Amanda Ryan Ryan THE ACCIDENTAL AGENT

As a former high school and college athlete, Amanda Ryan was using her background in sports to begin a career as an athletic director. One cup of coffee changed all that.

Growing up in Medina, Ohio, a small town on the outskirts of Cleveland, Amanda Ryan played “just about every sport.” But it was women’s lacrosse that would take her away from her small-town roots to the Carolina coast near Myrtle Beach.

“I went to college to earn my bachelor’s degree in sports administration,” Ryan said. “I chose to go to Coastal Carolina University, so that I could continue to play lacrosse at college and escape the cold winters. Studying at the beach made college a little more enjoyable.”

Shortly after graduating college, Ryan moved back to Ohio and landed what she called her “dream job” as an athletic director for youth athletics. She loved working with athletes, coaches, and officials. As the sports seasons changed, so did the workcreating game schedules, scheduling officials, creating playoff brackets, and awarding trophies to kids who were passionate about being the best they could be. “Kids are so passionate about being the best, and I loved watching them develop their skills throughout the seasons,” she said.

She worked at that job for two years and imagined working there for a lot longer. It wasn’t until she took a summer vacation to Texas for the first time and met Nick through a mutual friend that her plans began to change. That summer she spent many weekends in Texas before making the move to Dallas-Fort Worth permanently—a move that would alter her career path, as well.

“In Texas, athletic directors needed teaching degrees and teaching just wasn’t for me,” Ryan said. She was determined to still work in the sports world and ended up accepting a job at an athletic-wear fundraising company. This allowed her to utilize her sports background and continue building relationships with coaches and athletic directors. But then, grabbing a coffee with a friend changed all that.

“A girlfriend of mine asked me to go for coffee, and she shared her new career path in real estate,” Ryan said. “I knew I had more to provide to the world than sitting behind a desk working a nine-to-five job. I wanted to help people and be the reason for big changes in their life. I was immediately sold on real estate and started my classes shortly thereafter.”

For Ryan, real estate isn’t just opening doors and showing pretty homes. It’s about building relationships and helping families make their dreams a reality.

“There was this one time when I reached out to the sellers of a home that was listed and never sold,” she recalled. “They expressed their desire to sell their home, and because it didn’t sell, they lost out on a home they had an offer in on. I empathized with them and knew I could get the job done. After they decided to hire me, I helped stage the house, hired a great photographer who even took shots of the property with a drone. I listed their home at a higher price than before, and we received multiple offers on their home over one weekend.”

The icing on the cake of helping those clients was that Ryan was also able to land them an even better home than the previous one they had under contract.

“I actually just helped them sell that home and upgrade to another one,” Ryan said. “Our clients trust us, and they continue to hire us time and time again—that’s what I live for!”

Another thing that Ryan lives for is finding new ways to put her real estate skills to work. She is the leader of On the Move DFW, which she says is “a team of seven powerful women all on the same mission; to help clients, achieve big goals, and have fun while doing it.”

Being in real estate also means that Ryan isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. During COVID when the world was locked down, she and Nick bought a house and worked for five weeks renovating it. While they hired out much of the work, they did actually build a few things together.

“We built the staircase together,” Ryan said. “We watched a lot of YouTube videos, bought the tools, then started the project together. We had a lot of fun even when we ran into obstacles.” One of the most challenging projects of that renovation was painting all 107 cabinets.

“Nick owns a hot rod shop where he and his team build and restore classic cars,” Ryan said. “He’s the painter. So needless to say, we couldn’t just paint the cabinets with brushes. We had to sand every inch of each one and use a sprayer to paint them to avoid brush marks.”

The Ryans recently bought a commercial building in Burleson and renovated it for the new home of Nick’s business, Killer Hot Rods. Ryan also has her mind set on owning an RV storage facility.

While learning something new and using the knowledge to grow her real estate portfolio is what motivates her, Ryan is still very much an athlete who is driven by competition.

“All throughout high school I was a cheerleader and ran track. I played lacrosse in both high school and college. I had always been a part of a team where there was competition,” she said. “After graduating college, it was a bit of a shock to not have a team anymore. I missed the sense of community with a team.”

A few years ago, she ran into a girl that she went to college with and who told Ryan that she was into bodybuilding. Ryan decided to give it a go.

“While bodybuilding is an individual sport, you meet up with others who were also competing,” she said. “There are all these goal driven people working on decreasing weight or increasing muscle mass. Working on those goals when you have a community helps make it that much more fun.”