\u201cThis is one of my favorite buildings to show,\u201d Erica Parks says as she strides around an empty studio at 8 Spruce, a Frank Gehry tower of undulating glass and steel in the Financial District. The leasing officer who let us in watches from the doorway with a bemused smile as Parks films the space on her phone, clacking around the hardwood floors in nude heels and a backless seafoam dress, a Coach bag slung over her shoulder. Her friend and client Vegas, a Rockette-in-training, carries a Gucci bag and follows close behind. Parks examines the in-unit laundry and turns to Vegas: \u201cYou\u2019ll have to learn how to do your own laundry,\u201d she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
One reason Vegas may not know how to do her own laundry is because she is a teenager who\u00a0still lives at home with her mother. Which is also why she\u2019s a typical client for Parks, who is 19 and last year became the youngest licensed real-estate agent in the state. (Although Parks suspects she might be usurped by now.) \u201cI\u2019ve had clients ask how old I am,\u201d Parks says, \u201cand my favorite response is \u2018Old enough to be licensed.\u2019\u201d So what kind of teen decides to become a real-estate agent before she can legally drink? A theater kid, it turns out. Parks grew up doing professional theater and pageants, and she moved from Boston to New York City her senior year of high school to attend the Institute for American Musical Theatre. Then she entered Miss New York\u2019s Teen competition and won, which seemed like a great reason to stick around the city. Which meant finding a place to live \u2014\u00a0and a job. \u201cEverybody and their mother in the theater industry has done real estate at some point,\u201d Parks tells me. \u201cSo I was like, Let me try that.\u201d She got her license a month later, announcing the achievement with a set of glamour shots in Central Park, her red hair perfectly curled, again in seafoam (it\u2019s kind of her color): \u201cThis girl is officially NY\u2019s Youngest Licensed Real Estate Agent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt wasn\u2019t long before Parks joined Bond New York, and then Douglas Elliman took notice and poached her. (That announcement<\/a> featured more pageant posing at the firm\u2019s Tribeca office, this time in an icy-blue halter dress and gold hoops, with the caption \u201cDouglas Elliman: Erica\u2019s Version.\u201d) When we meet in June, she had just moved agencies again, this time to Mayell, a brokerage focused on millennial clientele. This might sound like the flitting of a teen, but Parks feels it\u2019s a strategic match: Douglas Elliman was too old-fashioned, she says. \u201cMy mentors had spent a lot of money posting on RentHop and I was like, You\u2019re listening to old men.\u201d Parks also says she was discouraged from using her personal social-media accounts for work, but she\u00a0found most of her clients \u2014 the majority of them Gen Z \u2014 by posting listings on her TikTok and Instagram. Were there other culture clashes involved in being a young agent? \u201cMamdani just added the pied-\u00e0-terre tax, and everybody in my industry hates it,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018You know what? We should be charging the billionaires.\u2019\u201d She prides herself on working with voucher clients and housing at different income levels. \u201cI feel like Gen Z is really going to change the industry, and I think the boomers might not like that too much.\u201d\u00a0For Parks, the idea is to lean into what gives her an edge in the industry \u2014\u00a0her youth, her perspective \u2014 not away from it. \u201cHey, I\u2019m a real-estate agent and my mom said that I could rent you this three-bed with a washer-dryer for no fee,\u201d she says in one of her front-facing videos<\/a>. \u201cBut only if it\u2019s okay with your mom.\u201d<\/p>\n Thus, an afternoon like this, showing Vegas (yes, she\u2019s named after the city) around a $4,600-a-month zero-bedroom. Parks met Vegas while doing the pageant circuit, and she is a typical kind of client: She\u2019s attending Pace University in the fall and looking to move into her own place for the first time. There\u2019s a giddiness to the tour. The two compare their spray tans before we set off to check out the building\u2019s amenities: a 50-foot indoor pool in a room of floor-to-ceiling windows, then a game room, which contains pool tables and a golf simulator. The latter confuses Vegas. What even \u2026 is it? \u201cThis is normal,\u201d Parks whispers. It\u2019s the mirrored yoga studio, though, that really lights up the two teen dancers. \u201cThis is so nice,\u201d Vegas says. As the tour concludes, the girls wave good-bye to the leasing officer. Once outside, Parks fishes a pair of blue flip-flops out of her purse and changes out of her heels. She hugs Vegas good-bye for now \u2014 she\u2019ll be joining her later that afternoon at the East Village vintage store Vegas and her mother own, where Parks works part-time.<\/p>\n The industry tends to shed agents, especially new ones \u2014\u00a0the median income for Realtors who have been working for less than two years is $8,100<\/a>. But spending an afternoon with Parks, one gets the sense that she\u2019s going to be fine. Parks juggles well, as one might expect: In addition to her job at Vegas\u2019s store, she also emcees, has brand deals (Quince and something called FoxyBae), runs a side business bedazzling<\/a> clothes for other pageant girlies, and has some money still coming in from her child-acting days. \u201cMy friends like to say I\u2019m the queen of side quest,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m always doing something random.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the future, college is not top of mind. \u201cIf this is what I want to do and I don\u2019t need a degree for it, why would I spend the time and the money on it?\u201d Parks tells me. What she has thought about, of course, is a potential reality show. She even has a name ready: Parks on Park. But she\u2019s also a pragmatist. Parks was 18 when she started out, but she\u2019s turning 20 in July. It might be too late for any kind of a TV deal. \u201cI think if I was going to get one, it would\u2019ve happened already,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n