In four years, Julian Jung from Northeastern University went from the bottom of the real estate food chain to having sales in the millions and starting a very personal new tech project.

Julian Jung
Northeastern University
Class of 2013

My freshman year of college, my father bought his first investment property, and he often talked about the purchasing process. From the stories, I was sure that I could do better than the other agents out there. I went out and got my real estate license at the age of 18.

I applied as an unpaid assistant to all the major real estate firms, and was rejected by all of them. I was 18 and they thought I was deadweight. Alex Hodara, my soon to be broker, gave me a shot at his office, which was coined the first student owned and operated brokerage. I started at the bottom of the food chain with rentals around the city.

Northeastern provided me the perfect launching pad for my real estate businesses. Students were sick of working with older agents when looking for an apartment. They wanted to work with someone their age who understood their needs. I took advantage of this and was able to interact with potential clients in ways older agents couldn’t. After many long nights and learning from many failed deals, I finally got my big break. I sold an investment property to a doctor who referred me to all of her friends. After that day, I started selling investment property in and around Boston to a group of investors overseas and out of state. Before I graduate (May 2013) I am expecting to close a little under $15 million in sales and execute hundreds of thousands in rentals.

In addition to real estate, I am working on a project called Layla. Layla is an innovative system to help people take control of their smoking habits. I have always been fascinated with technology and the integration of hardware/software products and Layla seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to get my feet wet. Northeastern’s IDEA program has been extremely supportive of our project and given us numerous grants to develop our venture from a concept into a fully functioning prototype.

For me, being an entrepreneur is the only way to go. What other field can you jump from real estate to tech? From one thing that you love to do, to another and building it all from scratch? People always wonder how I am able to balance school and work. The answer is simple. When you are truly passionate about something, you can always make time for it.

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