Data-Driven Real Estate Investing: How Top Agents Analyze Profitable Deals (Chicago Market Insights)

Amy Kim (00:00)
I studied mathematics. I was a mathematician. I worked in the corporate world with that mindset and that perspective, and I really enjoyed it. After some time in the corporate world, realizing that I would always have a ceiling, I really delved into real estate with the idea of helping with my own investments, but with my clients’ investments and really approaching real estate with how am I gonna make as much money as possible for my clients? And then they continue to use me. So it’s been kind of that motto ever since 22 years ago till now. I think my clients appreciate my perspective and my analytical perspective and really approaching real estate very differently than most of my colleagues.

Micah Johnson (02:20)
Hello everyone. Welcome to The Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m speaking with Amy, who’s been making some serious moves in real estate now for the last 22 years. Amy, welcome in. Glad to have you.

Amy Kim (02:32)
Hi, thank you so much.

Micah Johnson (02:46)
Absolutely. I’m pumped to talk to you today. It’s rare that I get to talk to folks that have the depth of experience in real estate that you have. In our pre-recording call, you’ve done so many things in the industry and your love for that. And I’m excited for listeners and viewers to see it today and just learn from all the experience that you’ve had. So let’s dig in for folks.

Amy Kim (02:54)
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to share.

Micah Johnson (02:56)
Absolutely. So for folks who aren’t familiar with you yet, tell us a little more about yourself and what your main focus is right now.

Amy Kim (03:02)
Sure. My name is Amy Duong Kim. I am the team lead of Duong Kim Global at Compass. We service in Chicago and the Chicagoland area. So anything like 45 minutes away from Metro Chicago. We kind of put—we wear lots of hats. We are able to help with investors in all different types of markets, whether it’s medical, multifamily, commercial. So we have had the joy of helping all of our clients fit like with all of their needs. So it’s been a lot of fun and I’m happy to talk about it. So—

Micah Johnson (03:35)
I can’t wait ’cause it’s quite a story in real estate when you get to do as many things as you’ve done. You don’t just get to start that and go. It takes experience and a path. So what led you where you are today? Like how did you get to real estate and then to what you’ve built currently?

Amy Kim (03:51)
Sure. I love sharing my story because I know it’s super unique. So I went to college. I studied mathematics. I was a mathematician. I worked in the corporate world with that mindset and that perspective, and I really enjoyed it. After some time in the corporate world, realizing that I would always have a ceiling, I really delved into real estate with the idea of helping with my own investments, but with my clients’ investments and really approaching real estate with how am I gonna make as much money as possible for my clients? And then they continue to use me. So it’s been kind of that motto ever since 22 years ago till now. I think my clients appreciate my perspective and my analytical perspective and really approaching real estate very differently than most of my colleagues.

Micah Johnson (04:47)
Yeah, take me into that. What secret powers or superpowers do you feel like it gave you coming into real estate with your particular background?

Amy Kim (04:55)
Sure. I mean, I studied four years of forecasting. And my degree is definitely a lot—I mean, power to the mathematicians—but my degree was definitely—like I didn’t need all of this information for real estate, but it has been so helpful and worthwhile to my clients to have, you know, I think all my clients are so smart that they definitely can do this on their own independently.

But what I bring to the table is, you know, another mind, another, you know, kind of just like listening and understanding and agreeing and disagreeing of what’s a good investment and what’s a good deal. So I think this is what they hire me for. It’s not to present them property—they can find things online—it’s to delve into the property and see if there is a value add there, look at have a different perspective than what they would have.

So I love, you know, I know that I think differently than most of my colleagues. And definitely I sometimes wish I thought like my colleagues, but I think the forecasting part plays a huge part. I love macroeconomics. That plays a huge part in my love for Chicago in the sense that, you know, we don’t really have that many natural disasters. We have fresh water, and then we have things that are very specific to Chicago that make it a really fantastic investment opportunity.

Micah Johnson (07:20)
Interesting. Real estate’s such a fascinating industry to me because of how our life experience fits into it. Anything you’ve done before seems to have some kind of lever you can pull inside this industry that if you love real estate, if you really like the process and what goes into it, you can pull that lever and find as many customers to support your business as you want.

Because, like you’re saying, I love your viewpoint that you’re there as a real estate professional. It is there to challenge opinion. It is there to show, hey, this is my side of it. ‘Cause if I’ve learned anything in my twelve years in it so far, real estate is a team sport. None of us can know it all on our own. None of us are good at all of the process. ‘Cause how many people does it take to close a property in Chicago?

Amy Kim (08:09)
Yeah, just me, the listing agent and the two attorneys, so four people.

Micah Johnson (08:13)
It takes a team to get it done. You got lenders getting thrown in there. You got all these other people that start to become a part of it. It makes you realize what section do I really enjoy? Which section of that process? ‘Cause one thing you said in pre-recording was you got into investing up front and you still own a few properties, but that wasn’t necessarily the part of the process you wanted to keep doing. Didn’t jibe with your family. So you built more of a system that services the clients. You love the problem that they’re dealing with and moving. It’s basically the same thing, just not doing it in your world anymore.

Amy Kim (08:46)
So you know, a great mathematician, it’s kind of actually like someone who loves working out as well. You know, when you work out, you have great endorphins and people get addicted to working out. So mathematicians are very similar. When you solve a hard problem, endorphins get released as well. And that’s how I feel about real estate and finding a great deal, closing on a great deal.

I mean, I have a client who’s closing today on an awesome property. They’re gonna build a beautiful house on it. I mean, at their exit, they’ll likely make a million dollars, if not more, once everything is done and built. And I know this was a great piece of land and it was super unique, so it was fun to find it. It was fun to close on it. I’m excited to sell it when it’s a beautiful house. So you know, I like the beginning and the end. I like the results of things.

Micah Johnson (09:47)
It is, ’cause real estate is for treasure hunters. If you like the process of what you’re talking about, it gives me chills because I enjoy it too. There’s not much like the discovery of the deal and working the deal and what it does. And it’s where I tell people, don’t fall in love with closing day. Closing is the byproduct of being good at a lot of other parts of the process. Fall in love with those. Really get happy when you do these sections well, because when you do that, closings—they’re just on the schedule now.

Because if not, I remember when I first got into it, I was so worried about closings, I felt like I lived my life 90 days at a time. I was just kind of checking in and out of what was happening. Then I was like, wait a second, how do you change this? How do you switch this around where that’s just a commonplace? It’s not the thing you’re fighting for. It’s just the byproduct of the service you provide. And when you do that, man, your ability to serve people as a real estate professional, it changes completely. Because your mindset changes, much like you’re talking about. Most agents are not thinking the way you’re thinking about real estate.

Amy Kim (11:23)
Yeah, I’ve kind of been in it for so long I don’t remember how it was in the beginning anymore.

Micah Johnson (11:28)
Right. And well, and that’s just the thing too, is how humans—one of our natural gifts is our ability to normalize fast. That’s why we can survive so well. We can normalize our environment quickly. So as you get into things, you forget. Like I’ll get talking to somebody that’s early in their journey and say stuff and not remember like, dang, you haven’t heard that part yet. That’s not gonna make any sense.

And to us, it’s that beginner’s mindset still of you’ve just learned so much since then, which—I’m gonna pair that to it probably lines up with being a mathematician because if you like learning, real estate’s for you. It doesn’t stop changing. It’s always in motion. There’s always something, there’s always a problem to solve. It doesn’t go away. To me, it’s why I love golf. Like you don’t win at golf. It’s never over. Finish that day, right, it’s just that’s what you did that day. Come back the next day. And real estate to me is the same way. It’s not something I’m trying to win at. I enjoy the game, but the game’s never over. Each little deal, right, it’s so fun.

I’ve sold more houses and bought more properties on the golf course than anywhere else. Because one, if you get good at golf—here’s a little knack for you out there, especially agents—people respect people that are good at golf because it takes time. You’re not just naturally good at that game. And if you can show discipline on the course, it transfers. Something I’ve learned about that game is I have fired customers on the golf course. I’ve hired them on the golf course because how you act out there, that’s how you act in real life. When real life stresses you out, whatever you do out there, it matches across is what I’ve noticed. So complete ADHD moment, but golf is a great game for business. Yeah. To determine—

Amy Kim (12:29)
I love golf too, so—

Micah Johnson (12:54)
Great game. And all the female golfers out there, because unfortunately there’s not that many. Highly, highly suggest that you take lessons, that you do it. I mean, I get invited to so many things just for the pure fact that I’m a female and there’s just not that many women golfers. So you know, you get into rooms that you wouldn’t normally be able to get into.

Micah Johnson (13:11)
Even, I mean, it’s completely off topic, but if you’re young out there and listening to that, you can get scholarships to incredibly great schools through female golf. There are more and more players that they’re looking for. I mean, even I came from a small town. I was on the first golf team my high school ever had. And I’m watching girls from this tiny little town in Florida get amazing scholarships playing golf. And I’m just like, heck yeah, let’s go. Let’s go. Leverage the game. It’s powerful.

Amy Kim (13:32)
Yeah. The amount of money I spend on my kids’ golf lessons and golf clubs would probably be equivalent to college. So I don’t know, but they are very good golfers. My kids are very good golfers. So—

Micah Johnson (13:58)
Thing. I tried to play professional golf back in a different lifetime. Yeah. And it’s really fun to be good at it. It’s kind of frustrating right now because I’m not so good at it anymore, because of just how much practice it takes, right? But it’s ’cause you gotta hone your skills. Bobby Jones said it’s the greatest game that you compare to life. I truly see so much in the correlation, especially to real estate, because if you’re not participating in every day, if you’re not engaging in the process, you’re losing your skill set. It doesn’t just stay there. You know, you’ll have a baseline—there’s certain stuff you’ll never forget—but you will be rusty as all get out while you’re trying to do it. And anyways, I don’t know why—

Amy Kim (14:28)
I mean, it was awesome of your parents to give you the gift to play when you were young. So, and it is—hopefully I get to do that too for my kids, like the gift to play while they can freeload off of me during this time.

Micah Johnson (14:40)
No, well, I’m embracing the Shaq motto. So I was listening to a Shaquille O’Neal podcast the other day, and he always says, you know, he tells a story of his son saying, “Dad, we’re rich.” And he said, “Nope. Son, I’m rich. You ain’t rich.” Yeah. And now he said he calls it “earned nepotism.” He goes, “None of my kids get access to my fortune unless you get three degrees.” Yeah. You gotta go earn it. Like, you go do what you need to do to get access, deal, you can have it. I’m like, all right, I like that. I like that part. Go on.

Amy Kim (15:00)
I love self-help, like self-improvement books, and reading all the time and honestly, just macroeconomics. I just love it. It may mean—and I put it indirectly—it goes into my work indirectly, but it’s just I just like the self-improvement part. So, and hopefully that’s what my kids do too, but yeah.

Micah Johnson (15:13)
It is my favorite thing. Personal development. I call it learning how to be human on purpose. I found it about ten years ago of just intentional development, right? I have a weird backstory. I was raised in a Y2K doomsday cult in the middle of the woods of Florida. And so when I found self-help, like it literally saved my life. Literally. Statistically, I was supposed to die six years ago based on my life experience, and I’m very much alive and I credit it to the ability to think through what’s actually happening.

And that’s where—I have a 10 and a 12-year-old—and what I’m learning most with them is just emulate it. If you’ll live it out, they’ll absorb it. They absorb way more than they ever listened to. Yeah. And that’s where, because it changes you as you are. Even parenthood is a great personal development tool. I didn’t realize how selfish I was until I had kids. I didn’t realize a lot of things, right? It’s a great thing, a way to look at yourself because it’s a mirror.

One of my favorite examples was my kid was doing something just silly, but it bothered me. And I was like, wait a second, why does that bother me? Why does it bother me they’re doing that? Well, it bothered my parents. And I was like, well, it probably bothered their parents. Has anyone ever thought to wonder like maybe they’re just being a kid? They’re not bothering anything, I just don’t particularly enjoy it.

Because that’s personal development stuff where you really get to dig in on yourself and understand why you do what you do when you do it, and then how to do those things on purpose. So what personal development led me to was journaling. I had about eight years documented, but I got a little over four years of every day written down. And what that showed me was it’s me. I’m the chaos agent. I’m the guy that’s wrecking my life. Nothing else is happening to me. It’s my behavior, it’s my actions, it’s my choices.

And when I started writing them down and I go back and read it every day—different portions of my journals—so clear, it becomes so obvious that, my God, if you’ll just get out of your own way, you can accomplish whatever you want. Are you willing to get out of your own way? Right. My favorite question I ask myself now is, are you willing to accept self-honesty?

Amy Kim (16:26)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it’s totally true. I just read the Christina Applegate memoir and I mean, it came from her journaling for years, you know, decades, and it was very insightful. And she was insightful. So I totally understand what you’re saying.

Micah Johnson (16:51)
Right. It’s data on yourself. My mentor, he’s got 40 years of every day written down. And he’s who inspired me to start writing every day, because I would do it over time, but—and that’s really what it is. And if you’ll go back and read it, then it becomes this verifiable proof of growth, that ideas work or don’t work, depending on how you write it down. Like what you track in there, that’s what I’m literally doing. I’m just tracking my life to tell myself what’s happening, what I did, what results I got.

And I grew up farming in that world I grew up in, and it showed me early that that 90-day trend really exists through life, where everything you do today, especially in real estate—I used to, when I coached real estate, I’d say you’re getting paid in 90 days for everything you do today. Think about it that way. All your actions today, the money part you get back, it’s about 90 days on average.

Amy Kim (19:04)
Totally.

Micah Johnson (19:18)
And then I zoomed out and I was like, wait a second. That’s the same thing as growing seasons and farming. It matches how—think about how we measure the world. It just matches this pattern that’s everywhere. And I used to get so impatient with real estate. And then I saw this farming reference thing connect and I was like, I never moaned that the seeds didn’t grow. I didn’t walk around for 90 days upset that it wasn’t doing this. It wouldn’t help if it did. So why am I doing it now?

Amy Kim (19:20)
Yeah, my past managing broker made it—like used that analogy, the farming, like you’re planting seeds. So yeah, I always have a pipeline—try to have a pipeline of, I don’t even know, maybe fifty at a time. And I mean, I have clients who haven’t closed in five years, you know, but there’s no rush or pressure because there’s always gonna be someone who—you have to have an active pipeline if you’re going to be consistently selling a certain amount of business. I mean, I have to close $60 million a year. It’s just a fact. So to have an active pipeline is very, very important. It’s very hard—I’m assuming it’s very hard for new realtors to think this way—but from the very beginning of my career, I’ve always thought this way. You have to have a pipeline.

Micah Johnson (19:46)
What things have you done that have helped you build one effectively?

Amy Kim (20:16)
You know, I think the whole patience thing is a huge thing, Micah, that you’re talking about. You know, I started very young—I mean, I’m still young, so I still got like thirty more years of this career at minimum. So, you know, I only worked in the corporate world for like three years before I decided to be a full-time realtor. So I started in my twenties. This is not a career that I started, you know, in my forties. So in your twenties, I didn’t need very much money. I was just happy if I closed like twelve deals a year. So I think that mentality of just—I think that I just didn’t need it. So that wasn’t the focus.

The focus wasn’t a certain amount of money or a certain amount of volume or “I need this money to live.” I wasn’t doing it because I had children already. So I think that’s the hard part. I think people choose to go into real estate thinking like it’s gonna be your career change and you’re gonna make so much money. I did it because I loved it and I was good at it, and everything else kind of fell in. So I was lucky, I was fortunate enough that I figured that out in my twenties and not in my forties.

Micah Johnson (20:44)
Right. Real estate has this funny pull to make people want to go all in on it where everyone’s journey to it needs to be very unique. Real estate is a hard industry to be successful at with your back against the wall. Extremely difficult because any customer in the world can smell commission breath when you have it.

Amy Kim (21:36)
Yes, yes.

Micah Johnson (21:42)
Right. When you have it, like you can’t help but have it. Your energy coming off them—like you can’t keep it inside. It’s an emotional wave coming out that they just experience. I’ve seen it over and over again. And that’s really—even if you’re investing, if there is an obvious point when you need to switch based on your life experience, right? When you’re in your early twenties and you’re looking at it that correct way, where it’s more about “build this thing that I love doing and see what happens” versus “I need to make it do this thing, and if it doesn’t do this thing, then it’s not successful.”

Reality is, when did you get in? What was the section of the market cycle? Like what was actually happening? So many things determine your ability for success in this industry. Like if you’re getting in right now, it’s hard. If you’re not good at real estate right now, real estate is hard. That’s why those of us that are good at it thrive. We love this market because we grow. The nonsense falls away and we get more and more customers. And all those things are a factor.

And if you don’t understand them, you will make judgments about real estate that are not effective and you’ll realize, here’s why your dream failed, right? Here’s why it didn’t work. You didn’t have all this information, but you made this plan to do it. And that’s what— when I first got into it, I did the back against the wall thing, and I don’t recommend it at all. I had two kids and a family, and I was the sole provider, and I had a certain amount of money I needed to make in a certain amount of time. I did it, I pulled it off—I don’t recommend it. I don’t recommend it to anybody because you don’t get to enjoy winning. You don’t get to enjoy the fact that, yes, I got one, yes, this process is working. You’re so obsessed with the next one.

I lost all touch with why I enjoyed real estate, which was time and freedom and money. I had money, but I had no time or freedom. I didn’t get to see my kids. I was like, wait a second, this is the opposite of why I said I wanted to do this. What is happening right now? So that ability to come in patient—if you’re gonna be a realtor, have six months’ worth of money saved up so that you can mentally absorb what’s happening. Because in six months, if you don’t have a deal, we got questions. Like, you’re not doing your job.

Amy Kim (22:54)
And Chicago’s a little bit different. I don’t know—and I know in California, but I don’t know the East Coast—where you do the inspection after the attorney review period. You do the inspection after you’re under contract. So I mean, 30% of transactions die in Chicago. So, you know, I think that you kind of just have to assume nothing is a done deal until you’re at the closing table.

Micah Johnson (23:08)
Until that money hits, until the check is in your hand, do not count your chickens. I’ve lost plenty at closing day. How about you?

Amy Kim (23:17)
I try to avoid it as much as possible. But yeah, I mean, this market’s really funny, you know. Well, I think that a lot of things are happening in the world that, you know, changes people’s minds out of how to approach things, and sometimes that happens right before closing day. So yeah, we’re in a very interesting market, for sure.

Micah Johnson (24:16)
Well, you just hit us with your mathematician part, and I want to hammer this because that’s the parts that matter. You said 30% don’t make it to the closing table. If you’re not factoring that in, you have to accept these things of go look at the data. When I was trying to play professional golf, every week I’d print off the PGA Tour statistics—all the guys—and it shows them. And I would compare mine against it, and I could show you exactly why you did not see me playing on Sunday. I could show my math where I was deficient, but it showed me where to work. That’s what it reveals. Here’s where you gotta put in that work. That’s what that data’s for.

When I got in, I did a business plan where I was backdooring a hundred thousand dollars. How could I make a hundred grand in my first year? That’s what I wanted to figure out. And I literally turned it into how many conversations I needed to have a day—that’s the math I got to, right? How many conversations it takes to get to here? How many to here? How many to here? How many to here? Now you wake up with your marching orders, right? You turn that dream into your daily activities, because that’s what gets it done.

Amy Kim (24:40)
For sure. Mm-hmm. I mean, I would say for what I do every day—and I do it, I’ve been doing it for 22 years—is after I get off this podcast, I’m gonna go look and see what great multifamilies there are or buildings, and I’ll think about who I can send this to. I mean, just calling to say hello is not really gonna do anything, in my opinion, at least for my clients who are already very successful and own their own practices. They’re like titans in their industry. They just want me to find the deals for them.

And you can send the same deal to the same people if they’re the same type of client, because you never know which one’s going to buy it. And I always make that very clear to my clients too, like, “I have a showing right after this with my other client, just to give you a heads up,” because they know that I’m looking out for all my clients in terms of finding investments for them.

Micah Johnson (25:33)
Right. And that’s exactly how it should be done. And what you’re narrowing down—and this is what’s hard for any business—is if everyone’s your customer, no one’s your customer. You have a very particular set that you work with and how you interact with them. Business owners you have to interact with differently than someone just buying a house. They’re busy, they got stuff going on. They don’t want to just talk fluff.

Amy Kim (25:55)
Yeah, that’s why I like working with investors. There’s no emotion involved. It’s just about the numbers. I do do residential, and you know that I do do it, so I don’t want to say I only work with investors, but I love working with investors because it just comes down to numbers.

Micah Johnson (26:02)
It is, and when you love numbers, it settles the process out because now it either works or it doesn’t work. That’s what’s so fun about investing. We are not deal manufacturers, we’re deal finders. A deal is a deal is a deal. Go find it. If you’re having to put like nine things to go right to make money, it’s not a deal. It’s either one or it’s not, and that’s the fun about real estate.

Amy Kim (26:25)
And it makes it easy to even submit an offer and to value a price. Like, if you want a six percent cap rate, well, this is what you need to do to get a six percent cap rate. This is the price.

Micah Johnson (27:06)
Right. It just takes all the arguing out of it. There’s no way ’cause it’s based on a whole different goal. It’s based on a different set of things. And that’s what I enjoy about it is it’s repeatable. I remember meeting my first—I was an agent for three years, I was in my third year when I met my first investor and it was life-changing. Like, I had one guy that sold thirty-three houses that year. And I was like, holy cow, this is how you get off the roller coaster. This is how you build really consistent things out because these guys don’t stop. They’re doing it all year. They don’t care about the market cycle. It doesn’t matter, they’re always in motion. And it was like, wow, how do you do this? And then learning the math part and the processes, it just—I got goosebumps. It gets me hyped up.

Amy Kim (27:15)
Well, I’ve had so—now, you know, a lot of our colleagues and friends who are physicians, a lot of physicians are looking to invest now. They’re like high net worth and don’t want to always just put it in the stock market. They actually want real assets. And there must be a podcast out there for doctors to buy real estate because they’re all in it. They are—

Micah Johnson (27:21)
Very good market. I know guys that target it specifically because, I mean, if you’re an investor, other people’s money is a big part of what we do, and you have to go to people who have it. And what are they trying to do, right? You were speaking beforehand, you’re working on building out medical facilities. That is a huge industry for developers right now. Because if you find a good office, you find a good person that’s on—like you’re literally getting into someone else’s dream too. That’s what’s fun about it. Is this a physician that’s building out their dream and you are literally the one physically building the part they’re gonna do it in? That’s so fun, right? And it just travels through it because as much as it is a math problem, it is a very human industry. Real estate is extremely human, and if you do humans well and math well, you’ll have a lot of fun here.

Amy Kim (28:37)
Yeah. I, you know, well actually—and this is, you know, I studied mathematics, but my industry obviously was very dry and it just—that’s the reason why I left it. I needed more human connection. I needed just not to be looking at spreadsheets and using Excel all day long. So, you know, real estate gave me the opportunity to have both.

Micah Johnson (29:02)
Right. And that’s something I have found in real estate out of the careers that I’ve had—it’s one that has consistently paid my financial paycheck and my emotional paycheck. Mm-hmm. And when I did the things too long that didn’t pay my emotional paycheck, that’s when I didn’t feel good in life. That’s when life was rough. Because we’ll only do something so long for money—doesn’t matter how much it is—before we’ll burn out, before it just becomes normal. Like it—and everyone wants to think that just because you have money, life gets simpler. Do some things go away? Sure. Certain problems you’ll never deal with. But it still becomes normal. It still becomes like, well, what do you want to do now on a Saturday night? It’s not like you go do all these things all the time—where I lost my train of thought there. What are we talking about? ADHD got me.

Amy Kim (29:20)
Well, just like just enjoying work. I mean—

Micah Johnson (29:45)
That’s what it was. The emotional paycheck. That’s what it is. The emotional paycheck. And it does that and it allows you to grow. Like, I don’t do today what I did when I first got in, and it’s my favorite thing. I haven’t found an industry that let me do that. Because I’m an ADHD person—like we get bored quickly. That’s just what happens.

Amy Kim (29:56)
People are really good at real estate—teachers are really good at real estate. Past teachers are really good at real estate. Extremely good at real estate.

Micah Johnson (30:46)
Past teachers—I’m telling you, in my world for past teachers, we hire them as COOs. They are incredible COOs in professional real estate investment companies. I mean, hands down. It’s just ridiculous. They’re so good at processes and people and teams. If you can do that with kids, I’m telling you, get them to do it with adults. It’s even easier.

Amy Kim (31:12)
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, because nobody—very few, maybe now, but especially when I started twenty years ago, nobody said, “Hey, I want to be a realtor.” It was always like your second career, a second or third career. So yeah, I feel like the best realtors were either in the restaurant industry, teachers, and nurses. So, and I have yet to meet someone who had my background and became a realtor. So—

Micah Johnson (31:52)
I gotta say, usually your background doesn’t like people that much. That’s why the numbers are so much there. You’re kind of a unicorn. You love that part.

Amy Kim (32:04)
I know I am a unicorn. I don’t—like people that—I am an ambivert, Micah. Like, I do like being with people, but in very limited time frames. But my husband is like a huge extrovert. So yeah, so but I like my own time too. So I’m an in-between.

Micah Johnson (32:08)
I heard someone say, “I’m an introverted extrovert.” Yeah.

Amy Kim (32:32)
That’s what it’s called now. They actually came up with a word for it: ambivert. Yes. Yeah. So like where you need—you like to be with people, but not all the time.

Micah Johnson (33:27)
Ambiverts. Yeah, that makes sense. I love people, but I like to live on a hundred-acre ranch with nobody that can get to my driveway. Leave me in my space. Okay. All right, we’ve wandered around here, so I want to—before we start closing out the show, I want to get into some of your latest projects, what you’re working on, and how they’re going, so that other folks can start to, you know, we’ve got the background story, what you’ve gone through, what you’ve done. What are some projects you’re working on today and how you’re serving your clients?

Amy Kim (33:31)
Sure. So fun. I have like such a crazy range of clients right now. Some I probably shouldn’t talk about, so I won’t bring that up. But—

Micah Johnson (33:33)
Well, these are there for everybody. Yeah.

Amy Kim (33:58)
So yeah, I have an amazing building of privately available—so I live in this town called Hinsdale, Illinois. So I don’t know if many people know, but Illinois is a fantastic place to raise a family and to live. We have—I mean, I think I feel like, you know, when people talk about Chicago, they’re like, “My gosh, it’s so scary, it’s so dangerous, all these things.” It is an amazing city. We have, you know, public transportation. We have awesome, awesome, awesome hospitals. The medical here is fantastic. I mean, we do have bad winters, but I mean, the summers are amazing.

But you know what we have is also fresh water. So we have the fresh water and again, we don’t have a lot of resources to build out. So the inventory we have is all that we have. It’s very hard to build further. If we are, it’s going to be at a different—you know, I wouldn’t say it’s super investor friendly, but the opportunity to develop is still really good. It’s harder than let’s say Florida or Vegas, but it’s still a possibility to, you know, the returns are there. So it’s very interesting to see.

I mean, I’m helping so many people who are relocating here. So many people who are relocating here to the Midwest. I mean, I have a client who’s from the Philippines who wants to buy a place in Chicago pure for the pure fact that she wants a place that has fresh water. So that’s very interesting. I because I asked her, “Why are you buying Chicago?” And she’s like, “Because I want a place in the future for my family where I don’t have to worry about water.” Because it must be a concern where she’s at. So it’s very interesting for the needs, but some do it for school. So it—you know, so I have like a huge range of clients. I mean, then I have clients who are like me who are born and raised in the Midwest, that wanna create roots here, that are gonna own buildings, that own, you know, commercial spaces, that own multifamily because they want to be close to their house and close to their home, and they don’t wanna venture out to other cities and other states. So I would say it’s like a huge range.

But going back to where I live, so I live in this town called Hinsdale, Illinois, and you know, people will Google it later. And it’s so fascinating. The average price house here is like I think $1.4 million. And it’s this very, very small, small town—only 17,000 people. And yeah, so it’s just, you know, whenever there’s a multi-unit that becomes available or commercial building, I mean, it’s just like it’s crazy. So but the land here too is fantastic. I again, I just did a closing today. They’re gonna close on this—on dirt—and it’ll be so amazing to see what they build, what they work with. It’ll be a year and a half process. And again, like, you know, once they exit, I mean, the goal is probably a million, maybe a little under that.

So, but you know, we have colleges. We sold something near Wheaton College, a 14-unit building, to a physician. So just because that was just, you know, a little bit armchair with a great return on investment, I think it came out to like seven and a half percent cap rate. So we do all types of things. We do everything, and I love doing it all. But yeah, it’s fun to do it.

You know, I’m helping someone in California—they bought an amazing two cottages for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I mean, the rate of that is amazing. It’s like 15 minutes from my house. It was like, “This is a great deal.” I said, “Yeah, it’s a great deal. Let’s go buy some more.” So we’re looking for more houses of similar—I mean, that was a great deal. So, you know, I tempered his expectations, but the—you know, you don’t have to spend millions of dollars either. So I love working with, you know, I would say an easier entry point price, and then we build on that.

And those are the clients who—I’ve had a client like that—I mean, we’re probably on their 20th house now. Wow, he only focuses on, I would say, smaller single-family houses because they’re easy to rent. The average price point or the average age when I started 22 years ago was twenty-seven for a first-time home buyer. Now in the Chicagoland area, it’s thirty-eight. So so many rental prices are going through the roof. Right. I have multiple applications on almost every rental. Sometimes we get anywhere between five hundred to—even the last rental, I mean, it was high-end, but the last rental we got two thousand dollars over its list price. So that was like—I don’t know, I did the math quickly—probably like a twenty-five percent and a twenty percent return higher than what market value stated. So that becomes a new comparable now.

Micah Johnson (41:34)
Right. Wow. Okay. So for my viewers and listeners out there that are interested in learning more about you, how you can help them if they’re interested in moving to this area, investing in this area, what’s the best way for them to find you?

Amy Kim (41:51)
Sure. My phone number is 773-295-4387. Also, I have Instagram—I’m really bad at Instagram right now, so I haven’t posted in a long time—but it’s @duongkimglobal, D-U-O-N-G-K-I-M Global for Instagram. And you can find me there and message me there as well. I mean, you could just Google Amy Duong Kim. There’s gonna be like pages and pages and pages on how to find me and contact me. You can even message me on Yelp, LinkedIn, whatever, you’ll be able to find me.

Micah Johnson (42:21)
Excellent. Well, if you’re listening and watching, check our show notes. We’ll have all the links to find Amy. Give her a call. As you hear me say on this show a lot, there’s a reason we bring professionals on here, folks that have been doing this for a while, because that’s who you want to work with. That’s who you want to learn from. Real estate, it’s a fast-moving industry. Be with people that are always on the front lines of it. So click on the links, reach out to Amy. Amy, appreciate you being here today. I love your story. I think we need more folks like you out there in the industry just building a real business.

Amy Kim (42:55)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I love it. And you know, and I love being that—I like that I’m a role model to my kids too. You know, like it’s a hustle, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t look like, I would say, like your normal nine-to-five and it’s been fun to have this journey. So, and if you have a feeling about doing it, just give it a go because the worst case is, you know, you maybe you find something else that you would enjoy in the future.

Micah Johnson (43:23)
Right. Well, thanks again for being here, sharing your story. Thanks everybody out there for being with us. If you joined in watching or listening along, if you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode. If you know somebody that you think should hear it, share this episode with them. And as always, if you’re not a subscriber yet, you know what to do. Click that button, follow along with us. We have more conversations coming up with operators just like Amy—folks out there building real businesses in the industry. Thanks for being with us today. We’ll see you on the next episode.