I’ve seen a lot of crazy things! But one of my favorite stories is of an internet lead turned friend.  At the start of my career, in 2015, I found a lot of business through internet leads. It took years of follow up and relationship building with these connections. One person I met through an internet lead, was looking for information to purchase a home. I put him in touch with a lender and quickly realized his employment history did not fit into their qualification boxes. He was self employed.

We stayed in touch because I really enjoyed our phone calls. We’d connect to chat about holiday plans, the best place to see fireworks, he had a child and shared with me his joys and struggles raising his son. We developed a real friendship. But his employment situation never changed to fit the requirements for a mortgage.

Unfortunately, his mother passed away and he inherited three properties she had owned as investments. She was a spectacular business woman. He called me to help sell those three properties. We met at the first, a home in Vista, in March of 2020. Just before the world changed. I met him and his brother with my business partner, Michael. We gave them lots of advice on price strategy, property improvements, marketing techniques, plus our commission structure and fees, but ultimately he and his brother could not agree and they ended up going with a discount broker instead. A broker who only charged them 1% but did not list the property in the MLS,. did not do any marketing at all, and only put a sign in the yard. The property sat unsold for a year, with a heavy carrying cost for the brothers.

After a year on the market, he reached back out to me and asked me to give it a try. We used a professional photographer, listed it in the MLS and on all the syndicated sites, marketed big open house events and hosted broker events. We increased the visibility of the property significantly. Ultimately, we sold the home for $100,000 over what the discount broker had listed, and could not sell, it for. While the commission cost was higher, they made way more money working with us. Because he made so much on that sale, he used us to sell his mother’s other two investment properties too.

After the sale of all three, he was able to use the proceeds to buy his own primary residence. A dream he’d been holding onto for years and did not think was attainable. His wife and I got pregnant at the same time, and his second son is my son’s age. It was crazy to be able to change someone’s life so significantly. To be in the same boat personally, and to see directly how this would change his life and the lives of his children too. It was emotional, gratifying and empowering.

I’m a Residnetial Real Estate Agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in San Diego County. 

I received a Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Media Communication from Cal State San Marcos, with the intention of working in journalism. But journalism jobs meant contract work and very little job security. I found myself instead working in corporate sales. I sold medical supplies/pharmaceuticals and then computer memory devices. I learned a lot about having a structured sales system, using a CRM, utilizing power hour to prospect, how to cold call and various other important sales techniques.

I changed industries because I wanted to work for myself, and I wanted to sell a product I truly believed in. Real estate was the easy next step for me. Growing up, my mom had taken me to open houses for fun as a kid. I remember one in particular that was eco-friendly before it was a fad. It had a grass roof and moss on the walls. It was beautiful. I found a great appreciation for the wide array of ways people can live, and how important it is to find a place that supports a person’s values and lifestyle. With those experiences on my mind, I decided to pursue a job in real estate.

I started as the assistant to a top producing group, The Jacobo Realty Group. I shared an office with the business owner, Michael, and learned so much in a very short time working with him. After a year, he encouraged me to get my license and work as an agent on the team. That’s when things really took off. I had so much passion for the industry.

I am so empowered by helping people build their financial futures by investing in real estate. I have been doing this now for almost 10 years, and I’m still working with The Jacobo Realty Group. I have had the honor of helping many, many families find the homes to raise their children in, investors meet their goals, people sell their homes and move on to other chapters in their lives. It’s a very powerful honor to be a trusted representative for someone at such a pivotal moment in their lives. I thrive working with people in transitions, job changes, life changes, etc. The feeling of helping someone so significantly has fueled me to work long and hard for them. I believe my relationships are what set me apart. I have stayed friends with all my clients. I love going back to see peoples‘ homes after they’ve been living there a while. I love to hear their children tell me about their gardens and see the way they’re living in the homes, the way they’d dreamt of doing during our first showing. I love knowing I’m selling homes but I’m also selling life changes.

I started out with the goal of helping every single buyer who came to me find a home. But I had to learn that there are many, many reasons a buyer might choose not to buy, even after being on the market for a while. I have had clients who had to change their plans because of natural disasters, catastrophic accidents and unexpected life changes.

An important thing about working with me is, I will never force a buyer. If it’s not right, it’s not right. There have been many times where buyers have had to cancel their home search for a myriad of good reasons, sometimes even after we’ve been working together for years. It’s hard to not feel like it’s a failure, but I had to learn to reframe that perspective and appreciate that I’ve still helped to guide these clients to the right choices for them and their families. Often those clients are my most powerful referral sources, after the fact. Being an agent working on someone’s behalf means helping them to make the best decision for themselves, regardless of my personal agenda.