Owning Manhattan’s Jessica Markowski on What Sets Show Apart: ‘You Get the Good, Bad, Ugly and Crazy’(Exclusive)

Owning Manhattan is the latest entry into a crowded market of real estate shows, and one of its stars is weighing in on what makes it unique.

“I think what sets us apart is the fact that we are very real,” Jessica Markowski tells PEOPLE of the Netflix series, which follows the agents at Ryan Serhant’s eponymous brokerage, SERHANT. “Every transaction I did on the show or during the course of the time of filming, it was all real time. And that's what I think makes it really special.”

“You get the good, bad, ugly and crazy, and we captured every single bit of that, right?” she adds. “When people watch real estate, they think it's so glamorous and beautiful and ‘I should become a broker.’ But we got to show that it's not as cookie cutter and easy. At least I hope we portrayed that there's obstacles that we all face. There's bidding wars, there's, sadly, drama.”

Markowski’s storyline on the series includes navigating tensions between two of her friends at the brokerage, up-and-coming agent Savannah Gowarty, and Jonathan Normolle, who insults Gowarty and other colleagues on a podcast he records with Markowski, and later gets fired.

The New York native credits Serhant for being an “inspiring” leader, saying she “couldn’t ask for a better boss” than the Million Dollar Listing: New York alum.

“He understood my angle of how I'm able to generate leads through social media better than any other broker or brokerage would ever understand,” Markowski says. “So having him as a boss, he's very, very, very, very smart and we all look up to him.”

Markowski’s first job after college was as head of communications for Screenshop, a company co-founded by Kim Kardashian that was sold to Snapchat in 2021.

She says that experience piqued her interest in content creation, and real estate was a natural next step.

“My family's in real estate in New York, and at that point in my life, it allowed me to realize, ‘Okay, this is time for me to really combine social media and real estate together," because that's my medium of communication.”

Markowski’s favorite highlight from the first season of Owning Manhattan, which premiered on June 28, was winning Social Media Influencer of the Year at the Red Awards, a real estate industry event.

“Something that I will remember for the rest of my life is obviously just receiving the social media award, just having Ryan speak so highly of me and coming to the event,” she says. “It allowed me to see how much he believes in me.”

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Markowski, who grew up in the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn, is also proud that her personal backstory has resonated with viewers of the show.

“I'm so forever grateful for my story, and my background comes from my parents who immigrated from Poland. That immigrant story really touched so many people in Poland and in Europe,” she says. “So it's just really fun to see how I was able to have such an impact, not just in America, not just in New York, but around the world, for all immigrants who have dreams and ambitions to do things."

"I think just talking to people outside of America really was just so inspiring to see how much I'm able to show an American dream," she adds.

Netflix hasn’t yet announced whether Owning Manhattan will be renewed for a second season, but if it is, Markowski is eager to showcase the new business she’s gotten from the publicity from season 1.

She says she’s had an “overwhelming” two weeks since its premiere, and is excited for her latest listing, an Upper East Side townhouse with bedrooms and seven bathrooms, seen here.

Markowski adds that she’s heard from fans that Owning Manhattan has made them want to work harder to pursue their goals.

“A lot of people reach out to me saying how motivated and inspired they are from it, and it's not just necessarily in real estate, it's in other avenues of business. They got that quick push to succeed in whatever avenue of business that they're in, because I think we do a good job in really showing the go-go mentality and mindset of work, and I think it just inspires and drives people to do whatever it is that they want to do.”