Tricia Lee is no stranger to the phrase, “You should be on television.” Within the first few minutes of meeting her, it becomes clear as to why she has received this compliment time and time again. Equal parts capable, creative, and charismatic, Tricia embodies a modern, multi-faceted leader who can captivate an audience. Given her track record as a beauty entrepreneur and a real estate agent, Tricia has been a fixture in the New York City business community for nearly twenty years. Now, her reputation will transcend borders. Starting on June 28th, audiences worldwide can watch Tricia continue her commitment to excellence on “Owning Manhattan.” The show’s premise, navigating the competitive real estate market in New York City, isn’t unprecedented. However, Tricia and her colleagues will bring a level of ambition, clarity, and resourcefulness that sets them apart. Ahead of her television debut, Tricia sat down with BAUCE to describe her professional journey.
Starting in 2006, Tricia shaped New York’s consumer landscape with Polish Bar Brooklyn. Tricia gained recognition for opening the first polish bar in Brooklyn then. After ten years of building trust and admiration from local clients, Tricia began looking toward her next professional horizon. Tricia explains, “I notice I get bored every seven to eight years. I felt like I wanted to add something new to the mix around year seven. Then real estate came up. It reinvigorated a lot of feelings about my business and my career.” At one point, Tricia ran her beauty business while simultaneously paving her own path in real estate. While this may seem burdensome to some, Tricia found the commonalities between her different passions. She elaborates, “All of the skills required for real estate made me stronger in pushing my brand forward. Real estate was impacting my beauty career a lot. Many of my clients were moving out of the neighborhood because they couldn’t afford it anymore. As everything shifted, I realized that real estate was the center of small business. The financial success that I was seeking was more aligned with real estate rather than brick and mortar.”
Her ability to predict consumer trends has served Tricia as she has worked at top firms such as Corcoran, Compass, and now Serhant. Her impressive knowledge even earned her a spot as one of the Top Five Black Real Estate Brokers in Brooklyn. Notably, Tricia’s always eager to share the insights that she’s gained over the course of her career. When asked about common misconceptions regarding home ownership, Tricia had loads of wisdom to impart. Tricia shared, “I would say there are two that are my go-to that I try to share as much as I can with whomever I can. A lot of thoughts around homeownership are tied to our parent’s generation. Homeownership in the Black and brown communities was far more difficult historically, so many of the attitudes and lessons around ownership in our community get passed down and can be outdated. It was far more difficult to attain a mortgage, and many families had to save cash for years to purchase without a mortgage. For women, it was made even more difficult until the mortgage liberation in 1974. We think we need to hold on to property for dear life. But maybe it’s not the best option to hold on to a property for 30+ years…It’s an asset that you have to responsibly treat it that way. It’s not about owning a home in your family for a hundred years. Think about how owning one home can eventually lead to owning four or five homes.”
Tricia encourages people with cold feet to consider the financial benefits of home ownership. She lays it out clearly, “People say that they don’t want to be an owner. But, when you do buy a home, one of the benefits is that you freeze your housing costs to a certain extent. Outside of property taxes and maintenance, your monthly carrying charges can be the same now or 15 years from now. That’s what no one talks about. Beyond nominal tax increase for property taxes (unless home insurance triples in places like Florida), that price is locked in. The benefit of owning a home is that your home ownership costs have frozen…Think about what the long-term plan is for you. You can use discretionary income to invest in more properties and experiences.”
Tricia’s accomplishments and natural talent propelled her real estate career. It didn’t take long for Tricia’s friends, family, colleagues, and clients to observe her star power. Tricia reflects, “I feel like since I started in real estate, the conversation around me was that I needed to be on T.V. because of my presence and personality. I was not surprised by this opportunity [Owning Manhattan], but I was surprised by how it came together. I was happy at another firm, but Ryan reached out to me and asked me to move over there.” BAUCE asked Tricia about how she feels about being a part of Netflix’s empire of real estate shows. The real estate aficionado admits, “It’s a responsibility as well as an opportunity. Being on a show definitely intensifies my public persona. But, I feel like there are so many Black women who feel that the media and public need to see more Black women like myself. Whether it’s a show, a panel, etc. My friends are extremely progressive, worldly women. Their careers are important, their families are important, they want to live boldly, and they want to live out loud. If I can show how normal this is, then I will have the ability to change a lot of perceptions.”
This is undeniably Tricia Lee’s moment. She is a deeply accomplished professional with over $300 million in sales, a highly anticipated Netflix show, and an unwavering commitment to uplifting her community. However, Tricia is more than eager to leverage her recognition in the service of others. She wants to make sure that her success will have a greater impact. Since only 6% of real estate agents in the United States are Black, Tricia understands why her portrayal in “Owning Manhattan” holds such importance for the Black community more broadly. Tricia explains why the representation is so important: “The show will allow people to familiarize themselves with Black luxury agents. We are selling everywhere from the East to the West Coast. Now we can show our ability to sell and negotiate in front of the world.” For Black agents looking to develop their network, Tricia mentions her luxury agent dinner series, Dinner Noire, which is a networking table experience created to foster relationships in the brokerage community among a small percentage of Black agents.
