Coffee Chats Vol 1: Lessons from a VP in Real Estate
Recently I had my very first official coffee chat, and it was an amazing debut. I sat down with Michael Ash, Vice President of G3 Enterprises, to talk real estate, career strategy, and life advice. Today, I want to share the most valuable lessons I took away from someone with such a successful background in the industry.
Lesson 1: Get a real estate license. If you ever want to be a homeowner, or know people who do, get a real estate license. Michael strongly recommends obtaining a real estate license because of the financial knowledge and practical benefits it can provide. It's affordable (around $500–$1,500) and doesn't take long to study for and pass. Even if you never work in real estate professionally, he still recommends it. He's told his own kids the same thing, even though none of them are in the industry. In his own life, he estimates having a license saved his family over $125K in commissions across multiple home transactions.
Lesson 2: Residential vs. commercial. With zero real estate experience myself, I was curious which side of the industry to focus on. Michael framed it as a tradeoff between entry and ceiling. Residential has a much lower barrier to entry and a far bigger market. People buy houses constantly, compared to businesses buying commercial properties. Commercial, on the other hand, has a much higher ceiling: bigger deals, more prestige, bigger commissions, but it's harder to break into, more relationship driven, and much more about "who you know." He admits he finds commercial more "fun" than residential, mostly due to the scale and complexity of commercial transactions. But he never recommended one over the other outright. It comes down to your risk tolerance, your personality, and the relationships you already have in the industry.
Lesson 3: Character beats credentials. When I asked what he looks for in new hires, I came in thinking technical: Should I master Excel? What workflows should I learn? But he shifted the conversation toward character instead. Of course he does value technical skills, like understanding technology, Excel, business law, and ethics, but ultimately what I took away was skills are teachable, character isn't. What he actually weighs heavier are commitment, consistency, precision, and trust. On a resume, he looks for signs of commitment, like promotions or growing responsibility. But it goes beyond the resume too. He told me he'd hire someone simply because he found out they were a consistent marathon runner, because that level of discipline says a lot about their commitment and consistency. For younger graduate hires, he did tell me that the college you graduate from is marginally beneficial. If he was looking at a SJSU graduate and Berkeley graduate, he would acknowledge the prestige but it’s marginal at best, saying it would “only give me another 5%,” not much of a game changer.
There's so much more I could share from this conversation, but these three lessons stuck with me the most. This is the start of an ongoing series here on Studentpreneurs called Coffee Chats, and I can't wait to sit down with more professionals, learn from their experience, and bring those lessons back to you.
