Some real estate agents count their days in closings. Neyshia Go counts hers in phone calls—sometimes as many as 140 in a single day.
In the latest Realtor.com® video series, which follows a day in the life of top luxury agents, Go gets candid about what it’s like to work at the top end of the industry, where no two days look alike, even when the basic ingredients repeat: showings, calls, emails, negotiations.
“The clients are different, the properties are different, people are different, and the problems are definitely different,” she says.
That variety is exactly what keeps her hooked on the business. Since joining Sotheby’s International Realty in late 2020, The Go Group has listed over $600 million in real estate spanning the greater Los Angeles and Santa Barbara areas. The Go Group has also been ranked the No. 1 team in both Beverly Hills and Southern California among all Sotheby’s International Realty company-owned offices.
Go says her day often starts before most people have finished their first cup of coffee, including a 7 a.m. call to a client in Portugal. It’s a pace that demands more than ambition.
“You have to be really in love with this business—maybe a little bit crazy, as all are—to build a meaningful career in this business,” she says.
Go adds that her husband handles the consulting and team side of her operation, a partnership she describes as one of the most rewarding parts of building a business alongside a life partner.
The Los Angeles transplant is primarily a listing agent, working the sellers’ side of the table in what she calls a buyer’s market. Rather than treat that as a setback, she treats it as the terrain she’s chosen to compete on.
“You have to have it within you to be able to lift yourself up—and the people around you,” she says.
That mindset was put to the test after the passage of the Los Angeles “mansion tax,” when she went three to four months without a closing—the toughest stretch of her career. Her response, though, wasn’t to wait it out. She doubled down, working longer hours and staying in the office for 10-hour stretches until she made something happen.
It’s a philosophy she extends to anyone in the business: Your book of business is “something that’s only waiting for you to till and toil at.” In other words, the opportunity is there, but it has to be worked for.
Despite the grind, Go is emphatic that the brokerage side of real estate will remain a human business, because so much of it depends on physically being there for an emotional, high-stakes decision.
“By the time I’m replaced, I hope I’m dead,” she jokes—a half-serious nod to how personal and irreplaceable she believes the work is.
Get real estate news in your inbox
Fia Ramo is a video editor at Realtor.com. She has produced, written, and edited award-winning content for NBC, PBS, A+E Networks, Publicis Sapient, and Bustle Digital Group. Her work has been recognized by Digiday and Cannes Lions. When she’s not editing, she’s likely deep in TV analysis or searching for the best fried chicken in New York City.
