Rose was born to the business, the only daughter of George Johnson, an African-American developer who started his company in 1974. Within 15 days of graduating from college, Rose had her real estate license, though she hedged her bets for a while, working in real estate part-time while on the fast track at a Fortune 500 company. “But I knew I’d end up at my family’s company,” she says. Her mother and three brothers also work in the firm.
Future builder? Rose closed 30 transactions and $5.8 million in sales in 2006, but her long-term goal isn’t just about increasing her sales. She wants to use her master’s degree in community development and create master-planned communities. She’s already the listing broker for three residential developers.
A multicultural mission: Another goal is to boost home ownership among minorities. To that end, Rose cochaired the HOME Show, a citywide multicultural home show cosponsored by the Houston Association of REALTORS® and several other real estate groups in 2006. Through the National Association of Real Estate Brokers’ “ABCs of Homebuying” program, she also trained almost 300 minority home buyers last year, and she organized her college sorority to educate African Americans about real estate investing.
Mission to serve: Rose is an officer in the Houston chapter of NAREB. After Hurricane Katrina, she organized volunteers for the Oprah Winfrey/Angel Network and personally volunteered time at a disaster relief center helping Katrina and Hurricane Rita victims.