Kim, who was born and raised in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, became a graduate student at UCLA in 1971. While she was living in a graduate student dormitory at UCLA, she met a young man who had just earned master’s degree in mathematics and got a job as a systems analyst in Dayton at Winters National Bank.
“We clicked at first sight, and I followed him to Dayton in 1973,” Kim said. “He became my husband in 1974.”
She transferred from UCLA to Miami University in Oxford, and commuted one summer quarter, but it was too far to drive from Dayton, and she transferred to Wright State University.
Kim finished her master’s work in education from Wright State in 1976 and passed the comprehensive exam 10 days before her first child was born. Then when she was pregnant with her second child, she realized she wanted to be a financially contributing member of the household.
She tried to search for a job as a teacher, but a teacher’s salary only brought home $40 a week at that time after daycare expenses. “Calculating the costs of daycare, clothing and gas, it didn’t meet our needs at the time,” Kim said.
In 1978, she concluded a teacher’s salary wasn’t going to do that, so she switched to real estate, which was booming.
“Various people I knew had licenses: bartenders, school principals, barbers,” she said. “A few of my husband’s co-workers at the bank got licensed and suggested that I do the same. I thought that I could work at my own pace at my own schedule without going to work from 9 to 5, leaving my 2 babies home.”
She passed the test in October 1978 and became an officially licensed real estate agent in January 1979.
She ended up as a top agent at a small independent company until 2002, when the company owner decided to join a franchise, she said.
“I didn’t want to join that particular franchise. I interviewed at all of the major companies in town and joined one filled with super agents. To my surprise, I was still one of the top agents at the big company.”
At the end of the year, after analyzing her business, she discovered that all of her business was generated by herself and her past clients, with none of it generated from being with a big-name franchise, Kim said.
“I was convinced that I did not need a halo around my head with a franchise or a big company name,” she said. “I was confident that I could be successful with my own independent company.”
In 2004, she founded Young Kim Realty after purchasing a 2,080-square-foot office condominium at 511 Windsor Park Drive in Washington Twp. with cash and had it furnished and decorated by an interior designer.
“Within six months, we recovered the initial investment,” Kim said. “It was my baby. I could sell one home a year or 100 homes a year without stress.”
The firm was a team of four until her husband, John, a licensed agent who oversaw Young Kim Realty’s logistics and also ran his insurance business out of the office, died due to COVID-19 on Nov. 23 2021, one day after their 47th anniversary.
Kim, who has received a Dayton Realtors Sales Leaders Club Award for 34 consecutive years, said she earned dozens of real estate designations, includingAccredited Staging Professional and Certified Luxury Home Stager, which she said are “the most helpful in real life business practice.”
“My listing service includes a free staging consultation, whereas other sellers have to pay a fee to a stager,” she said. “Vacant home listings receive free staging with my traveling props. According to the statistics, staged homes sell faster and at a higher price.”
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