PHOTO: Graham Stephan earns most of his money making YouTube videos CNBC Make It
Graham Stephan pulls up to a high-end Hollywood Hills property in his matte black Tesla Model 3. It’s a four-bed, 2,300-square-foot home listed for $2.169 million by The Oppenheim Group, where Stephan has worked as a realtor since 2015.
He’s sold multiple properties like it — and every time he closes a deal, he collects a nice commission check.
As of September 2019, Stephan has earned $77,152 in real estate commissions on the five properties he’s sold so far this year. But that represents just a fraction of his income. While the 29-year-old millionaire got his start in real estate, he now earns most of his money making YouTube videos.
Stephan, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, never dreamed he’d make his living as a YouTuber. He was earning good money as a realtor, a career he started at 18 after he didn’t get into college. He’d watched YouTube videos for years — “it was my version of TV,” he tells CNBC Make It — but didn’t think he had the personality to be a creator himself. “It looked like such a fun thing to do and I’d always wanted to do it, but I also felt like, Who would want to watch me?”
About three years ago, he decided to film and upload a video. It was an explainer on how to be a successful real estate agent that he shot “selfie-style” on his iPhone.
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