We were lucky to catch up with Vanessa Villanueva recently and have shared our conversation below.

Vanessa , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Moravilla’s mission is to make resources for the home buying/selling process available to all communities, especially within our minority communities here in NYC. By making these resources readily available in English & Spanish, we believe Moravilla will help empower our underserved communities to create informed decisions and establish multiple streams of income & wealth through real estate. By doing so, we can create a legacy of wealth builders; breaking the generational curse of poverty & displacement so many of our communities are actively facing.

As a 2nd generation Realtor & business women, I saw first-hand how my mother worked with many city & state agencies to help lower & middle-income families buy their first properties. Twenty+ years later, I am seeing those same families unlock various opportunities, such as paying for their kid’s college, buying their first investment property, etc. All this is made possible by investing in their first home purchase.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Vanessa Villanueva, and I have worked as a NY Realtor for the last 16+ years. As a 2nd generation Realtor & businesswoman, I took after my mother, who had a niche within the affordable homeownership sector, working closely with Developers & city/state agencies. These developments targeted first-time home buyers within a lower to moderate income bracket, which offered a plentiful amount of resources & support aimed at helping these families become homeowners in their communities.
Although my portfolio has since expanded, our mission continues to be focused on empowering our communities through real estate. My team does this by curating quality workshops, customized consultations, and collaborations that help identify applicable programs & resources that will help the consumer make an informed decision based on their specific needs & wants before and after their home purchase. Our holistic approach has created a sustainable & repeat business module built on trust, reliability, and long-lasting relationships within the communities we serve. This is a rare feat as many in the industry are known for their transactional approach.
I am most proud of the impression my mother left with her past clients. After more than 35+ years, they still speak so highly of her & how hard she fought to help them buy their first home. Carrying the baton has been an honor & pleasure as she has profoundly impacted her community. The core values of my business mean putting people first and leaving a legacy of happy clients who still trust her & me so many years later. Not only am I proud to represent our core principles, but also the opportunity for people to watch my real-life journey as both a professional and an individual on my Instagram.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

There are many twists & turns throughout my 18+ year career. However, three distinct chapters immediately come to mind when I think of the word, resilience. The first would be 5-6 years ago when my life partner decided to quit his union job & become a realtor. We created our team, Moravilla, towards the end of 2018. Our business gained immediate momentum; however, my partner was diagnosed with Hopkins Lymphoma in the middle of 2019. To keep up with the growth & change happening in our business, I worked an average of 10+ hours a day, 6-7 days a week, while also caring for him and my son aside from handling our personal affairs. However, six months later, he was declared to be in remission, and due to the level of growth we experienced that year, we were in a financial position to invest in our first official hire in 2020. The adjustment was extremely difficult & scary, especially since the Covid shutdown happened shortly after hiring him. However, it was well worth the sacrifice as we almost doubled our yearly income for the first 3 years!

My next transformational year was 2023, when my business/ life partner and I filed for divorce. The separation not only came unexpectedly but also happened after our 2nd business hire and while my sister was still adjusting to her first year back on dialysis after her 1st kidney transplant expired after 15 years. It was an extremely difficult time for me and my family as both life events were emotionally taxing on top of financially draining. I took a sabbatical and worked a restricted schedule from March to December 2023, empowering my team to lead with the support of my mentors. During this period, I fought to keep my business and team but shifted to prioritizing my mental and physical health, which had taken a massive plunge for the worse. I focused on becoming a healthier version of myself and ended up 2o23 not only qualifying for bariatric surgery but also as my sister’s kidney donor. I had the bariatric surgery in September, and by December 2023, I was deemed a 100% identical match. I also finalized my buyout and divorce and closed this chapter of my life by October 2023.

My last transformational year was in 2024, post-divorce & leading up to & after my kidney transplant, which happened in April 2024. Coming back from such a tough year and essentially only focusing on maintaining my business in 2023 vs actively growing it was an extremely difficult adjustment for me and my team. My first year back as a sole owner came with a lot of pressure to find our rhythm after working remotely for so long. Since inception, I was tasked with leading the backend logistics of the team, so stepping into a leadership role required me to make corporate & financial decisions, meet quotas, attend public workshops, etc. This adjustment left me feeling depleted & pushed to the brink of quitting. However, this enlightenment year challenged me to become a completely different person. I decided to dive deeper into my relationship with God, family, and business. Although I prioritized training for leadership skills and team management, I also enrolled in mentorship programs, finance workshops, and networking/collaborations I felt would align with our mission & vision.

Each of these journeys pushed me to the brink of exhaustion & financial despair. However, these setbacks set me up to become wiser, more resilient, and confident, rooted in our values of God, Family, & Business. I learned so much about myself & my ability to overcome incredibly difficult situations while maintaining my core foundational values. Each circumstance required me to shed a layer and grow into a stronger role and position as a leader for my team.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I am still learning a lot about managing a team, but I highly recommend 1. Slowing down and organizing your affairs, 2. Having each prospect take a personality test, and 3. Inspecting what you expect.

Taking the time to Identify key roles & tasks will be key to adjusting the team leader & hiree much smoother and making communication more clearly understood. Be sure to identify a communication platform like Slack, Notion, or Trello that will help set & track your expectations as well as deadlines. Ensuring there are open lines of communication allows you to keep each other accountable, empower them to lead or identify potential concerns, and participate in tracking our goals. By doing so we are constantly “inspecting what we expect” as a team. As a leader, making sure you lead by example is essential to keeping morale high and maintaining a level of standard. Another important aspect of managing a team is balancing your personal & business relationships.

My team and I schedule one-on-one meetings once a week, with an alternating schedule split between the two. This allows me to check in on their personal & business life, which allows me to humanize their work-life balance. We also review their progress over a 30/60/90-day calendar, allowing us to pivot or accelerate where applicable. This is why having a personality test is extremely important because I can consider the personality type & communication style based on the individual. I also try to celebrate every small or big win with them as well as random days to help keep the environment light & engaging, considering how stressful our job can be including the ability to personalize their workspace in way that will provide a stimulating environment.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.moravilla.nyc
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moravillanyc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoravillaNYC
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MoravillaNYC