“I don’t really act like a normal 18-year-old.”

Miles Daly is putting it lightly. The 2016 Redwood graduate is leagues ahead of his peers as he has become one of the youngest real estate agents in California. Daly has been developing his interest in the real estate industry for much of his life, and, after learning the trade during high school, is now pursuing the career head-on.

“I wanted to do something where I was my own boss and I could set my own hours and make an impact on an industry,” Daly said. “I knew I was never going to be a nine-to-five kind  of person and I have always had a salesman type of personality.”

Daly started on his career path in Sept. of 2015, his senior year of high school, when he began working as an intern at Pacific Union Real Estate’s Southern Marin office. In December of that same year, he also started as a personal assistant to one of Marin’s top producing agents, Shana Rohde-Lynch, which Daly said provided vital learning experience.

In August of 2016, he took the California Real Estate License Test, passing on his first attempt and launching his professional career. Daly recently sold his first home in Tiburon for just over three million dollars.

“In 28 years I have never seen anyone like him,” said Rohde-Lynch, who herself began working in real estate at 20 years old.

Rohde-Lynch said that Daly’s capabilities impressed even her.

“I was twenty and people would say you’re too young, well here’s a kid at eighteen who just closed a three million dollar home,” she said.

Age is one of the biggest obstacles Daly faces, he said, because there is a great focus on experience in the industry.

“Real estate is really all about trust; one of people’s biggest life investments is housing,” Daly said.

Daly said that he recognizes that everything he does with a potential client reflects on him, so being in the real estate industry has forced him to mature in order to appear more experienced with clients and other colleagues.

Gaining respect in the industry can be one of the biggest challenges stemming from age, according to Rohde-Lynch.

“He has an ability to carry himself like somebody who is older and wiser,” she said. “The fact that he can carry himself can fool some people into thinking he is not eighteen.”

Daly is currently attending Sonoma State University and said that another significant challenge he faces is managing his time between school and work.

“When I’m at school and have class, it’s waking up for my 8 a.m. class at 5:30 or 6 to answer and send out emails. While I’m eating at the cafeteria, I’m checking my phone. When I’m walking to classes or during breaks, I’m always on my phone calling clients doing anything I need to get done,” Daly said.

Daly said he lives on campus, but doesn’t have classes on Mondays or Fridays so he travels back to Marin on weekends.

“In Marin, it’s looking at new listings that have come on the market and seeing if they would work for some of my clients, going to preview some of the houses, driving around looking at houses, taking pictures and just kind of getting a knowledge of what is on the market,” he said.

Real estate can be a make or break career, especially when done in a place like Marin, according to Daly, because there are great opportunities with the value of houses in the market, but the industry can also be very competitive making it difficult to get started.

At Sonoma State, Daly is currently working towards earning an Environmental Studies major with a concentration on Urban Planning, which he said he hopes will complement what he has already learned as a real estate agent.

“I didn’t want to focus too much on business because I already basically am doing business, so I wanted to do something that I didn’t really know about and that I could learn,” Daly said.

He said that he plans on pursuing real estate after college as a career that he hopes to continue and improve upon throughout his life.

“I have no doubt that he will succeed in a very big way,” Rohde-Lynch said. “He’s a rare find.”