The coronavirus pandemic brought abrupt changes in routines and livelihoods all around the world. Yet, some individuals displayed resilience while adapting to a changing world with passion and creativity. Ilija Wan ’23-24 is a particularly good example of someone in the Harvard community who approached the toils of the pandemic with ingenuity.
After Harvard’s campus shut down in March of 2020, Wan found himself taking online classes at his home in Miami and quickly realized that online school was not for him. As his freshman spring came to a close, he struggled to imagine continuing a learning platform that looked completely different from the in-person learning experience he had grown to love before being forced off campus. Before the pandemic, the idea of taking a gap year had never crossed Wan’s mind. Wan said that his immigrant family “didn’t understand what a gap year was” before he described it to them as “taking a little break from school” to explore other interests. This was a prospect he started to consider as it looked less and less like Harvard would reopen for in person classes in the fall.
The choice to take a gap year was made easier by Wan’s longstanding interest in real estate. “From a young age, I was always intrigued by buildings and real estate,” Wan said. During Harvard’s winter break in his freshman year, Wan decided to pursue his childhood dream and took an intensive, week-long real estate license course followed by the Florida state licensing exam. Then, this past July, he realized his distant goal of selling houses could become a full-time career.
This discovery arose when Wan had the opportunity to help his mother sell a house. Temporarily joining a family friend’s small brokerage firm to complete the job, Wan quickly sold his first house at the age of eighteen. Just days after he felt the success and satisfaction of selling a home, Harvard College announced that most sophomores would not return to campus for the 2020-2021 school year. Wan decided to take the year off from school to pursue real estate.
In early August, Wan was offered a job by a well-connected, successful agent at Compass, a real estate brokerage that specializes in selling high-margin, luxury homes in upscale markets. The agent, who specializes in selling high-end condominiums in Miami Beach’s thriving housing market, swiftly took Wan under her wing as one of her most prized employees.
How must it feel to have such a serious job at nineteen years old? While many of Wan’s peers are stuck in their homes all day for Zoom school, his day-to-day life looks drastically different, and much more ‘adult.’ “When I put on my suit and drive to a condo and walk in, everyone treats you like an adult and you feel like an adult,” said Wan. “I really think, wow, I really flashed forward with my life by a couple of years.”
After this upcoming summer, Wan plans a return to normal college life, a stark contrast to his current situation. As expected, he realizes that this will be a major adjustment. “I got the experience of obviously having a real income for a year, which is amazing,” Wan said. “It will be weird coming to college and not having that large amount of income coming in, just being a college student who wonders, ‘should I eat out today or go to the dining hall?’”
Wan still plans to work in real estate in some capacity for the rest of his time at Harvard. With residential real estate, he explained, you can keep your real estate license indefinitely as long as you associate it with a broker. “I already spoke to my boss and she agreed that I can keep it with her indefinitely until I decide to move it,” said Wan. “Which basically means if anyone at Harvard says, for example, ‘my Dad wants to move to Miami,’ or their family friend wants to buy somewhere in Palm Beach, I can say, ‘Oh, I’m a realtor. I know the best people in Miami and I can set you up.’” Wan does not need to visit the properties in-person, but can still get a referral fee, which is usually 10% of the agent’s commission.
While describing his plans for the future beyond Harvard, Wan said that while he will continue to pursue a concentration in applied mathematics and economics as he planned before the pandemic, his career vision has changed. He always saw himself going into finance, likely investment banking, and though he still plans to enter this industry for a few years after college, his long-term goals have shifted: “I’ve really fallen in love with [real estate], where I dream of becoming a big developer, making hotels and condos, building these staple pieces you see in a skyline that have my name on them,” Wan said. “The whole process of development, designing the building, the interior, the exterior, who are you going to sell it to, what are the restaurants going to be like, and who are you employing, it just creates so much economic growth and so much for a community.” With this goal of becoming a commercial real estate developer, Wan perfectly melds his passions for residential real estate and finance.
Wan’s success story is a product of dexterity and determination, revealing how an individual can derive opportunities even in times of distress. It’s a reminder that those dreams we keep in the back of our minds can come into fruition in unexpected ways, and at unexpected times—and in this case, with huge rewards.
Gogo Taubman ’24 (gtaubman@college.harvard.edu) recommends that readers looking to purchase a home in Miami should definitely contact Ilija Wan.