TOP 100 MAGAZINE

Nayi Shen
​​

 

Nayi Shen’s path into real estate did not begin with a grand plan. It began with adaptation—first to a new country, then to a new language, and finally to an industry she hadn’t expected to love. Those early experiences shaped her into the strategic, cross-cultural leader she is today. As founder of the Bethoney Shen Team, Nayi has built one of the most globally connected new development groups in New York City, known for its bilingual capabilities, multicultural strategy, and consistent dominance across major projects.

 

Nayi’s entry into real estate happened unintentionally. While studying in Iowa, she earned a real estate license simply to understand her husband’s career. After moving to New York, everything changed. On her very first day in the city, she closed a rental deal worth what many people in her hometown earned in a year. In two months, she made nearly $80,000. That momentum launched a rapid rise: she became a top-producing agent, joined Douglas Elliman to expand her skill set, and was eventually recruited as broker of record for a funded international startup, where she led an 80-agent office. Those leadership years taught her what many agents never learn—how to structure a company, train teams, and build operational systems.

 

Nayi’s shift into new development was a turning point. She found that selling one home and selling an entire building required vastly different skill sets. A building needed pricing strategy, buyer psychology, global reach, brand identity, and clear communication across cultures. Because she understood how both American and Chinese buyers made decisions, she became a bridge between developers and the international market. She communicated directly with Mandarin-speaking clients and their families overseas, building trust in ways traditional teams couldn’t.

 

That expertise led to her partnership with Michael Bethoney. The two met at Neighborly, a 77-unit project during the pandemic, where Nayi was already doing significant volume while the building was still only half sold. They collaborated on the remaining units and sold all 77 pre-construction, making it the top-selling building in New York that year. Their complementary strengths—her international buyer influence and sales strategy, his legal and analytical background—formed the foundation for the Bethoney Shen Team.

 

Founded in 2020, the team is now a fully integrated real estate brokerage, advisory, and branding group specializing in ground-up new development throughout New York City and Jersey City. With more than 30 professionals fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Spanish, and additional languages, the team combines backgrounds in law, engineering, finance, marketing, and development. Their results reflect that depth: over $1 billion in sales, representation of five of the top three selling buildings in NYC over the past half decade, and performance across Skyline Tower, Lucent33, Greene LIC, 567 Ocean, Neighborly, and 184 Kent Avenue. Their recognition includes Top 3 NY Mega Team (2020–2025), Top 3 NYC New Development Team (2022–2025), and New Development Team of the Year 2025.

 

A defining element of the team’s success is Nayi’s creation of a dual-market platform. While most groups rely solely on U.S. marketing channels, she built a bilingual marketing ecosystem that positions projects across Chinese social platforms such as Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), WeChat groups, and international student and broker networks. Every building receives both English and Chinese branding and communication, ensuring cultural alignment and significantly broader reach. This strategy consistently accelerates sales velocity and strengthens developer confidence.

 

Strategically, Nayi approaches new development with precision. She guides developers on unit mix, pricing tiers, inventory release timing, and the pacing of increases—ensuring long-term absorption without jeopardizing momentum. Her team is often brought in to reposition stalled buildings, where they revive interest through stronger marketing, clearer messaging, and better buyer outreach, often while maintaining pricing or even increasing after building sales momentum and changing the narrative on the previously slower-selling project.

 

In an industry still largely led by men, especially in development and construction, Nayi’s presence is both uncommon and powerful. She is often the only woman at the table, yet she brings a voice shaped by global understanding, negotiation skill, and firsthand experience across every side of the business.

Q&A
 

Nayi, how did your collaboration with Michael begin?

It began with recognizing that we worked at the same pace and held the same standards. We were both relentless about accuracy, communication, and follow-through, which is rare in such a fast-moving industry. We started helping each other on complicated deals simply because it made the process smoother. What surprised both of us was how easy the collaboration felt—we didn’t have to explain our reasoning; we just understood it. That chemistry made it clear that we could build something stronger together than we could separately.

​

What makes your team unique?

True multicultural structure and true bilingual capability. Most teams in New York are either primarily American or primarily Chinese. We are evenly mixed, multilingual, and highly educated, with backgrounds in real estate, finance, law, engineering, and marketing. We have an in-house designer and full marketing division, so every building is promoted in both English and Chinese. Our presence on Chinese social media gives us direct access to buyers that other teams simply cannot reach. And because we’ve worked on some of the largest projects in the city, we understand large-scale strategy in a way many teams do not.

​

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy solving challenges that others couldn’t. We’ve taken over stalled buildings and sold them out without changing pricing—just by improving strategy, communication, and cultural understanding. That’s incredibly rewarding. I also enjoy being a woman succeeding in a male-dominated environment. In development meetings, I’m often the only woman in a room of twenty men, and I take pride in representing what leadership can look like in this industry.

 

 

 

Nayi Shen
Founder
Bethoney Shen Team
Website: www.nestseekers.com/group/bethoney-shen

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/bethoneyshen

Instagram: @bethoney.shen.team