When longtime friends Max Doilney and Lauren Angerosa decided to pursue real estate as a full-time career, no one warned them of the identity crisis that would follow. Both came from different backgrounds: Doilney was the owner of The Corner Store and a former Park City Council member. Angerosa worked in adolescent mental health. So they had plenty to unpack when they started their joint venture about a year ago. Well, why not start a podcast? “The podcast, (Ski In, Sell Out), was born from the conversations that (Doilney) and I were having around real estate in Park City, our judgments of who those people are, of what the industry is,” Angerosa said. “It was a selfish way for me to figure out if this is a career move that I can make. And the more conversations that we had, I was like, ‘I think we should have a podcast.’” It’s their therapy, a structured way to wrestle with the stereotypes about real estate in a resort town — like, “it’s just easy money” — and an opportunity to learn what makes people choose to buy a home in a town like this. “The way that real estate impacts all of us and our emotional attachment to it is sort of where the podcast came from,” Doilney said. “Lauren and I, we would sit around and have coffee and talk about our judgments of this industry, our judgments of its impact on our community, our judgments of how real estate agents are perceived both in our past, our present, and our future.” But now, they’re “wearing that jersey,” he said, meaning they had some reconciliation to do.  “We have to really get right with this in order to do it well for our clients, and what better way than to just talk about it openly and really be vulnerable about it,” Doilney said. For both, it came back to people: themselves as people with transition stories, but also the people to the left and right of them.  “With the growth that Park City is experiencing, there’s certainly a strong narrative around growing pains and people not liking the way that it feels because the town is changing, but what seems to stay consistent is the reason that people stay,” Angerosa said. “Part of why they choose to stay here are the people.” So they began talking to everyone — Park City lifers, transplants, mayors, business owners and real estate agents — on what it took to call this place home. Because, Doilney said, it’s not easy to stay here. “Your job doesn’t move you to Park City. You have to choose to be here, you have to choose to stay here, and oftentimes you have to work really hard to figure out how to either get here or stay here just because economically it’s not feasible to live here,” Doilney said. The podcast, which went live last September, has also been a chance to share their own stories, a vulnerability that they hope lends credibility in an oversaturated market of real estate agents. Real estate agents Lauren Angerosa and Max Doilney say their podcast has been a way to put their authentic selves into their work. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record Angerosa acknowledged she was drawn to real estate for some of those stereotypical financial reasons.  “A very honest part of this conversation, too, has to do with the ability or the opportunity to make money in a town that costs a lot of money to live in, and coming from a job where nobody’s in mental health getting ahead financially,” she said. But also, after nearly two decades in mental health, the switch to real estate felt like a major departure, she said. It was through her conversations with Doilney that she began to realize that there was some overlap in this new venture. “I still felt like I could make an impact in an authentic way by guiding people through a really big decision, a big life change, a big financial commitment,” she said. Hailing from a prominent Park City family, Doilney follows in his father Jim Doilney’s footsteps in more ways than one. Jim started the Corner Store Pub Grill with his brother before passing it on to his son. He also served a term on the Park City Council starting in 1984, is known for work in the community like the creation of the Excellent Educator Awards in 1996, and has a lengthy and successful history as a developer in town. Jim talks this and more as the subject of the “Before Park City was Park City” episode of his son’s Ski In, Sell Out podcast. But Doilney said coming from such a real estate and development family — which doesn’t just include his father but also siblings and cousins — didn’t fully temper his skepticism of the industry. Born and raised in Park City, he watched the market evolve firsthand from “gritty ski-town roots to a global luxury destination.” He then served a full term on the Park City Council starting in 2020, focusing on housing and land use, learning how those decisions are made. So part of his own mental shift came from reframing the importance of real estate. “I’ve been making the case that real estate is the third leg of the stool: mining, skiing and real estate are the three industries that have impacted Park City the most,” Doilney said. “When you just talk about it from an economic perspective, real estate impacts Park City greater than any other industry.” According to the Park City Board of Realtors’ fourth-quarter report, the Park City real estate market ended 2025 with the second-highest sales volume in history at $5.75 billion in combined single-family and condominium sales. Those numbers, and home prices alone, reinforce this belief that real estate agents are looking for a “get rich quick” strategy, the two said. But it’s far from easy. “‘Oh, it’s easy money, I’ll do two $10 million transactions in a year, and I’ll make a fortune, and I’ll travel the rest of the year.’ Well, I guess my question to people who believe that is, ‘What in your life that has been that easy was worth doing, and did you do well?’” Doilney said. “It requires an awful lot of work to build trust and credibility to deal with clients who are going to buy and sell property at the level that they need to in Park City.” Are they trying to change the prevailing stereotype? Doilney said that’s impossible. But back to his jersey analogy, he and Angerosa are working to be the kind of real estate agents they can be proud of. “I couldn’t have a business partner that wanted to push their own agenda on such a big decision because of the commission that lies on the other side,” Angerosa said. “Are there people out there that that’s their agenda? Sure, absolutely. And that’s OK. I think that agenda could be tied to their need to provide for their family, and all the things that could be really earnest. But I think our desire is to create this experience for people and be able to show up as ourselves authentically in that.” What they can say, though, is that it hasn’t been “easy money” for them. Being a real estate agent is essentially building a business, Angerosa said, marketing yourself in addition to handling the nuts and bolts of listings. “The reason that it looks easy is because agents make it look easy. All the work that a lot of these people are doing is pretty invisible,” she said. “The amount of energy and time and resources that agents are putting into growing their business is quite significant.” For them, having a podcast is part of how they hope to grow, though it’s still too early to see any impacts. But if anything, the conversations they’ve had with longtime members in the community help keep them inspired. “Hopefully, the circle is that the podcast gives us credibility, credibility gives us clients, clients refer us because we’re credible and we do a good job, and they’re comfortable with us talking about our experiences,” Doilney said. They said the podcast, now over 1,500 all time listens, may grow with conversations around other towns — places like New York and Los Angeles, or Aspen, Vail and Sun Valley — hearing those residents’ transition stories or those real estate agents’ observations, always going back to the people.  “Having similar community-based human conversations at some point will be really fun to be able to hear and see the contrast between our community and another community,” Angerosa said.  “It’s about the agent, or whoever is on the other end of that line, and about them as a human, and what they’ve gone through to get to where they are,” Doilney said. “That’s really what the podcast is.” To listen to the Ski In, Sell Out podcast, visit skiinselloutpodcast.com. For more on Doilney and Angerosa’s real estate business, including blog posts and home listings, visit parkcity-realestate.com. 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