What is your name and where do you come from?
My name is Soo Young Lee and I go by Soo. I grew up in New York, moved here about 18 years ago and lived pretty much all over, LA.. Glendale, Burbank, Northeast LA, Downtown… now I am in Korea Town.
What is your background and how does that help your clients?
I opened a restaurant in Downtown LA called the Blue Dahlia. I opened it because I love entertaining people. I wanted a place that was an extension of my living room. My passion for wanting to help and for creating that kind of environment fits really well with what I am doing now. I want to be able to help people find a place they can call home and create wonderful memories and make that process as easy and simple as possible. You develop a skill for making people feel really comfortable, quickly and creating an environment where they felt safe and home-like. I have a knack for connecting with people and they trust me.
Why did you decide to make real estate as your career?
I thought about real estate even before I moved to California. People thought I had the personality for it. I love decorating homes and when I see a house I can envision the possibilities. Interior design is just decorating inside, but selling homes I get to help people find a space that they can call home and that is more rewarding. Home is where memories are made and it is where people come together. Real Estate was a way to bring my love of design together with a way of truly affecting peoples lives. Paint is temporary, but home is forever!!
Do you have a special skill or talent?
I am truly bilingual and equally comfortable in English and Korean. I am also very bicultural and able to relate equally well to someone foreign born as well as more Americanized people. I’ve had a really diverse life since I’ve been here and I think I am an especially good bridge between the two.
What is your most unusual hobby, interest or life experience?
When I was younger I used to be into extreme things. In college, we went to Jamaica with some girlfriends on Spring Break. We went to Ricks Cafe where people do cliff diving. And I thought, everyone else is jumping, must be fun! I had no idea how high the cliff was, but when I looked down, people looked like ants. But I started the process and I couldn’t turn around… so looked down and I said, “here I go” and took one giant step and went straight into the water. Wow! I made it, so I figured, “of I could do that”. There was a huge rock, maybe two stories high, and I decided to climb up. I am an expert swimmer, so I figured I could swim and dive into anything. So I climbed up and decided to do a jack knife. the rocks were uneven and I misjudged the height… instead of a jack knife I did a FLOP and spent the rest of the trip with a huge bruise from my thigh down to my ankle… not quite the look I wanted for my exciting Spring Break trip!
