Ashley Simonelli, 36

Ashley Simonelli couldn’t believe her good fortune in the mid-2000s, when she pulled into an apartment complex parking lot in Fort Myers.

Then a Hodges University student, she sought affordable housing and maybe a job to help pay for the meager abode. A sign on the wall of the management building offered both: 50% of rent for people who got a job helping out around the complex. “As a broke college student, that sounded great,” she says.

Not only was it great in the moment, it also opened her eyes to a career in real estate. Growing up in LaBelle, a small town in Hendry County, most women, says Simonelli, went into health care. Usually that meant being a nurse. “My heart wasn’t in that,” she says, so she switched majors, to business management. “I fell in love with real estate, with the hustle and bustle.”