Tricia Lee, the Brooklyn-based real estate powerhouse, known for her dazzling presence on Netflix’s “Owning Manhattan,” is more than a camera-ready broker. She is a business architect, an emotional strategist, and an unapologetic disruptor. In a recent conversation, Lee offered a rare behind-the-scenes look at her path from beauty entrepreneur to luxury real estate sensation. What surfaced weren’t clichés about hustle and grit, but rather a handful of insights as striking as her online brand.
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She used a rap metaphor to choose her brokerage
After meeting with Ryan Serhant, founder of SERHANT., during a week of brokerage interviews, Lee laid down a defining analogy: “I’m just really looking for someone to be my Little Wayne into my Drake.” Serhant’s immediate response sealed the deal. “Well, who would I be in this situation?” he asked.
That moment of humility — his willingness to adapt and support — was all Lee needed. “He answered the question correctly: Whatever you need me to be is what I can be for you to help you be successful,” she recalled. That alignment in values, not resume polish, drove her choice.
A $4M transaction on the color green
Tricia’s online presence is refreshingly authentic because she doesn’t “overengineer her social strategy”. She’s never used a “social media calendar” or a “plan”. Instead, she shares her life, interests, and hobbies, believing that if people “like me and gravitate towards me, then they rock with me no matter what I’m doing”. Her biggest transaction to date, a $4 million property, came from sharing her choice of a hunter green kitchen on social media, demonstrating how personal connections can lead to significant business
Her salon career resulted in an instinct for real estate
Before her successful decade-long career building a chain of salons and beauty bars, Tricia had an unexpected introduction to real estate in college. She was hired to answer phones, but due to staff shortages, she was “thrown keys and sent out to show the apartments,” a task she unexpectedly “loved”. While running her beauty businesses, particularly those located between college campuses, she observed firsthand how demographic shifts impacted local businesses, giving her an early, on-the-ground understanding of real estate dynamics. These entrepreneurial experiences, where she wore many hats like accounting, HR, and marketing, made her transition to real estate feel “easier” in some aspects due to a smaller client base.
Netflix made her famous, but not always popular
Her role as a “Star cast member on owning Manhattan” brought major success overnight, introducing her to a global audience. However, fame has had its complexities; while some agents are “nicer,” Tricia notes that “70% are meaner”. She finds it strange when colleagues at the office ask for selfies. Despite this, the show has fostered an unexpected bond with women [who say], “Thank you for how you demonstrate what we do”. Tricia explicitly states her goal in joining the show “wasn’t stardom,” but rather to provide representation she didn’t see on TV, having “built my career from dust”.
Leading at work and at home, with boundaries and opposites
At home, Tricia navigates working with her romantic partner, Jeffrey, who comes from an entertainment background. While Jeffrey initially had difficulty separating work and personal life — “He’s always sneaking around” for business calls even on vacation —Tricia “instituted a hard stop on work talk after 7:30 p.m.” Their partnership thrives on their complementary styles: “I overthink, overanalyze, overdo. He checks it off and moves on. Watching him taught me how to just keep moving.”
Treating business analytics like gospel
Lee obsesses over performance. From Facebook ads to property share metrics, she monitors digital signals to fine-tune strategy. “Compared to anything else, compared to other condos in Chelsea, look at how you are performing. We’re delivering 18 times over our peer in this category,” she told one client.
She even runs A/B tests on virtual staging to gauge which aesthetic performs better in ads. Blue furniture versus neutral? She’ll test both and let the clicks decide. “I’m always just trying to figure out what people are saying and how they’re responding to what we’re doing.”
Custom lip balms, not business cards
In a clever twist on traditional networking, Tricia gives out “business balms” — custom honey-based lip products with her contact information — instead of business cards. She believes “Everybody needs my phone number” and aims to be “so loud and so ever-present that I don’t need a business card. You just know who I am when you’re meeting me.”
Tricia Lee’s strong brand shines with Luxury Presence
Her path wasn’t built by following a playbook. It was shaped by instincts, sharpened by analytics, and broadcast with the courage to be unapologetically herself. As Lee prepares for season two of “Owning Manhattan” and doubles down on her flourishing client base, one thing is clear: she didn’t wait for permission to lead, build, or shine. She just did. For more of Tricia Lee’s wisdom, check out her three-part A-List series.
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