The Real Random Podcast: Where Real Estate Meets Real Life
Welcome to "The Real Random Podcast," where we're more than just Realtors. We're explorers of life's rich tapestry. Hosted by a trio of seasoned real estate pros, each episode surprises you with a mystery guest that only one host knows about in advance.
Our mission? To dig deeper. We go beyond the property listings and the coaching sessions to get to know our guests as mothers, fathers, and individuals with unique stories to tell.
Expect spontaneous conversations, heartfelt connections, and a ton of fun along the way. Whether you're in the real estate industry or just love a good, genuine conversation, "The Real Random Podcast" offers something for everyone.
Join us as we delve into the intriguing world of real estate and the fascinating people that make it all happen.
The Real Random Podcast: Where Real Estate Meets Real Life
Renee Zunker | Chicken Videos and the Veteran's Real Estate Journey
Join us for an enthralling conversation with Renee Zunker, a veteran who's mastered the transition from military service to real estate. Discover how she's weaving her military background into a thriving career as a realtor and her pivotal role in launching the Real Military initiative. This episode promises to unravel the dynamic blend of creating versatile content spaces for TikTok and YouTube while serving VA military clients with dedication and expertise.
We explore the entrepreneurial spirit that guides military professionals into real estate, a field where effort and compensation align like never before. Hear firsthand accounts of the challenges and triumphs encountered along the way, and how personal motivations, such as the dream of building a perfect home, can drive success even in uncertain times. Renee shares her journey from setting up live sets and chalkboard areas to navigating the real estate landscape post-pandemic, with insights that are both personal and universally relatable.
Uncover the impact of social media and backyard farming on real estate, as Renee shares her experiences with viral chicken videos and the intriguing world of urban homesteading. From legislative changes affecting backyard farming to the creation of a nationwide VA real estate referral network, this episode is filled with stories, strategies, and a commitment to serving the military community. Tune in to learn how these elements come together to protect and empower veterans, while connecting them with the right agents across the country.
So real military is for agents that specialize in VA military clients.
Speaker 2:Like instilled in me very young age that owning land, owning property was important.
Speaker 1:And when I realized that being a commission base was something that like, oh, I could put this bad habit to good use.
Speaker 2:Once you have the deck, you just push a button and everything works. It's like magic. Yeah, that's why I need magic.
Speaker 3:We're recording now want, like I need like an office or studio setup where I have like three different sets sets, like where I can just turn and have like oh, this is my tiktok set and this is my youtube. That's what I need this is my.
Speaker 2:This is my live set. I have another one over there with a chalkboard that I use on occasion, then Then I also have screens that I drop down. Then I have one where I sit in the chair, then I have one where I sit in the couch, and then this is all blacked out because there's a bookshelf that's being built right here.
Speaker 4:I mean, I have all that too, except it's all my living room. I'm like there's my couch in front of me, here's a corner, but you're in real estate, so that works in real estate that totally works.
Speaker 2:It's when you're outside of real estate, like, let's say, you're a tech pro and you're like broadcasting live from your living room? There's, that's not a but in real estate it's like you know it's a house and you're a real estate agent, so it makes sense I'm doing things in a house shocker you guys both sound great, but I feel like I'm always the one with bad sound, am I? So you sound good today.
Speaker 4:Okay, sweet for once all right who's got the guest today?
Speaker 3:me, I got, I've got the guest today nice, I'm all about the guests. Lately I've been just crushing it with the guests. You have been.
Speaker 1:So humble.
Speaker 3:Today's guest is famous.
Speaker 4:Oh.
Speaker 3:Well, like real famous.
Speaker 4:Not micro famous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, way more famous than me, and so they are a veteran. They were combat deployed with security forces. They are a realtor. Now I don't know which camera to look at, because both are lit up. I feel like on the news like wait, which one do I look at this one. So they sent me the bio, but it's so long and there's no way I'm going to read all this.
Speaker 2:A long bio would be great.
Speaker 3:And it's terrible. It's really not. Oh, it's a terrible bio. It's like the, you know, it's the one you put in like your social media one. It's not like an intro onto like a show bio.
Speaker 4:You're supposed to use their bio as inspo to come up with your own intro, not read it verbatim? I may not have properly prepared.
Speaker 3:I have properly prepared. But so when they are not doing their real estate thing, they said that we can find them outside in the garden taking care of their cats, chickens, and enjoying outside with their spouse Chickens. Their life evolves around service, and let's welcome to the show Miss Renee Zunderman.
Speaker 2:I knew, since you said chickens, I knew exactly who was going to be on the show.
Speaker 3:It could only be one of a few people right.
Speaker 4:I had no idea, I would give it away.
Speaker 2:Did AI really write your bio? I saw you in the chat say AI wrote it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am not a writer. I'm a great realtor.
Speaker 2:Writer I am not, so AI did help me with that long bio I love that now say I'm right there with you, renee make it 20, make it 20 this length, and it'll like next time, ray, in your expert professional audio opinion.
Speaker 3:Do we need to see if renee has headphones, or are we good?
Speaker 2:uh, I can't hear. I can't hear us echoing oh, she has headphones in.
Speaker 3:okay, that's good, I have headphones yeah. Okay, sweet Welcome to the show, Renee. Thanks for making time.
Speaker 1:Of course, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:I know Renee is super busy because Renee is the one I see for real military, so she's kind of like she's my other boss now. Nice, she's cracking the whip and getting us into shape, getting Real Military ready to launch at one real rise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can talk about that. Yeah, this will come out probably after that. So here's a question Is the Real Military for just military people or is it to serve military clients?
Speaker 1:Yes, and so Real Military is for agents that specialize in VA military clients. Four agents that specialize in VA military clients Anyone who's a veteran, veteran spouse, active duty they can be in the group. And then we also have what's called a passionate patriot category where if you have a business catered around military, you're accepted as well. So we encourage everyone that kind of fits into that bubble to hop on in and see what we're all about.
Speaker 2:And what do you call it? Patchment? What's what'd you say? It was called.
Speaker 1:Passionate Patriot.
Speaker 2:Oh, passionate Patriot. I thought you said Patchment. I'm like I don't know what that is. So, yes, passionate, I get. Yeah, I was wondering because I started to join the workplace group for the real military. I'm like all this discussion is not pertained to me. However, I we help a ton of people that are PCS into the area because we have an air force base here, so and and there's actually a an army base here too. So we're always helping them and I'm like, man, it would be great to get in that group, Cause I could ask so many questions, but we have, you know, probably about 10, 15% of our business is, you know, working with veterans. It's not a huge amount, but we get a ton that are are coming into the area all the time. They're asking questions, and so it's, it's interesting. Well, that's cool.
Speaker 2:And you were in the what did you do in the military when you were there.
Speaker 1:I was security forces, so that's kind of like the equivalent of like the infantry of the air force slash law enforcement. Yes, I got to shoot all the really cool guns.
Speaker 2:That's of the air force.
Speaker 1:Slash law enforcement yes, I got to shoot all the really cool guns.
Speaker 3:That's what I want to know, okay I got to shoot all of the cool guns. Yes, you guys are really cool photos of like her all. Like you know, gi joed out with with her her weapon and everything all looking like a total badass.
Speaker 1:That's so cool yeah, actually funny story, exactly rick her to get it together we actually have. So my parents and my sister were all in before me. My mom was 30 years in the army, my dad was like 22 in the navy and my sister didn't enlist in the marines, and so when I decided to join the military, they were all like, listen, you have to go air force. They're easy, they're like the office branch, you'll get a chair. I told them that I put security forces down. They're like that is not what we meant. So we didn't get a chair. I didn't get a chair with the, you know, chair force.
Speaker 1:So I have a lot of really cool fun stories. Loved my time in. But it was an interesting time, interesting challenges, and I'm just thankful for it every day.
Speaker 4:I love that getting a chair was one of the deciding factors of that decision.
Speaker 1:It's a real thing, yeah Well, I actually I wanted to join because Air Force is known for doing canines, so they train a lot of the canines, they train a lot of the canine officers for like law enforcement in the area. So that's what I wanted to do was canine. But just you know, stuff happens and it didn't work out that way and that's okay.
Speaker 3:Your bio mentioned something about you. You kind of gave college a shot.
Speaker 2:A college try, if you will.
Speaker 1:Right, no, I gave it a good old college try twice actually. I have a two-time dropout Somehow graduated with an associate's degree in criminal justice which you can see I am putting to good use today.
Speaker 2:In ways yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I have some skills. Completing college is not one of them, but working on my broker's license now so that is my redemption to dropping out of college. I've taken that class and then I did not take the test. No interest in being a broker. I did the same. What a waste. I did the same.
Speaker 3:I remember talking to him. Him being old was not a bad thing, but he was a very old, wise man and he told me one time he was like there's nothing wrong with going and getting all of the education, but the moment you get licensed now you can be held accountable. A libel Licensed in that you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so they were like just go take all the classes, like learn all the stuff, it's good info. Whether you want to be a broker, that's up to you, and so I've taken all the classes, but just chose not to take the test.
Speaker 2:I did the same thing. I took all the classes and then decided yeah, I'm just always going to hire. I own my own brokerage and was not a broker. I just hired a broker.
Speaker 3:Hired another broker. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't want the liability or anything like it.
Speaker 4:What I'm hearing is a lot of taker, but no it's definitely not.
Speaker 2:That would be fun if we both like, took it and failed multiple times.
Speaker 4:Oh no, I just never took it.
Speaker 2:That's right. So how long have you been a real estate agent, Renee?
Speaker 1:Seven years. So I feel like maybe last year was probably when I stopped referring to myself as a new agent.
Speaker 2:Oh, really Well, I feel like you know every year.
Speaker 1:You just learn so much and have different years. So seven years in the business. Now I'm finally starting to feel like I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Well, and I guess you had a couple of years before the pandemic where it felt normal, everything felt good, and then the pandemic hit, and that's going to make people that have been in a few years feel like they're brand new again, cause that was a totally different situation than anyone had ever gone through.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, like like I mean, it's no joke, every year is so different that I feel like, especially cause I've I've been to a few different brokerages. Um, I've been at a bunch of different brokerages, so it just feels like every year is different. And so when the pandemic came and everything changed, I was like okay, whatever we'll figure it out Now.
Speaker 4:did you get into real estate immediately after the military or did you have something in between?
Speaker 1:So when I was in the military, I knew that I was separating. I knew that I didn't want to make it a career. So I spent my last deployment in Afghanistan. The whole time I just had a Kindle and I would take book recommendations from some of these other guys and I just started reading books on investing. They all had one thing in common real estate. I was like, okay, I will figure this out, I'll start from there.
Speaker 1:I never wanted to be a real estate agent in my younger years. I never thought that that was going to be my path or anything I'd be interested in that was going to be my path or anything I'd be interested in. But my last year that I was in after I got back was I was working 60 hours a week at Lackland here in San Antonio On post. I would take my online real estate classes and so by the time I got out I had my license and I was ready to kind of start doing it, as I was still getting a paycheck from the Air Force. So that was really, really helpful to kind of bridge that gap, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 4:Did anybody here grow up wanting to be a real estate agent?
Speaker 3:I didn't even know it was a real thing until about 15 years ago, until 15 years ago. Seriously, I had no idea. I didn't know anybody that was a realtor. I was still. I was just telling my wife this the other day when I was I was already out of the military and out of my college time and I remember people talking about buying a house. I'm like how does anybody save that much money?
Speaker 2:Because I still thought you had to have 20% down and I'm looking at these prices.
Speaker 3:I was like save a hundred thousand dollars. Like I'm lucky if I get like 500 bucks in the bank, like I'm almost broke. Like how do you guys buy houses? So I never even thought it was reality.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine how you bought back then, cause you were like looking at the prices back then thinking, oh, it's so high, so high. They were like $115,000.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh my God, who has that kind of money?
Speaker 2:Who has?
Speaker 3:that Now that's like a good down payment Right Now.
Speaker 2:that's like a good down payment. Right Now, that same house is probably 700. Oh yeah, easy yeah. No no, I I did. I did want to be a real estate agent, but it wasn't. It wasn't the agency part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know what about it and and what? What was the first influence of a realtor in your life?
Speaker 2:Were your parents. No, no, my grandfather was not a realtor, but he was the first influence. It wasn't really necessarily I want to be a realtor, but I knew I wanted to work with property because we would go down and hunt and I would walk the land with my grandfather and he would talk about everything you could do if you own the land and how land ownership was. So it was like instilled in me very young age that owning land, owning property, was important. And then, as I got a little bit older, I kind of started to gear towards stockbroker and investments. Kind of like you, I was very interested in investments. I was like 12 or 13, 14. I started reading Beating the Street and was a nerd about it.
Speaker 2:And I can remember a project that we had to do. We had to interview someone who had currently held the position that we wanted, and so I went to the local stock brokerage firm and I interviewed a lady who was a broker and I asked her all these questions and I asked her, like you know, if you could do anything else in life, what would you do? That kind of thing? And then the second half of the project was to do a follow-up interview with her three to six months later, you know, towards the end of the school year. So I called to schedule my follow-up interview and they said she's no longer with us. I said what happened.
Speaker 2:Can you give me your info? This is for a school project. She's like, yeah, so I got her info and I called her and she was like, oh well, after your interview I really started asking a lot of questions and basically quit. You made me question my whole life.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Ray basically quit. You made me question my whole life, wow, ray. So that was an interesting back half to my report. And after hearing that I was like, well, I mean, I don't want to become a stockbroker if cause she was telling me all the reasons why she didn't like it, she didn't like the industry and kind of why, my interview kind of opened some eyes and I was like, well, I don't want to do that, but I do want to work in investments. So much like you, renee, I started reading other investment books and those real estate was a big part of it. So I knew I didn't know that I would be a realtor, but I knew that I would be involved in real estate somehow, like you know, investing or buying and selling somehow. And I think just kind of over time, the path led to real estate agency.
Speaker 1:And look at you now.
Speaker 2:Look at me now.
Speaker 1:Look at you now Doing all the things, doing all the things.
Speaker 2:Doing all the things, walking the properties and telling other little kids about how important it is to own some land.
Speaker 4:I kind of feel like three to six months from now, we're going to have to re-interview all of our guests to make sure that they didn't quit their career paths.
Speaker 1:It was Ray's interview that led me to quit Ray's interview skills.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's so funny. Yeah, my teacher, yeah, my my teacher didn't believe it. She was like are you serious? She's no longer there and here's why she's like that's funny. So what was your whenever you started looking at real estate? What was the thing that said okay, I want to go towards agency and not towards just buying, selling, investing. What was like the, the, oh, this is going to be the way, the way I do it.
Speaker 1:I did not have the money to buy my own stuff and it I don't know. It just seemed like I'll just get my real estate license and try it out. And then I went to a couple of classes and got all involved in, you know, people saying how cool it was and how you can, you know, niche down to military. And then, you know, I started rethinking my process because at this time when I got out of the military, I was 25. And by this time I had already purchased my first house and turned it into a rental, so, and I used my VA loan, and so I kind of looked back on that process and was like, yeah, I guess it wasn't really that great and there's a lot of questions that I had. So I used that experience to help build the process that I use now of having like education first so that people are understanding the investment that they're going into, and then I don't know, I just really liked the process and I'm also a workaholic I'm a recovering workaholic.
Speaker 1:So when I was prior military, I worked a lot as a waitress, and something that I really liked about working as a waitress is the harder that I worked and the more that I worked, the more that I made. And that was a big contrast in the military because, like I said, I was working 60 hours a week. As a staff sergeant. I was making the exact same as a dude at dental that was getting the holidays off, weekends off he left early on.
Speaker 1:Friday and we're getting paid the exact same. I was like this is bullshit. If I'm going to work this hard, I want to make a lot of money, and so I mean I would be lying if I said the money was not a big factor into why I got into and stayed in real estate.
Speaker 3:The guy in dental is just hanging out huffing the sleeping gas.
Speaker 1:He's literally leaving early every day.
Speaker 3:We all had those guys right.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's the kind of stuff that drove me nuts when I was working in hospitality. I'm like, all right, I'm over here trying to get myself busy because I'm bored and I can't sit still, and then homegirl over here is watching Netflix and we're getting paid the same exact amount. What is the point? What is the point of doing this day after day out? What is the point? What is the point of doing this day after day?
Speaker 2:I'd rather do something where I know, whether it's how hard or how little I work, I'm getting compensated exactly for that that's why I've I've only worked a short, very, a very short time for someone else, because I keep being driven to well. There's all these things I would change, but I won't get paid to change them and so what's the point why?
Speaker 2:would I change them for someone else's business or for someone else's company? I need to just own my own company. I need to do my own thing so that I can change them and then get the benefit from them.
Speaker 3:But that's that's hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around, like if, if nobody in their family has been exposed to any kind of entrepreneurship and they've all been corporate salary type positions and that's all you see, and that's all you hear and that's all your family ever knows. It's very hard for someone to let go of the safety of a salary in pursuit of something on their own. I mean, I was the same thing as Renee, you know, military, and then I got into like a regular jobby job and I thought I'd made it making salary. Yeah, jobby job. I, you know, I did the restaurant thing, but I that was just a stop gap and like a filler for extra. That was never. It didn't click. That didn't send me to the entrepreneurship you know pipeline. It was just a stop gap until I got a better jobby job, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I actually saw oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Well, I was just going to say, you know, like what led me into real estate? Like it was it terrified. My wife Like, wait a minute, like yeah, I get it. Like some of these guys are making really good money, but if you don't sell a house you don't make any money. And there's still that little bit of fear today, you know, especially with all the doom and gloom that everybody, I know, pedals on social media. You know she's like are we going to be okay? I'm like, yeah, we can be fine, but there is that fear, you know, of, yes, you can make whatever you want to, but the flip side of the coin, you know.
Speaker 1:So Well, the flip side of the coin. I think I had an example of that growing up my mom. So workaholism is genetic. If you guys didn't know, my mom was very much a workaholic and I was being raised by a single mom who was a workaholic, but she was salaried, she was working six days a week, she was gone from 6 am to 7 pm and she didn't get paid any more than the guy that clocked in at a normal time and clocked out at a normal time. So I kind of understood that that was a possibility.
Speaker 1:And when I realized that being a commission base was something that like, oh, I could put this bad habit to good use, like it was like limitless amount of opportunity, I guess. And I had a really lofty goal right when I got in, me and my husband were living in a home that he grew up in, and it was not something that could go on the market as is, if I am being honest, it was, um, it was very old and it was meant to last one year when his parents built it long ago. And so I, my big motivator was that I knew we were going to build a house, and so I was absolutely obsessed workaholic, like I knew that building my dream house was on the horizon. I just had to get us there, and having that like carrot dangling at the end of the stick really kept me motivated in the extremely shitty first three years of real estate that everyone goes through, and it's hard to make it through those first years 87% of people fail in the first two.
Speaker 2:So that's the that's that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is really hard.
Speaker 3:So it's usually that time when they have to renew their dues is when they're like eh, this isn't working yeah it's coming up.
Speaker 2:September 30th was our date, so there's a lot of people that well, so we have a renewal date, and then we have a renewal and you pay a late fee date. So yeah, the renewal with late fees at the end of the year. I had a question. Oh so I'm looking. I'm looking for the video on your social media. Is it not on Instagram or TikTok anymore? Which?
Speaker 1:one. It's on TikTok but it's not on my real estate TikTok it's on if you search TikTok under Santa Clara Ranch.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to find it and then I'll play it.
Speaker 3:I'll surprise people with it. What is it up to Like? How many?
Speaker 1:millions, now 41 million. There it is, whoa, and I have no idea, because the video itself is really not anything special. No, we'll let people decide that for themselves. 41.1 million.
Speaker 2:I'll play this for everyone in just a minute, but yeah, it's phenomenal. Okay, I should say we were talking earlier Maybe the reason why I had such propensity to the commission roles, because that's what my dad did.
Speaker 2:He was in sales and so whenever I would work for someone else, I felt a little bit dead inside, Like huh, they're asking me to do this and I'm only going to get paid this much, and I could do so much more. So you've been in the business seven years. I'm looking at your social media. It doesn't go back seven years. So when did you start to really start to like post as a real estate agent and start to kind of I guess you could say attack?
Speaker 1:the market that way. Well, actually it doesn't go back seven years because in 2019, my profile my Facebook profile, which is where I get all of my business was hacked and I lost access to it and I had spent thousands of dollars building my personal and professional pages. That is how I got all my business, and then I just got some notifications one morning that I lost access and I spent weeks trying to get it back. I freaked out. I just like it was. It was terrible. Imagine your biggest lead source, your entire business. Someone just yanks it out one day, and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:But when I was getting into the mill or into real estate, all of my business came from Facebook and so I literally just like. From the beginning I'm. I used to post a lot more. I don't quite as much anymore, but in the beginning what really got me started was it was just sharing, is caring, like my friends. Luckily, I was stationed here in San Antonio, at Lackland, so all of my friends from being in the military were still here locally and I went to high school just down the road in shirts, so all of my friends that I had from high school were still here and I just started sharing and so, like any, anytime I was going to a class, I was doing selfies. Anytime I was going to a broker open house, like all the busy work that you do as a brand new agent because you don't have any actual work I would just post about that and it was just enough real estate flavor to get stay in front of other people and, just interesting enough, to where my friends actually cared, like, oh, look at what Renee's doing.
Speaker 1:Oh, I have a question about real estate. Let me message Renee. And that's literally how I built all of my business was personal friends and family through Facebook and it's really just sharing, not just listed, just sold here's this property. But it's like, hey, not just listed, just sold here's this property. But it's like, hey, I'm at an open house today, come say hi, like it's. It's not really about that post generating business, but your presence generating business.
Speaker 2:Was this something you did as a strategy, or is it? Or were you already sharing life online and thought I'll just post about it, cause it's kind of interesting?
Speaker 1:Kind of both. Once I started realizing how well it worked, it became more of a strategy and that's where I spent most of my time learning about social media marketing. All the podcasts that I listened to were around social media, not real estate. So it was how I almost made generating like organic social media content of you just my life, which happened to also be obsessively real estate sharing that and it kind of just was this magic blend of people actually watched it. I was organically sharing stuff, but it was real estate flavored, so it was so approachable to where any of my friends that had questions whether they were in San Antonio or not, I was. Their first message I've heard that from many, many of my friends is that they're out of state in other countries or, you know, anywhere around the world, and I'm. I'm their first message because I'm just always in their face.
Speaker 2:Do you still get a lot of business from Facebook, or has that changed over the recent years?
Speaker 1:It has changed. It hasn't really changed as to where that is still like. It hasn't really changed as to where that is still. I feel like I've built a really solid base. I've gone through a couple of personal things that kept me a little bit further away from Facebook, but it is still. My primary source of business is my sphere on Facebook.
Speaker 4:When you're doing your posting, is that mostly on your business page, your personal page, combination of both Personal, all personal.
Speaker 1:I don't even do my business page anymore. I just feel like Facebook was so pay to play. It was either you make like Facebook ads and the business page and all that like a big pillar of your work, or I could focus on another pillar like open houses, and then it kind of double dips into personal Facebook real estate stuff. Luckily I've had a couple videos go viral on Facebook. So I had the chicken one on TikTok and then I had a different chicken one on Facebook and so now I actually do have a lot of followers on Facebook. They all want chicken content so it's really not helpful for real estate.
Speaker 4:But you can also buy your own chicken farm.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let me play this. Let me play. Yes, she's like, I want to play this video. I feel like, uh, I feel like it's court.
Speaker 1:Let's play this video in question.
Speaker 2:So people can? I think I have the volume up here. Let me make sure.
Speaker 3:Okay, here, here we go, let me know if y'all can't hear it, but you should be able to hear it oh shit, hurry, honey, hurry, that's my favorite part, a woman possessed. Look at her go.
Speaker 2:That is so amazing. I love this I've got so many favorite parts on this too, because she's off and then your husband's like hurry honey, hurry right, he doesn't go out.
Speaker 4:he's's just like you got to, he's seen this behavior before.
Speaker 3:He's morally supporting, he's cheering her on.
Speaker 2:Somebody points out in the comments that this plane flies over at the exact. You know one of the moments that you put your hands back out to go get the channel.
Speaker 4:That's hilarious. This reminds me For the audio listeners.
Speaker 2:We just witnessed Renee jump off of her porch. What camera is this? Like a little security camera you have around the house.
Speaker 1:These two CCTV cameras. Yeah, we have a pretty robust security camera system. So I mean, once I got out there and as I was walking back, I just I remember thinking to myself I hope the cameras caught that, because that would be really funny.
Speaker 1:That would be really good, yeah, you were actually perfectly in frame, yeah, so we see her jump off the porch and then run through her yard. That's a. I saw a hawk dive down and was on one of my chickens at that moment, and so, naturally, as any chicken mom would do, I leapt into action and had to save the day, and so hesitation, no, no, no, like just yeah no, I One thing I am is brave, another thing I am is stupid is that I will not think through any of these things.
Speaker 1:It's step number one and go. We've not thought through step number three at all, and so I've done this exact move with coyotes funny story, which I'm sure I'll get into at some other point. I've done this to the with coyotes funny story, which I'm sure I'll get into at some other point. I've done this to the drug coyotes of uh in uh, not the animals, not the animal the immigrants I. I was 20 feet away from a line of drug smugglers in big ben.
Speaker 2:It's one of my favorite stories to tell for another day, but I did basically the same thing running towards them with your arms out, going oh but no, we'll get to the real story later, but yes, yeah, that's awesome. I love this it happened that is amazing.
Speaker 1:I've done it towards coyotes and everything, and you guys would be happy to find out. It works. I saved the chicken. It scares the coyotes, both the four-legged and the two-legged, so it works you guys are welcome to try it out there and I'm just gonna zip it northwest, just run screaming arms out.
Speaker 4:That video reminded me it clearly. Uh, have you guys ever seen that movie? Uh, I think it was called the big green. It's from back in the 90s and it opens up. It's about a soccer team and that's like failing. And then it opens up you have these kids. They have this big bag of cheetos and they're pouring it on themselves and laying down so that the birds come in and, like, eat the cheetos off them. They're having a great time with it. But this lady drives up, she sees it, she thinks the kids are being attacked and she leaps out of her car, runs over arms out, like Renee was screaming at the birds to get them off the kids. It was just.
Speaker 3:Renee, I feel like that was a missed opportunity for you. That's amazing. If you would have put in. For that part, I think you would have gotten it.
Speaker 1:If only this happened 20 years ago.
Speaker 3:This is a really old movie With the power of TikTok. Which now calls into question Rebecca's movie choice.
Speaker 2:This is a really old movie.
Speaker 4:It is. It's a childhood movie. Who's in it, Ray?
Speaker 2:The kids from Sandlot yeah it was around that time. Yeah, and there's still kids in the movie. Oh okay, yeah, it's around that time yeah, it's, and there's still kids in the movie. Oh okay, yeah, uh, steve gutenberg nice he's in there. Who else I don't know. I'm looking at. I'm looking at youtube. Right now there's a trailer, but the trailer is in such low definition that I don't even want to play no, that's how long ago it was.
Speaker 4:Years ago it was probably ripped right from a vhs tape that's so great, that's awesome so how did you get into chickens? Like what decisions?
Speaker 3:led you to this point in your life.
Speaker 1:Everybody wants to know who's listening well, when I was, when we were growing up, we grew up in a suburb in shirts, in, like you know, a uh, in a neighborhood with an hoa and, and we had chickens there. We were not supposed to, but we were wild and we said I would like some chickens please. And so we got some and ever, and you know, ever since then I've wanted to have chickens again, and my husband you know when it's. Once I moved out here to we're in Marion and we're on five acres out here to we're in Marion and we're on five acres.
Speaker 1:Once we came out here I think it was my sister surprised me for my birthday with chickens, and you know what a great birthday present is just unloading a responsibility on somebody else. So we were forced back into chickens but we've had them ever since and you know a lot of people will send me chicken videos and they will like refer to me as like a chicken mom. I really think they're more like. Most of them don't have names, they're cool and all, but we go through a lot. You know the hawks, the coyotes on my TikTok actually have a really cool video of the bobcat taking one of the chickens. Sad but happens.
Speaker 4:It's like wild kingdom over here. I mean very, very true, but we have outdoor cats.
Speaker 1:So in my mind I would rather hawks and coyotes take the chickens than the cats. My mind I would rather hawks and coyotes take the chickens than the cats. And so we just kind of we usually have about 15 to 20 at any time and every year we'll get like a new batch of like 10 or so and just kind of keep recycling through the flock. I think they're really fun, they're really easy. We've set it up to where their coop is automated, with solar power and an automatic door.
Speaker 1:So they they're really easy and they take care of themselves.
Speaker 3:Bougie chickens. I'm a little conflicted as to just the oh we just cycle through.
Speaker 2:It's a circle of life type of situation. They usually don't last long enough for me to learn their names.
Speaker 1:We've only butchered a few of them.
Speaker 4:Animals have butchered the rest.
Speaker 3:Does everybody on the call know who Karen Carr is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, karen, when she bought her new house out in the country, she has chickens. Now Her chicken life as a chicken mom seems very different. They have names and she talks to them, and they give her these beautiful multicolored eggs and they're cared for in a nice protected space, whereas you just kind of let nature happen right in front of you and videotape it for your social media exposure is karen, former military?
Speaker 1:yes no, but I think she does have very much military clients so mine are very well cared for.
Speaker 1:They are protected at night, but they also free range during the day and I mean, I'm out in the country, it's. It is what it is. I was raised around animals. Like you know, the animals have different hierarchy, and chicken, to me, eat to each their own, but to me, chickens fall below cats and dogs and they don't have names for a reason. Well, a few. A couple of them have names taco is the rooster, and then we just kind of, you know, every once in a while they'll get names, but for the most part, all we have five red ones that look exactly the same.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to name them I agree with you chickens are below cats and dogs and there is a hierarchy to animals and how much we care about them.
Speaker 2:It's horrible that may sound to some people.
Speaker 4:It is what it is.
Speaker 2:It is what it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, they're delicious, I'm for it. I'm pro-differentiation between meat animals and not yeah, and I actually have gotten business.
Speaker 1:We have a San Antonio Facebook chicken group, the San Antonio Backyard Chickens. I have gotten business from that group for real estate. Anytime that I have a client that has a coop on their property, I'm over there like, yeah, yeah, that house is great, but does the coop convey?
Speaker 2:Would, you like to sell the chickens.
Speaker 1:I have negotiated a flock of chickens in contracts before. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's nice, wow, residential, or was it out on land?
Speaker 1:I mean it was a manufactured home on an acre and I actually do keep up. So this is like where you know you don't have those personal and professional boundaries as none of us do. I actually my free time. I keep up with things like.
Speaker 1:There's actually a bill in the Texas House right now, called the chicken bill, where they are trying to make it illegal for HOAs to say that you can't have a certain amount of chickens and a certain amount of rabbits, because we went through the pandemic and chickens got really popular. There was listen, there was a boom of everything in the pandemic. There was a boom of people getting chickens, so there was a scarcity of like incubators and supplies at Tractor Supply and the chickens they sell them at Tractor Supply as little babies you would go in there and there'd just be lines of people early in the pandemic especially when egg prices were going up of people that there was this big boom of people that wanted to have chickens and so they introduced legislation of allowing chickens in HOAs as long as you follow certain parameters. But I mean, I'm up to date on all the laws in San Antonio on how many you can have and the things about the coops and all that stuff. It's a fun party trick, a fun rabbit hole to go down in front of other clients.
Speaker 2:It's a fun chicken hole to go down. Yeah, I guess you could say birds have a feather, your HOA didn't allow it.
Speaker 3:Anything that has to be kept outside. They don't consider a pet.
Speaker 1:That's a farm animal we're not allowed to have farm animals.
Speaker 3:Now, if you have a pet pig and he sleeps inside, you're good to go.
Speaker 2:But if you have pigs outside, no bueno. So we have unwritten rules in Arkansas, and one of the unwritten rules is if you want a chicken coop, you can one, but you got to pay off your neighbors so you got to supply eggs for, like, everyone around you.
Speaker 2:If you do that, nobody's going to say a word and also don't get the rooster. That's kind of like you know residential areas. So we uh, we want to, we want a small flock, but we got bees first. So we're we're learning the bees and we have all that stuff going on the intro.
Speaker 1:It's the. The gateway drug to homesteading is bees and chickens.
Speaker 2:My grandfather had this like bamboo stand on the back of his property and in that he had beehives. And I didn't know about it growing up. I just knew they always had honey and for whatever reason, that was always like one dead bee in the honey and that's how you knew it was. It was real. I don't know why it was. They put the honeycomb in there too, and sometimes they get up there and my mom and pap all didn't care. So I remember going back and checking his bees with him and all that kind of stuff, and so now that's what we're doing with our backyard, but eventually we'll have the chickens. But you kind of want to take on one thing at a time, because if you add them all then they're kind of in conflict.
Speaker 1:Then people will notice Everybody's all nervous about it and also people will, Also people on the show.
Speaker 2:We do have to tell our people hey, when we have this company called mosquito Joe, that'll come and spray mosquitoes.
Speaker 2:And so we have to, we have to tell our street, like, if you hire them to come spray your yard, let us know, because we can close up the hive for a day and then we'll let them back out after that stuff is all settled, Cause that'll kill your bees too. So if you, if you have, If you spray for mosquitoes in your yard there is a version of the mosquito stuff and it doesn't work as good but it's bee-friendly. Just a pro tip, since we're on livestock.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We don't get that mosquito treatment. We don't get it out here because we have down the street from me. We have the Register Family Bee Farm and they are one of the largest distributors of Tupelo honey in the country. Like they, they ship their bees to California for the almond farm farms and everything. Like they're a big deal.
Speaker 2:So they don't. So not only do they ship honey, they ship the bees themselves. That's cool, the bees themselves.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we get eaten by mosquitoes so they can have their bee farm. Yeah, get some Martins.
Speaker 1:All price to pay. Save the bees, small price to pay.
Speaker 4:We just don't have mosquitoes here in Washington.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you also don't have sunny days.
Speaker 4:The sun is out right now. Okay, it's blue skies sun high of like 69.
Speaker 2:It's a perfect fall day. Ooh, high Did you say high. A high of 69, yeah.
Speaker 3:The high of 69? I think it was 69 when I woke up this morning.
Speaker 4:Were you cold? No, it felt great. Okay, exactly, it's perfect time, that's funny. Renee, are you seeing an uptick in people wanting to do more of that homesteading stuff in your area?
Speaker 1:Or has it calmed down since after the pandemic, comparatively, Comparatively it has slowed down a little bit, but I feel like that was a very upfront conversation that I was having with all of my clients, especially if they were coming from out of state. That was in my list of questions in a buyer consultation Do you want to do any homesteading? Because I've had clients that are like, yeah, we want to raise goats, we want to raise chickens. It's like, okay, that changes the whole search, but I know what to look for search but I know what to look for. So anything around that I I you know, with most of my clients coming from social media, I usually have a little bit of an idea, but it is something that I keep top of mind because if I can, if I can get somebody into chickens through real estate, huge win. I love that.
Speaker 4:It's like a bonus. That's really. That's a good point.
Speaker 2:I'm actually making a note right now to add that to our buyer consult Because in Arkansas we're the natural state. We get a lot of people moving to our state from out of state and they're usually pretty green and they want to be self-sustained in a lot of ways. So asking about homesteading up front is really smart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because a lot of clients won't even know to bring that up, because what a terrible thing to buy a property thinking that you can do this stuff. I actually did have a client that early on in my career. They bought a home and their plans were to have chickens there, but they never brought that up to me and I've never asked. I was fairly new and you know they, after we closed, they're like hey, we can't have chickens here. I'm like you never said anything about that, of course, but you know it was in the deed restrictions that they couldn't have chickens, so they were really disappointed. So yeah, we learned the hard way. That's how I learned, but yeah, it was definitely something I asked in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Now, when I used to own my own brokerage, I'd have agents that wanted to work some of the outskirts of the area and you know, sell a farm or something like that, and they would always say, like I don't understand why you have to be a farm specialist to sell this. I think I can do it and I would say that's fine. Well, tell me about how many cow days grass there are, and they're like what?
Speaker 2:I said how many cow days grass and they're like I don't know what you mean. I'm like, okay, that's a homesteader, but they want to live kind of close to an urban area. They may want only an acre of land or a small amount of land. They're fine living in a subdivision, as long as the subdivision will allow them to do what they want. I think that's becoming a very popular position and a niche that a lot of people can kind of go after and it's almost like you know, have this specialist that you know. You know the neighborhoods that will allow you to have the chickens, you know the neighborhoods that will allow you to have the livestock or the bees or whatever. And then you know those that don't. You just kind of have this like hidden thing and then when somebody says yes, you're like, oh, it's like a whole new world, let me show it.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, so I love that well, it's.
Speaker 3:It's not even the animals, like the bees and the chickens, like we use. I get a lot of questions. The last, you know two, three years of just, could they, you know, plant vegetables in their front yard? You know, like we don't have much of a backyard, but we have this big front yard, you know. Can we plant vegetables? Can we turn it into a vegetable garden? And I'm like no, absolutely not. What are you crazy? Yeah, vegetable garden. And I'm like no, absolutely not. What are you crazy? Um, yeah, and then they're gonna look at you sideways, yeah is it?
Speaker 1:that's a really popular growing thing now too, of course, because of that chicken video. I'm in the algorithm on tiktok of people that do that and so like. There's this whole movement of turning lawns into more natural landscaping, and that is a bill, and that's why it's so important to keep up with the legislation regarding real estate changes. Is that's a bill that did pass through texas? Uh, that allowed people to have, like you said, vegetable gardens in their front yard, and hoas can't say, hey, you can't have a garden in your front yard because it's like this is my front yard. Who are you to say what I can't, can't do? It's better than a broken down car.
Speaker 3:Right, I get this grass. I get to mow every week and fertilize and all this kind of stuff, which are mostly non-native.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're taking up so much water and they're not doing anything for the soil.
Speaker 2:Monoculture yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, non-native monocultures are taking over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, look at us. Sound like a bunch of tree huggers just wasting dihydrogen monoxide.
Speaker 2:Um, so that's water, by the way. So I agree, I think I think you should be able to put vegetables in your front yard until you see someone's front yard, oh, about october, and they've had a vegetable garden and it looks atrocious, especially when they're letting it die back naturally so they could till it in, or something like that. Yeah, that is the. That is the one like ouch part of that where I agree. I'm like I love the philosophy, I love the strategy, uh, but then if they're letting stuff down on the vine out there the number of field mice and stuff like that, that you know the number of pests, so there, I think you should be able to do that. But if you do that in your front yard, surely there's some kind of like guardrails they could put up, like you got to maintain it.
Speaker 1:You can't just like oh we're growing pasture grasses.
Speaker 3:And it's like 10 foot grass up there. You know they put guidelines around everything else. You know how tall your grass can be and everything. So just you know.
Speaker 2:Well, there was this bright idea to turn all the ornamental trees in a city to fruit trees, and I can't remember the city that did it, but there was a city that did it. They planted mature fruit trees around right about this recently. Yeah and uh, it was great, but they were basically saying, well, homeless can go and just pick fruit, just whenever, right, it just grows around the city, so they could just.
Speaker 2:It was a great idea until the city in theory didn't change how they maintain trees, so instead of like going around the trees and picking up all the fruit and stuff that dropped them, they just it. It was there, so it looked like a disaster, like a wasteland, and it stunk because of all the rotten food and all this other stuff.
Speaker 4:Basically, they were flies and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Flies, pests, mice, and then whatever eats mice. So snakes uptick and rats, all that stuff was happening. So I think it's a good idea, but you also have to change how you maintain it. You can't just say we're allowing it, especially if you're a city and you want to put that. I think it's a wonderful idea, but then you actually have to train people to maintain it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got to think past just putting the fruit tree in, and then you know.
Speaker 2:Right. Fortunately there wasn't enough homeless that was that hungry to pick their own fruit. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 4:Well, like most things that the government does, it's missing a few key elements.
Speaker 1:Not very well thought out. Yeah, what but Rick and Renee were in the military.
Speaker 2:They're not familiar with anything like that. Those are well-oiled machines. I don't know about the Air.
Speaker 3:Force. The Navy is a well-oiled fighting machine. There is no problems in the US Navy at all, At all ever.
Speaker 4:He said with his eyes completely not rolling in the back of his head.
Speaker 2:As he sips.
Speaker 4:For our audio only listeners.
Speaker 2:That's funny. So why do you have a separate account for your ranch? What are you doing with that?
Speaker 1:I wasn't doing anything with it until it went viral. I mean, yeah, it was just home movies for fun, had it for years. The bobcat video on there was the first one that I put on. That did okay and that's. I mean that's. I have a interesting stuff happens out here. I want to share it when I can.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's, it was just a fun thing, and then it's turned into more obviously.
Speaker 1:Do people know that you're a?
Speaker 2:realtor, or you haven't ever said anything.
Speaker 1:I know I put my link on there. I went around and this happened earlier this year, in like March or something, and so I really thought about how I could build the two. And then, because I spend a lot of time researching and studying all social media stuff and you know it just turned into. I didn't want another thing that I love in my personal time to turn into work, and so it just lives on its own. It's organic. It's really fun that other realtors and other people my friends on Facebook know that this happened, but otherwise I don't really have that big of a drive to want to turn that channel into anything real estate Cause they're all people there for chicken content or funny content. They're not local to the area, so it's not my ideal clients anyway.
Speaker 2:Do you? Are you an influencer in that space now? Do you collect monies from your views over there?
Speaker 1:We got a little bit of money from that video like a couple hundred bucks but it's definitely not like a income stream.
Speaker 2:It'll replace a chicken or two. You were paid.
Speaker 3:That makes you a professional TikToker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're, you're an actual influencer now I am a content creator.
Speaker 1:That's right I was looking at the numbers surrounding it.
Speaker 2:Did you influence their t-shirt with a big chicken on it, right? So you you have. You had 41 million views on that one. The one before that had 481. The one before that had 217. The one before that one 46,. One before that one, oh five. The one before that 84, 66, 61, 50. Did those pop off when the 41 million hit, or was it already? Did you already have, you know, hundreds of thousands on the others as well?
Speaker 1:No, the. Once that I posted that one that went viral with 41 million, the the Bobcat video had like 30,000 views on it organically by itself. And then I put up a couple other ones but they didn't take off until I posted the the chicken video that went viral. So that was all just activity from TikTok sending people to my profile and then seeing the other videos, so it was a catalyst for the other ones to have a lot of views.
Speaker 2:That's wild and your Bobcat one has a mature content warning on it too.
Speaker 1:Oh, does it? Yeah, because it's violent. It's so violent.
Speaker 2:I would show it but, then we would put a mature content warning on our show too. So I'm not going to show that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and we're very immature.
Speaker 2:We should probably.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we need an immature content Because of you, Rebecca.
Speaker 2:That would be funny. I need to create like a graphic that looks like a mature content warning and have it be an immature content warning.
Speaker 3:So, renee, do you play any instruments? Oh yes, oh, instruments. Oh yes, oh, not a single one. Do you sing? Are you in a band? I?
Speaker 2:would not claim it. How did you get on this podcast? It's true, I don't know.
Speaker 1:The history of our guests have been very musical no, I do have this tattoo that a lot of people mistake for a banjo. That is as musical as it looks like a mandolin.
Speaker 2:What is it?
Speaker 4:it's a key a key.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's a key.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I see For real estate, or did you get it before real estate?
Speaker 1:Okay, In my obsessive years of real estate, I did get it.
Speaker 2:Wait, there are non-obsessive years. When does that happen?
Speaker 1:About 2021 when burnout happens.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:But did you get any tattoos at the brokerage that you're with? Not yet, but I have been floating one.
Speaker 1:We'll see at Rise if. I show up with one.
Speaker 2:That'd be rad.
Speaker 1:Anyone else here have one with the brokerage.
Speaker 2:I don't even have it. I want tattoos. I don't even have a single one.
Speaker 4:Neither of these guys have tattoos.
Speaker 3:We're going to get the podcast name full sleeve down our arms, that's right.
Speaker 2:I'll get Rebecca and Rick's face on my arm.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, we could do our faces and then real random all of them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, that's exactly what I want to have on my body.
Speaker 2:My face.
Speaker 1:May I suggest a teardrop? But instead of the teardrop it's a little house silhouette.
Speaker 2:Oh no-transcript I do have a friend that tends to sell murder homes, by the way that's a really good then for them. You know houses that have had murders and stuff in them. He has clients that want to buy them. We need to talk about that stuff in Florida.
Speaker 4:What an interesting niche to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can find out about it even if it's not disclosed, you find out about them through the news. They're like let's go take a look at this one.
Speaker 4:He's like they're like oh, let's go take a look at this one. He's like okay, he looks it up, sure enough double homicide?
Speaker 2:is it because they're wanting to continue the history of that house like that's. That's what my concern would be is like why do you want a murder? It's the deal, yeah, yeah, it's the deal. You get a better deal on them. They sell generally in this area they sell a little less because you know people don't want to live in a murder house that's right, I can see for some people not military they kind of don't like the dying someone has died everywhere.
Speaker 2:Let's be real so maybe, but I don't want to know about it yeah, texas has had a lot of that.
Speaker 4:There's a whole you know whole war.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, we just came through this whole pandy where so many people died in their home. We'll see that more and more.
Speaker 3:I think when you call it the pandy it makes it sound a little lighter.
Speaker 1:Let's erase the trauma with the pandy.
Speaker 2:I'm used to the. The other show I do is broadcast live. If you say the word pandemic, it'll instantly demon. You know D demonetize, cut your views all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:You've learned a vernacular, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is it's fine until you're explaining the market to a client and you say the word you know after the pandy and they're like and then I have to tell them actually sorry, I know I'm not broadcasting live.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I got that from TikTok.
Speaker 4:Oh, yes, Sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm an influencer, so Someone was unalived here. Someone is unalived here.
Speaker 3:Renee, I know you are super, super busy.
Speaker 2:Oh, you got to go.
Speaker 3:Because you're emailing me and texting me constantly about real military.
Speaker 1:I have to get back on to bother more people we don't want to take up all of your day, but does anyone have any last minute things?
Speaker 3:or? Renee, you want to share anything, anything big happening in Renee's world. You want to share.
Speaker 2:Besides the tattoo with the brokerage logo.
Speaker 1:Besides that, that is going to be a surprise. Find me at real to ask, or at at rise and see if I did it. I'm trying to get my husband to team in a team up with me on that one as well. Biggest thing happening in my life is this real military division, so if you have anybody that wants to be a part of it, definitely reach out to Rick or I and we'd be happy to spin them up and see what we can help them with.
Speaker 2:That's cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I will probably be reaching out to you guys, because we do have JBLM. That's right here and that is something that's like always in my heart. I kind of was like unsure if I should ask, because I'm not personally military All my grandfathers were and I was like, well, is this something that I should reserve for people who have actually served, because I don't want to take up their space?
Speaker 3:I think Chiron said it best when he said that it's military first. So it's not that you have to be military exclusive, you just have to have a passion for serving the military. And so you're marketing to them, you're trying to help them, like you have a military first mentality, like you're really going to do everything you can to help them.
Speaker 2:But of a military first mentality Like you're really going to do everything you can to help them, but of course you can do all the other stuff too, so it's not exclusive just military first, In a lot of ways underserved, super underserved community and there's so many sharks that are in that community that are out to take advantage of them.
Speaker 3:And that's the thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's why. That's why I'm, you know, I would love to get more involved, because, yeah, I can, I can name the sharks for you, but I won't do that yeah, every veteran should have the opportunity to buy a piece of the land that they helped swerve to protect.
Speaker 1:So absolutely if you are a vet or you know a vet, encourage them to use a zero down va loan. It is a fantastic benefit and it's really really easy and not as scary as people make it out to be yeah renee were you one of the people who, like, spearheaded this new division with NREL.
Speaker 4:Like how did this come about?
Speaker 1:Yes, Rick and I and a few other folks are on like a leadership team, and so they approached us earlier this year about standing up the division. So it's literally us every week in a meeting going okay, what are we doing next? How are we helping this group grow? And so it is agent by agents for agents.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they had a big like hey, let's do this. And then they said, okay, now you guys do it.
Speaker 1:You guys do it. Yeah, so we're doing it. We're doing it though.
Speaker 2:That's cool.
Speaker 4:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Well you guys reach out to Renee. Renee, where do you want people to find you? You got a lot of different outlets, but where can they connect with you best?
Speaker 1:The best place is probably email Renee at soldbyzunkercom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you don't want just a bunch of random emails from random listeners of the podcast. Where do you want people to like? Follow your journey, santa Clara.
Speaker 3:Ranch. No, Santa Clara Ranch is cool.
Speaker 2:That's where the chicken chasing is.
Speaker 1:The best. That's where the that's where the chicken chasing is. The best place is probably. I'm not as active on instagram as I should be, but facebook. Surprisingly, you can follow people now on facebook, so come follow me on facebook. The only other renee zunker that I know is my mother-in-law and she's not on facebook, so you'll find me nice. Thanks for joining us yeah thanks for having me. I appreciate you guys are fun bunch. We'll see you at rise see you soon bye yeah, no, she's awesome, she's.
Speaker 3:So you know, we were talking about how kind of like the, the real military division, started. I mean, they, they put a kind of a call to action out like hey, who wants to be involved? And I think there was like six or seven of us that raised our hands, so it was like Sharon and he brought somebody in, and then there was all the guys from century real estate, you know, dan and all those guys, yeah, and then me and Renee and Brian Rodriguez, and so we're all in there like, yeah, be great. We had like two calls with everybody and then after that it was like people just started kind of like yeah, and then we were like, oh well, what kind of you know support do we have? What kind of budget we have? We're like, well, you guys can figure it out like yeah, budget, budget, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:budget? This is just a, a workplace group, right, and that's what we didn't want it to become a workplace group.
Speaker 3:right, and that's what we didn't want it to become a workplace group. So, thankfully, Renee has really kind of taken the reins and stepped up as, like I said, she's like the one I see like the CEO of the group, so she's taken the reins.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I saw her post earlier today in Workplace where she's like if you need a reference to somebody who specializes with VA anywhere in the country, let me know and I'll get you connected with the right agent.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 4:I was like oh cool.
Speaker 3:Because we have like 350 agents in the group who have been vetted as having a what we call a first tier military association. So they're either veterans, active duty spouses, retirees, and have experience. They're not green, they know what they're doing. So we've got 350 people around the country right now and we just started the division.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 3:So if you've got someone moving anywhere, conus. I mean, I'm sure we have people that support that base.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's very cool.
Speaker 4:I think I would be second tier, since I'm grandfathered in.
Speaker 3:Literally grandfathered in Exactly you could be that passionate patriot.
Speaker 4:Exactly, I am a passionate patriot.
Speaker 3:See there, you go, but yeah, no, she's great. I've gotten to know Renee a lot more since we've been doing Real Military, so she's good, that's.
