By Megan Wadding
Jared Anthony, a local Realtor and talk-radio personality, has taken a very interesting and unconventional career path that has led him to where he is today—at the top of his game.
Anthony was born and raised in the military town of Lawton, Oklahoma. A hardworking student, he graduated high school a year early and attended the University of Central Oklahoma. By the age of 20, he had a bachelor’s degree in funeral-home management and mortuary science with a minor in piano performance.
Anthony got his start in the mortuary business by taking a job at a funeral home when he was just 16. “I’ve always been a little quirky. Morbid things have always fascinated me—things that people don’t talk about in public conversation [because it makes them] uncomfortable,” says Anthony. “Everyone in my family was shocked that I chose that path, [but] I liked it.”
From the Ground to the Skies
After having worked as a mortician/funeral director for several years, Anthony decided to explore his budding interest in aviation. “Flight school was a way for me to literally fly out of Oklahoma and experience the world,” Anthony says. “I moved to flying to experience life, people, and different cultures.”
Anthony attended flight school at Pan Am International Flight Academy in Phoenix, Arizona, and also earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix.
After completing flight school, Anthony moved around the country, beginning with a four-year stint in Dallas where he worked as an independent flight instructor. He was then hired by ExpressJet Airlines, which sent him to Southern California for four years and Atlanta for two years. He was finally assigned to Houston to serve his final two years with ExpressJet in 2012.
“The life of a pilot isn’t as glamorous as it looks on TV and in films,” Anthony says.
When Anthony turned 30, he decided to make yet another big career change into real estate—his true passion. Within a year of settling in Houston, he had his real-estate license.
Career Change
Anthony says that real estate sometimes reminds him of working in that funeral home back in Oklahoma. “Like funeral services, it’s 100 percent a customer-service job—except it’s for the living, not the dead,” Anthony jokes. “Real estate is also involved in funerals—those burial plots are a little piece of afterlife real estate, truly.”
Anthony, who is now 35 years old and in his fourth year as a Realtor, says that he loves everything about his job—but especially the fact that he has the opportunity to create his own success. “I’m not dependent on any CEO or corporation to create the life I want to live,” he says. “It is 100 percent up to me, and I get a thrill out of that alone.”
Anthony says that while his client-centered business can be stressful, it remains rewarding for him. “The most challenging part of the job is ensuring that every piece falls into place,” says Anthony. “My goal is that the client has a stress-free and efficient experience.”
Texas Real Estate
With a real-estate license for the State of Texas, Anthony is able to service the city of Houston and beyond.
Anthony believes that Houston is a great place to buy and own property, and that the areas west and northwest of the city are seeing the most increase in home value, particularly Sugar Land, in his opinion. “The real-estate market out there [in Sugar Land] is unbelievable. My top five areas would be Friendswood, Pearland, League City, Sugar Land, and Tomball. Let’s make it six [and include] Katy.”
LGBTQ Prospective Homebuyers
Anthony says that it may surprise most people, but the LGBTQ community is very spread out around the city of Houston. “We don’t all live in Montrose, nor do we want to,” he says.
Anthony points out that while LGBTQ home buyers want the same things as any other buyer, and seem to have similar concerns, every client is still individual. “They are all looking for something unique,” he says. “Last year, I closed deals for LGBTQ clients from Conroe all the way to Galveston and in between. It truly comes down to the individual.”
On the Air
Alongside his booming real-estate career, Anthony, who really is a jack-of-all-trades, has also been enjoying a side gig as a radio host and real-estate guru on a program called Real Estate U through iHeartRadio for the past two years.
According to Anthony, the show informs the consumer about all things real-estate related. He and his good friend E’Delano Craine, of Metropolitan Title, take questions live on the air covering a variety of topics. “I love to talk, and I’ve also been a fan of talk radio since high school,” he says.
The show airs live on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Vendors and sponsors are rotated between the segments.
According to Anthony, the show is the only live two-hour real-estate show in Texas, and attracts a large number of listeners. “Currently in Houston, our first hour has roughly 37,000 listeners [and] our 10 a.m. hour reaches nearly 45,000 listeners,” says Anthony.
The show is currently in the process of expanding to other markets, including Austin, which will bring the weekly Texas listenership to 69,000.
KPRC 950AM is an iHeartRadio station with a worldwide listenership of over 645 million listeners via iHeart’s online and downloadable app.
The show can also take questions from the website, via email, and on Facebook Livestream, which Anthony says is the best part. “Our Facebook Live is very interactive,” he says. “We are able to chat live with listeners/viewers and address their questions and comments in real time. We also take live calls.”
Anthony says the thing he enjoys most of all is giving well-researched opinions. “I spend about three to four hours a week pulling stories related to Houston real estate and commercial development,” he says. “We don’t go into a show blind. We always have a topic to focus on that week.”
With his quick wit and dry sense of humor, Anthony says he has also been known to drop callers if they get “sassy” with him on the show.
Free Time
Anthony, who lives with his partner and two dogs, leads an incredibly productive work-life. When he isn’t helping people buy and sell their homes or talking about real estate on the air, he says he loves to cook, go to the movies, binge on Netflix, or go to the beach and be on the water. Because his partner works for an airline, they are also able to travel quite frequently.
Megan Wadding is a frequent contributor to OutSmart magazine.
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