Rogers was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a 1987 Summa Cum Laude graduate of Harvard University. She subsequently became a reporter for Fortune and then the founding editor of the real estate section of The New York Post. After two years at the newspaper, Rogers to become an active participant in the field she had covered.

Rogers has written for The New York Times, Money Magazine, and the Chicago Reader, among others. Diary of a Real Estate Rookie, which expanded upon her weekly column of the same name for the real-estate trade site Inman News, is a memoir of her first year in real estate. It was published by Kaplan Publishing, earning praise for its combination of witty anecdotes and tips for buyers, sellers and renters.

"How to Find the Perfect Home," an article based on one of the book's chapters, ran as a supplement in the August 2007 issue of Money.

From 2008-2009, Rogers served as the first "real-estate guru" on FiLife.com, a personal finance site for people in their twenties and thirties launched as a joint venture of Dow Jones & Company and IAC . In 2009, she began writing the column "Ask the Agent" for MoneyWatch.com. She is a frequent commentator in real estate chat rooms where she is known as "front_porch" and signs "ali r".

Rogers specializes in a Hollywood clientele and the Manhattan neighborhoods of Chelsea, Manhattan, Greenwich Village, and the Upper West Side. Careful to protect her clients' privacy, she refers to the television actor in Diary of a Real Estate Rookie as Bogie and his girlfriend as Bacall.