theavenuehc.com/agents/amanda-lee
2023 Individual Sales Volume: $23.5 million
2023 Individual Transaction Sides: 28
From Suits to Sneakers
When Amanda Lee became a real estate professional, she had an image in her mind of the job. She’d dress professionally, cover her tattoos, ditch her sneakers and earn enough to match her salary at the corporate job she left. For a while, that’s what she did. And everything was fine—but not spectacular.
It wasn’t until Lee joined San Diego’s The Avenue Home Collective that she discovered the freedom to do things differently. Lee, 27, still remembers the moment that became clear to her. She was getting ready to go to a showing and complained about having to change out of her Air Jordans. Another agent—someone well-known in the community for driving to appointments in a unicorn-bedecked Tesla—asked if Lee really wanted to work with clients who would judge her for her shoes. Lee decided she didn’t, so she stuck with her Jordans and found her client wearing the exact same shoes.
For Lee, a daughter of immigrants, part of embracing her authentic self has involved advocating for immigrants, especially the AAPI community. She wants to create a path to homeownership for a group that hasn’t always seen that as a possibility. Through involvement in organizations like the Asian Real Estate Association of America, where she is currently a national board member, she has addressed issues including that, until recently, “Asian” didn’t show up as an ethnicity option on the local census.
“In the beginning, I was trying to be this version of myself that I wasn’t. I was trying to dress older. I was trying to wear suits,” Lee says. “Once I started really leaning into myself, I found clients who really loved me and who will shout my name from the rooftops.”