![Viktoriia Kovel](https://cdn.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/styles/bio_thumbnail_image/public/2024-30u30-viktoriia-kovel.jpg?itok=GbKJVbkl)
2023 Individual Sales Volume: $12.7 million
2023 Individual Transaction Sides: 58
Building a New Life
In 2014 at the age of 19, Viktoriia Kovel came to the U.S. from her homeland of Ukraine for a four-month exchange program. She didn’t speak a word of English—her goal was to learn the language so she could eventually earn her MBA in Switzerland. “You had to speak fluent English to get in.”
She traveled to America alone and picked up a gig as a photographer at Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta. But things got complicated that same year when Russia invaded Ukraine. “I got a call from my mom saying that our area was under attack. I lived in the Donbas region—that’s where everything erupted.”
Kovel sought political asylum and decided to become an American citizen, which she achieved in September 2022. Her mother, an anesthesiologist, can’t leave Ukraine yet because of her job. But she’s retiring this year, and Kovel is helping her get a visa.
Kovel, now 29, ended up buying her first investment property at 25, “and I still have that property with cash flowing in so I can reinvest in other properties.” She got her real estate license with the goal of gaining in-depth knowledge to minimize risks associated with “creating my investment portfolio.” Today, at least half of her business is from referrals and past clients, 18% from returning investors, 12% from social media leads and 20% from open houses and internet lead sources. She recently helped a man in his early 20s secure a down payment grant to buy a duplex. He had to bring only $700 to the closing. “He had a good job, but he lived in his car. When I found that out, I cried,” she says. “I changed someone’s life.”