"I would NEVER be able to work with any of my siblings."

Sometimes I hear that when people find out I work with both my brother and sister. I was the first one in my family to start a career in real estate, back in 2007. I was a college graduate and wasn’t able to find a career.

A friend of mine who sold real estate kept trying to convince me to give real estate a try. But selling real estate sounded way too similar to selling life insurance and mutual funds, which I already tried and did not like, so I told him I was not interested.

After multiple conversations over about six months, I finally decided to give it a chance.

“I’m going to try selling real estate for a month and if I don’t make any money, I’m quitting!” That was the plan.

I began driving to the Bronx every day, to try to rent apartments to collect a broker fee. After a month, I wasn’t able to rent out anything so I quit. So I went back to my other job.

But the more I thought about real estate the more it made sense. Finding a renter to pay a commission fee was easy, finding the apartments was easy, I just had to match the right person with the right apartment and I would get paid.

I decided to try real estate one more time. This time I was able to rent out an apartment on my fifth day back to work! I was paid in twenty dollar bills. So my wallet was bulging from all the cash. I still remember that feeling of making all of that money!

That has started me on a 17 year career in real estate. A few years into my real estate career, my sister Damaris said she wanted to get her real estate license.

Knowing how difficult it is to make it in real estate I didn’t want to add on pressure so I did not say much. I wished her the best and told her I would be there to support her. She has been selling real estate since 2010 and we have been working together for many many years.

I asked my brother Andy to start working with us as a part time summer job. He was 17 years old and was about to start college in the fall.

On his second day at work, he wanted to quit. Probably because I didn’t do a good job of explaining anything. I remember him asking “What is the purpose of all of this?”

We had a long conversation about what we did and why we did it and he was immediately hooked. He decided he did not want to go to college and instead wanted to get his real estate license.

Andy fulfilled all the requirements to become a real estate agent before he turned 18. So he had to wait until his birthday to apply for the license. And we have been working together ever since.

I am grateful to work with both my brother and sister. We have a huge family, lots of cousins, aunts and uncles! We have always been close. Damaris now has a two year old! Her name is Arya.

My brother and sister will always be family first. I will never forget that. Work comes second. But I am forever grateful to see them and spend as much time with them because we all work together.