How a Homeless Single Mom Built a Six-Figure Real Estate Career

early 20s, 1920 to selling multimillion dollar homes. I'm the kind of person when I see something I know what I want and I'm going to get it.

“And when I told my fiance, you need to come over here and look at this house right now,”

I was dead serious. Like I was like, if the foundations good, I'm good. Basically, there's

so many picky buyers that they pick the house apart. And I feel like they miss out on a good opportunity to buy a great home, just by being picky about a couple things that I would look at and think that's not really a big deal. Stacy Lerman is a resilient, client-focused, top-performing realtor, serving Marilyn's eastern shore, known for her strategic approach, exceptional client service, and consistent results.

She has built a trusted referral-based business by putting her clients first. I want to be able to come here if I didn't have the freedom and could make my own schedule and things like that. Now, if I was in the middle of a contract or a negotiation or something, I would have pushed it back, but I took this time out of my calendar to do this. Freedom is worth more than any amount of money that I can imagine.

Yeah. Like, I would not give up my freedom for any amount of money. It's not over, I'm telling how we're... The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host again, Jason Langen, and we're down here during the semi-finals of the World Cup,

and yeah, it's a sunny Miami Beach and the new studios. You can buy second guests here in the podcast and the new place. So yeah, introduce yourself, what's your name, where you from, and what's your business? My name is Stacy Lerman. I'm from the eastern shore of Marilyn, originally Baltimore, Marilyn, and my business is a residential real estate agent with Benson and Mangled Real Estate. Okay, and how far is that from DC area? 45 minutes to an hour from DC.

“Okay. Yeah, so yeah, I kind of learned about you. We had just filmed your episode, right?”

What do you think of the new studios? Oh, I love it. Yeah. It's nice here. Yeah. I have the cafe, you know, you have free food. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's kind of got that, you know, South Beach vibe, you know, the area is really nice. Like right outside. Yeah, they're much nicer than the old studios, but he's done a fantastic.

Well, I can't, I guess I can't say if the old studio was nice because I've never seen it.

Yeah, this is a nice studio. Right on, right on. I can't compare it. Yeah. So yeah, how did the filming go? You know, you kind of, from what you were thinking, and your nerves and how did the actual filming go? So to be honest, I was very nervous. Yeah. I didn't need all the students. I didn't. I didn't need all day. I was so nervous. It was a different type of experience for me that I wasn't used to. Yeah. It's a little different when you're in the

hot seat facing all the cameras. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we got through it. You did a great job. Right. And you're also, you're my second guest here, but you were my first guest for our new show, America's Top Agent's. So you're a real estate agent, right? And your story is a phenomenal hero's journey going from, you know, homeless for two years and you're early

20s, 1920 to selling multimillion dollar homes. Wow. You know, it's been an incredible journey.

It's been an incredible journey. So kind of tell us about your focus in real estate and yeah, what you're doing in real estate. My focus in real estate is basically residential real estate services. Trying to stay with the luxury, you know, waterfront properties on in St. Michael's. My office isn't St. Michael's, but my fiance and I, we moved to Carolina County. We bought up waterfront home in Carolina County a couple years ago, but so it's like, I guess an hour

from my office. So I actually try not to go to the office too much anymore. I have a home office

“now. Okay. And I, I do a lot of my work from my home office. Yeah. Yeah. And how's that transition been?”

Actually pretty well. I actually, I hate going to the office now. My actual office in St. Michael's, which don't hit me wrong. I love St. Michael's. It's in the ride's not bad at all, but it's just nice to kind of get up and, you know, go downstairs to my office and start working right away.

hitting a lot of paperwork? Are you scrolling through Zillow looking for water from like,

“what's that means for you? So a lot of it is basically checking my email. I do have Zoom meetings.”

I do a lot of advertising for my listings. Right now I have about 10 to 15 listings. I'm trying to get advertising out on. So there's that. I also do broker price opinions. So I actually do broker price opinions for Kelly Blue Book Home. So I do that as well. So like I said, kind of in my interview, more than one form of income. So tell me what's what's a price opinion? So a broker price opinion is the opinion of the price of a home. So Kelly Blue Book will, you know, like Kelly Blue Book

does cars and stuff like that, but they do the same thing for homes now. Okay. So basically I will go

and it's not an appraisal because I'm not a licensed appraiser. It's just an opinion of price by going through all the comps and stuff like that basically. Okay. And so yeah, I was going to ask you

“about you have a beautiful historical home right on the water. Yeah. Tell us about the historical home”

purchase because it sounds nice. Yeah. When you look from the outside. Yeah. But on the inside, all the old plumbing and piping, you know, maybe you don't, you maybe you want historical on the outside new one the inside. Yeah. That's not that way. So I'd like to keep a lot of, I love old houses. And I like to keep the charm of old houses. Any kind of style or just old and colonial. It's an old farmhouse, colonial farmhouse. Yeah. It was built in the 1870s. We actually have pictures from

settlement, a black and white pictures of horse and buggys in front of the house. Oh wow. Yeah. It's yeah. So there's a lot of history there. And I, I love that part of it. So my fiance is a contractor

and we basically had to remodel a lot of the stuff. I mean, we moved right in. Yeah. But we had to

remodel, you know, a full bathroom remodel stuff like that. We tore up all the blue and pink carpets that were in there. So blue and pink. Yeah. It was literally a scene out of the, probably the 80s. Yeah. Maybe early 80s. And it was an elderly couple that we purchased it from. That was a sad story. But we purchased it from their, um, his stepchildren. And, um, basically, yeah, ripped out all the blue. I mean, the wallpaper, some of it's still pink, some of it's still green. But I do want

to keep some of the, you know, previous look of it. Yeah. And so how, how hard is it to do that? Because are you restoring the old furniture to a usable kind of modern style or are you rebuilding but in a historical way? Like, what's that mean? So we're doing a lot of modern finishes. Like, um, we put some stainless steel appliances in there. Um, believe me, we're not done. We're going to be remodeling this house for probably years to come in. Yeah. And I'm one of the projects. Yes.

This is the project. But I'm also one of those people. I'm not satisfied with, I want it to be

better and better and better. Yeah. Um, so we're going to continue on the process. But we basically

gutted the main bathroom and remodeled the whole bathroom. Yeah. Um, like I said, we've reparked us out. We've painted, um, all our furnitures in there. None of the previous furnitures in there, but we did find a suitcase up in the attic that had some old historic, you know, stuff in it. So that was pretty cool. Oh, like what? So, um, actually my fiance brought it down and it looks like an old suitcase from like the wars like, like, like, like, soggy. Yeah. And then, and so he's like going

through it and I'm like, what do you, where do you get that suitcase from? Yeah. I was in the attic because they left some stuff in the attic. Oh, whoa. And it was basically, you know, pictures, it looked like pictures of his family, you know, black and white pictures stuff like that.

“I think he had lived there for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, did you keep it in”

enough stuff? Like, it sounds like I'd make a nice picture frame out of that. You know what? So that gentleman, um, we think he passed away his wife had passed away before him. And he was, like, an assisted living home. So I don't know what we'll do with the pictures because we don't know who to contact. Yeah. Um, maybe his stepkids, but I don't even know how to get a hold of them. But I mean, it's, it's nostalgic. So I'd like to do something with it, but right now I just don't know.

Um, so what I wanted to ask you was about using AI in the modern real estate game. Do you use it? Because I feel like the way that people are real estate agents are using it is that they'll have

or mid-century modern style or, you know, you have so many different options to kind of dress up the

room, right? Uh, are you using it? So I started using AI. My first opinion of AI was, if I'm not

using it, I'm behind in the game, right? Yeah. So then I started using it. And it might have been the company that I hired, but I was not really impressed with what they were doing with the AI. Um, so I was with them probably for about, I gave them six months and I said, you know, let's see how this goes. And after six months, I really didn't get, I didn't really get anything out of it.

“I did. Yeah. So I just, I wasn't going to continue talking. How long ago was that?”

About a year ago. A year ago. So I, so that's happening a year and a year. So I'm definitely going to find another company or do something else with AI because it seems like there's a lot of robotics stuff going on around here, like with the self-driven cars. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're like, what's way, folks? Oh, yeah. I remember where we live. So it's like, it's a self-driven car, like, a taxi picking every, oh, I know. And I, we're looking at cars driving down the street by

themselves. And we're like, what the heck is going on here? And then it's a self-driving Jaguar act. Yeah. And we're like, it's a Jaguar. And then we see these like little robotic cooler looking things going down. Yeah. I'm like, what is going on in Miami? Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of

for it. Actually, I've been here about two years now. And I've never taken a driverless car or never

ordered anything from, from those little robot things. The funny thing is we were going to take a

“waymo over here. Yeah. It's like, well, I was like, well, what if you want to, you know, leave and,”

you know, you want to go do something else. You don't, you won't have the car. You'll have to go do another waymo. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's an app. You have to download. We, we looked into it, but it was just easier to drive the car over here. And, and what about, uh, technology? Are you using any drone technology for your, for your footage? Yeah. So my photographer has a drone license in the state of Maryland. If you go above a certain height or level up and up into the sky,

you have to have a license to fly a drone. Yeah. So my photographer, um, that does all my pick my listing photos. She has a drone and she has his license to use it. Otherwise, if you don't have a license, I don't think you can use a drone. Nice. Nice. And how has that kind of elevated your photos for for in terms of, in terms of selling the house when you see those, those photos, right? Because photos are so important. Oh, yeah. Right. Uh, would you say, would you say those, those drone

photos add a lot to it? Oh, yeah. It's the first experience people see. And if they can see above the house and the landscape and what it's around, like it could be a mile or a block from the water. Yeah. And people are like, oh, well, that's a block from the water. It's a mile from the water. I like that house better than the house that doesn't have drone pictures. Because I don't know where in, in the vicinity that is actually located. Mm. Now, when people are clicking through

zill out, right? And you got that drone photo. Would you rather have the arrow pointing out the house when you're in that drone footage to say, oh, that's the house. Oh, yeah. Would you rather the natural one where it's, and they, they kind of hunt for the house where it is because sometimes

“you're clicking through it. Yeah. You see that drone photo. And you're like, whatcha house is it?”

Yeah. So I like both options. I like to have the, the landscaping in the area above the home, kind of just like a vast region. Yeah. But also the buyer wants to know where the home is exactly local. Because you've seen it a thousand times. And they just got a couple. Yeah. So you can see that red line that goes to the house and then the arrow pointing down. I feel like, yes. The buyer knows where the house is. Yeah. Why don't you get the land? Yeah. Yeah. No, I like that. Great. Well, talking

about your historical house, right? Is, did you have, you know, there's like those TV shows house centers where you're buying your house. Yeah. Option A, B, and C, right? Do people, do a lot of your, did you have that? So you're going to believe the story. Okay. So the story is, we were renting a property in St. Michael's and we were living in St. Michael's and I had a client call me and say, I really want to look at this property on the water. And I said,

where's it located? They were like, it's located in Caroline County. I said, okay, what, you know, what time do you want to see it? Whatever. So we set up the appointment to go see it. And she said, she was an older lady. She said, this is way too much work for me, honey. She was like, I, she's like, I just don't have the extra money to put it into this. And I, I looked at her and I was like,

well, if you don't want it, I do. Yeah. And she was like, really, I said, this house is amazing.

Yeah. I was like, I'm in love. Did you say that? It's all right. No, no, no, no. I was like, in the back of my mind, I was like, well, she doesn't buy it. I'm going to buy it. So I called my fiance and I said, you need to come look at this house right now. Yeah. And he was like, what's so great about the house?

underneath the crawl space and all that stuff. And he's like, you know, this house has really good

“bones. Yeah. You got to look at the foundation, right? Yeah. He said this house has really good bones.”

And he liked it more for the property because he was like, it's two acres on the water or almost two acres on the water. And then basically there's like, I guess a spot of woods on the side of it. So there was room for expansion as well. Yeah. So he was loving it for the property or the land. And I was loving it for the house because I love old houses. So we just came together and we were like, okay. Yeah. Let's buy this. So as a lover of old houses, right? You're in South Beach and there's a

lot of that. Well, Art Deco, right? How, how, how's it been? Now I want to buy a house here. I know. It's amazing.

Like, we're looking at the landscaping and actually we stopped in St. Augustine before coming here. Okay. St. Augustine, the houses there are gorgeous. Yeah. The historic, the historic district, have you ever been there? I have not. Oh my gosh. Is it the trees? It's, it's gorgeous. Like, so there's history there. And I'm, I don't know. I guess I'm a big history buff and I didn't know it. Mm-hmm. So I had to read the history up on St. Augustine while we were there because I was like,

I need to know what happened here. Yeah. You know, and it's like, it started back in the 15, 1600s where like the Spanish tried to attack and they, they built this big fort there. So there's this big fort there. I forget what's called, but anyway, and it's still there today. Wow. Like, you can go see it today and it had a mode around it and everything. So I'm like, oh, excited and worked up. I want to go see it. And then we're walking through the town,

cute little town. Kind of reminds me of St. Michael's, but a little bit bigger. Mm-hmm. And the houses were just so, you could tell they were back from like, I feel like it's similar to how I felt when I went to Savannah, Georgia. Yeah. Right. That's what my fiance said, it reminds him of Savannah, Georgia. Okay. Yes. Savannah is amazing. Oh my gosh. You need to try,

“you need to visit St. Augustine because it's, I was like, when did you buy a house here?”

There's also a line looking at houses. I love that. And that's the thing. So historical with South Beach and you have all the art deco. I mean, I would ride my wife twice a day. We'd ride the

neighborhood on the E-bikes. And it's, we never get sick. How you do ride the E-bikes? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's dangerous. Here, it's like the safest thing. Really? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Actually, we have a tandem. So she goes on the back line and I, and I drive. That's all. And we never get sick of it, right? And so there's kind of like this battle of, you know, all the new developers coming in and building, wanted to build these these models. Is there a bunch of new developers in this area? The trying to get it. Okay. It seems like every, every, every time you open up the local

Miami views, there's some new developer trying to come up with something, right? So there's a lot of developers trying to develop the Eastern Shore right now. But the Eastern Shore is so rural. Every, the residents are against it. Yeah. Like the locals, especially because they're like,

we want our, you know, we want the Eastern Shore house always been and they're not into change.

So when the developers come in, it's usually a mess. Yeah, it's usually an upboard. Yeah. I just love the historical stuff. Like when I was in Vegas, it was mid-century modern. Yeah. What a cool, what a cool style. Because it's not only a style, it's like the lifestyle goes with mid-sense and too, you know? Especially in Vegas, you know, you had all the entertainers and in some of the houses, you know, they have like the hidden rooms. Yeah. There was like the, the moonshine

facts. The eyes, you got to see all that stuff. We basically stayed in the casino district. Yeah. And we made the mistake of driving there and driving back from Maryland, which was exhausting. Like we were exhausted by the time. Yeah. What's up with the drag? Because you drove from Maryland. Now it's a kid here. So I used to fly all the time. Yeah. And now that I have more freedom, and this is the God's honest truth. Like I don't want to someone to tell me when I have to be

at the airport. Okay. And then I don't want someone to tell me I have to rent a car. And then I don't want someone to tell me when I have to leave to go back home. All right. So I just want to do whatever I want. So you're talking about being one of America's top agents was the freedom. Yes. That you get and I can't really take that far anymore. Because flying has restrictions. Right.

“You can't take certain things on the airplane. You have to have little bottles, travel size stuff.”

I'm not doing it. I'm not. It's become a big asshole. Yeah. Yeah. Plus on just to get through security. I mean after 9/11 everything changed. Right. So like, I mean, you could I missed a plane one time, track trying to get through security. And they were, you know, there was a million people there. And then it took me like, took us like an hour and a half to get through security. And I was with a co-worker of mine in the dental field. And we worked for this company where

And the doctor we were working for at the time was so upset. And I was like, I don't like this. You know, I was like, yeah. We shouldn't be missing flights. So yeah. So you're all about the freedom. Yeah. Right. Well, I'm a Sagittarius. Okay. The travelers of the zodiac. So yeah. I love freedom. And I'm a Gemini. So my voice. Oh, yeah. There you go. I don't know. I might travel. I don't know. You seem like you are because you've done a lot of like traveling and moving around.

I have. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not into the whole star charts and things. But I guess Sagittarius, the travelers. Yes. We're the free birds, the travelers of the, yes. And I, and I figured

“that I figured that's why I am the way I am when I was younger. So yeah. I mean America's top agent,”

you, you've grown to selling these multi-million dollar houses. And yeah, you were talking about it

in your episode. And it was just so interesting to see like, you know, you know, all the tips. Oh, and what I was going to ask you, right? Is there a line that you wouldn't cross when buying your historical house? Like, you know, there's sellers when they, they look at a house or I mean buyers when they look at a house, right? Ah, this is too much fixing up here and there, right? For you with that historical house, what would, like, what would be the line? I had foundation

bad plumbing. So a bad foundation, yes. I was happy that it had good bones. Yeah. But I'm the kind of person when I see something. I know what I want. And I'm, and I'm going to get it. Yeah. And when I told my fiance, you need to come over here and look at this house right now.

I was dead serious. Yeah. Like, I was like, if the foundation's good, I'm good, basically.

That's for the drawing. Yeah. I wouldn't want to get into redoing the foundation of a home, especially that old. Yeah. Like, it's over 100 years old. So that would be where I cross the line. But there's so many picky buyers right now, especially where I live. It's a buyer's market. There's so many picky buyers that they pick the house apart. And I feel like they miss out on a good opportunity to buy a great home, just by being picky about a couple things that I would look at

and think that's not really a big deal. Yeah. You know what I mean? So yeah, you're just really quick. I ask everyone, what do you most excited about? In real estate or life? Doesn't matter. Excited about the future. I feel like this is the best it's ever been for me. I'm excited about the future. I'm excited about, you know, just seeing where it takes us.

And, you know, you never know what the future is going to bring. Yeah, excited about that freedom that

you all your hard work has gone. Yeah. Well, I'm telling you freedom is worth more than any amount of money that that I can imagine. Yeah. Like, I would not give up my freedom for any amount of money.

“Yeah. And that's what that's what success is and money, right? Money buys you the freedom”

for the kind of, you know, buy the house you want, buy the stuff you want, travel where you want, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, I want to be able to come here if I didn't have the freedom and could make my own schedule and things like that. Yeah. Now, if I was in the middle of a of a contractor negotiation or something, I would have pushed it back. But I took this time out of my calendar to to do this, you know, so I had the freedom to do it. And how do people find you? So I have a

website, I'm on Facebook. Yeah. So they can find me basically in one of those. What's the website? So my website is stacylerman.benceandemangle.com. Okay, and spell out that for your viewers. Stacylerman. Yeah. Stacylerman.benceandemangle. So it's my name, STACIE. Okay. L-U-H-R-M-A-N dot benceandemangle spelled out b-E-N-S-O-N-A-N-D-M-A-N-G-O-L-D.com. All right.

“And I'm sorry, it's a long, well, Stacylerman. Stacylerman. This is like, is it E-Y or I?”

I-E. Yeah. And then Lerman is not that common. No, you got that silent agent there. And then funny thing is my dad thought it was German until he did the ancestry DNA. And now he's like, okay, we're more Scottish. And I'm like, okay, great. I thought I was German this whole time. Well, thank you so much for joining and sharing your story. It really is the hero's journey to the freedom that you've allowed yourself and your hard work has gotten you to today.

But thank you. It was a joy to listen to. And thanks for joining us, honey. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right. And thank you guys for joining us again. And yeah, we got that new show dropping in hot and America's top agents. We're going to be talking to all the best real estate agents around the country seeing how they sell these houses and commercially estate, you know, all the whole country. Yeah. So yeah. And we hope to see you next time on another episode