to appear knowledgeable and confident, but sometimes that can lead to issues. Train agents to understand that they won’t have all the answers, and that’s okay. It doesn’t make them less of an agent as a result. Instead, teach them this line:

I might not know the answer, but I have a team of experienced leaders at the other end of a phone call always available to answer my questions.

“My agents say that constantly,” reveals Erin Cestero, San Antonio Division President at JB Goodwin REALTORS. “Knowing they have access to knowledgeable leadership so they can get advice in real time gives them the confidence to handle different scenarios,” she adds.

Praise Wins, No Matter the Size

Your highest-performing agents are recognized the most for their efforts, but they’re not the only ones doing the work.

“You can’t just celebrate million-dollar sales—it takes a while to get there,” notes Cestero. “So, build agents’ confidence by celebrating small wins.” In weekly sales meetings, her team announces an “agent of the week.” Instead of sales volume, this award is based on less obvious successes, like dynamic open houses and lead conversions.

Always Educate

“Real estate is always changing,” says Cestero. “So, on a regular basis, provide agents with knowledge from the leadership team, which will empower them to tackle those changes.”

Her brokerage’s marketing department distributes scripts to help agents talk about the state of the industry. In sales meetings, they talk about relevant market issues and updates and give out guides on navigating those issues with consumers. After these sessions, “our agents left fueled and excited and were high-fiving—they were in a real great place. A flood of them posted photos from the meeting on social media saying they’d met with leadership and could best answer questions” Cestero says.

National Association of REALTORS®
Reprinted with permission

A New Jersey broker and salesperson is committed to creating a vibrant, equitable community where all can reap the benefits.

Growing up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Tezeta “Tez” Roro, a broker and salesperson with Keller Williams Suburban Realty in Livingston, N.J., learned to prioritize her family and neighbors—values she took with her when she immigrated to America.

As she progressed in her corporate career and navigated a culture sometimes inhospitable to those values, her resolve to bring the focus back to family and community intensified.

Roro knew that to maintain the values she held dearly, she’d have to shake things up. To summarize her approach, she often quotes the late civil rights leader and politician, John Lewis: “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Committed to Family

When Roro was 15, she immigrated to the U.S. with her mother and then-preschool-age sister. While attending high school in Orange, N.J., Roro—who knew she’d need to help her family—got a job at a drugstore and babysat her sister while her mom worked. When it was time to go off to college, she chose to attend a local university—Montclair State University—so she’d be close enough to continue to help care for her little sister. 

Although she studied biology and intended to become a doctor, she realized she’d need to pivot: the cost and years of training were formidable obstacles. By the end of college, Roro was simultaneously working three jobs. Along with the drugstore, she pulled overnight shifts at the school computer lab and gave campus tours to prospective families.

Navigating Inhospitable Corporate Culture

While spending 12 years climbing the corporate ladder at a retail outpost for a major communication technology company, Roro earned her MBA and got married. In 2012, while growing her family and becoming a mother for the first time, she started experiencing frustration with modern corporate culture. 

After she’d missed a few days of work to care for her baby (who was sick with RSV), her then-manager warned her the absences shouldn’t become a habit. Frustrated and emboldened, she realized she needed to stand up for herself and her family.

She told her manager, “I’m a professional with an advanced degree. I’ll do all I can to be here. But if my support system doesn’t come through, I’ll have to leave. I will not feel guilty when he gets sick.”

Afterward, she says colleagues told her she walked differently. “It was a turning point for me,” Roro recalls. “I’m generally an introvert and not assertive, but I began to be assertive. Being from somewhere else, I know there’s a different model for life. In Ethiopia, neighbors look out for each other. The culture is very communal.”

When she was nine months pregnant with her second child, Roro realized the demands of her job were unsustainable. One evening, after working until 10 p.m., she was so exhausted, and the roads were so dark, that she hit a deer on her way home. After arriving at her condo, she checked her email and found a message from her manager, alerting her there was more work to be done.

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she reflects. In 2016, after her parental leave, she resigned. At the time, she’d already obtained her real estate license two years earlier and had been working with an independent brokerage on weekends. Now though, she was intent on making a living outside the corporate world in a career that would allow her to live in alignment with her values, which meant exploring real estate in more depth.

A Career Built on Creating Access

Roro’s experience as a first-time home buyer spurred her interest in learning more about the industry. When she and her husband bought their first home in 2014, they were confused and intimidated. Along with not realizing buying was possible for them, they struggled to navigate complex contracts and HOA bylaws. “We were dealing with brokers and attorneys that had zero empathy for someone buying a home for the first time. It was such a big decision, I had questions, and I felt dismissed.” Then, she thought, “I can do this better.”

Two months later, Roro began taking real estate courses and earned her license. In January 2015, while still a full-time employee at the communication technology corporation, she started working weekends and evenings at a small independent brokerage. After a year she transitioned over to Keller Williams, sensing more growth opportunities.

She used personal time from her full-time job to attend the brokerage’s monthly in-person sales meetings and completed the brokerage’s intensive real estate training courses while out on maternity leave from her corporate job. Following her leave and her resignation from the large corporation, she worked full-time in real estate.

Now, years later with her broker’s license and numerous certifications, Roro strives to help her clients understand their options and their rights so they can make informed decisions. In particular, expanding access to housing galvanizes Roro, who convinced and helped a local 80-unit community to get FHA certification. “Some HOA boards and sellers are biased against buyers with FHA loans,” she explains. “People think they don’t have good credit. But, to get an FHA loan, your finances need to be in order. There’s a great auditing system.”

Commitment to Community 

Roro believes that to build a real estate business, she must also build up her community. She sees the two as intrinsically linked. To motivate people to move to West Orange, she needs to help them see its appeal and reap its benefits. “A lot of people complain about the taxes here, and I explain to them that we have high taxes because of our proximity to New York City and also because those taxes help uplift our community offerings.” One of those offerings, free full-day pre-K, is something she helped bring to life.

President of the West Orange Council of PTAs, Roro wasn’t discouraged when the town of West Orange told her they couldn’t offer such a program. Instead, she sprang into action, creating a grassroots organization, which sent emails to the Board of Education and organized community meetings. Simultaneously, Roro contacted private daycares, partnering with them to create a program serving nearly 500 kids. “When you become part of the solution and understand the puzzle pieces, it’s hard for people to say ‘no,’” she observes.

Along with being President of the West Orange Chamber of Commerce and on the board of her local YMCA, Roro offers free virtual business advice sessions to her network. (In the future, she plans to add career coaching to her business.) She also helps with English-Amharic interpretations for the Ethiopian community. “I’m active in my community in authentic ways,” she explains. “I’m on the PTA because I’m a parent. I’m in the Chamber of Commerce because I own a business.” 

At the end of the day, Roro makes things happen. “I like to call myself a professional troublemaker,” she says. “I challenge assumptions and I don’t like accepting things the way they are just because they’ve been done that way. And if I’m taking time away from my family and business to give, I’m going to make an impact.”

National Association of REALTORS®
Reprinted with permission