Washington Ho’s Real Estate Brokerage Expands to Austin

The brokerage founded by reality TV personality Washington Ho is planting a flag in the Texas capital.

White House Global Properties, a Houston-based commercial and residential real estate firm founded in 2023, has expanded into Austin, with plans to hire 30 to 50 agents over the next few years, the Austin Business Journal reported.

The office is operating out of The Malin, a coworking space at 1515 East Cesar Chavez Street in East Austin, and will be led by managing partner Aaron Brandom.

The brokerage tends toward luxury listings, but it intends to represent all sectors of the Austin market, including lower-cost residential, commercial, industrial and development properties.

The firm is in talks with developers to secure listings for over 60 units across undisclosed locations in the Austin area, CEO Angelica Smart said.

Commercial targets include hotels, restaurants and retail sites. Ho said he sees each major market as uniquely challenging and is treating Austin as its own ecosystem.

Ho is known for starring in HBO Max’s “House of Ho,” a show about his family’s multigenerational wealth and business empire. He grabbed attention last year for listing Houston’s “Darth Vader” house at 3201 University Boulevard, which asked nearly $4 million before it was taken off the market last month.

He has pitched White House Global Properties as an ambitious real estate venture that aims to disrupt traditional brokerages by way of training agents that can move between residential and commercial sectors with ease.

The firm has a 40-person team in Houston — 32 residential and 8 commercial agents — and sees Austin as the next logical step in its regional push. He imagines looking into a Dallas-Fort Worth expansion next.

Ho co-founded the brokerage with Smart after leaving eXp Realty in 2023 over disagreements with its commission structure.

The duo launched White House Global Properties with a tiered fee model designed to better reward top-producing agents and to keep more of the brokerage share for themselves. Ho is also behind a THC seltzer startup called HoBuzz.

— Judah Duke