SUMMARY
Megan Farrell-Nelson, a former kindergarten teacher, made a bold career transition into real estate at the age of 26 and has been in the industry for approximately twelve years. Megan's perspective on transitioning to a real estate career is that it was a challenging and unexpected journey, met with skepticism and lack of support from her peers. However, she persevered and learned to embrace the grit and perseverance required in the industry. Her background as a kindergarten teacher played a significant role in her ability to break down complex real estate concepts for clients and provide them with the necessary education. Megan, along with her husband, who is also a former educator, now relishes the opportunity to educate and train new agents in their office. Her experiences underscore the importance of resilience, learning from failures, and providing support to others in the real estate industry.
QUOTES
(00:00:03) "I walked in as from kindergarten world, right, where you're like, be kind and treat each other with the golden rule. And then I walked into a real estate office and I was like, hi, I'm Megan and super bubly and super, you know, just basically who I am now again. But I was greeted with not as much excitement as I had, let's, let's, let's call it that. And just a lot of like, I remember the first day I did floor time and the agent telling me that I was going to flounder just like the rest of them." - Megan Farrell-Nelson
(00:09:41) "I need something. I know this is going to sound kind of weird, like, you can only go to the beach so many times when you're by yourself, right? And I was 26 and I was excited about life, and that just wasn't it." - Megan Farrell-Nelson
(00:10:52) "I went from taking care of their most valuable possession, which is their baby, right, to the largest transaction. They're going to have experience. And so it's kind of like kid gloves both ways. And like you said, over explaining things is really big in real estate and education. And I went from teaching people who knew nothing about standing in line and reading and writing to breaking it down on a very low level for them. And so it really did transition naturally into helping with real estate because I was able to break it down." - Megan Farrell-Nelson
(00:20:51) "I think the number one thing that agents don't do, I really think it's the number one thing they don't do, which makes me crazy, is they don't learn the contract. They just know what blank spots they need to fill in. Right. They don't understand a contract." - Megan Farrell-Nelson
(00:25:14) "I think that horrible situation I went through, I think that being able to turn away from substances and being able to take care of myself when I needed to are really what helped me heal and continue to heal." - Megan Farrell-Nelson
(00:33:22) "Don't quit before the magic happens." - Megan Farrell-Nelson
SOCIAL LINKS
https://www.instagram.com/meganfarrellnelson/
https://www.facebook.com/TheMeganFarrellTeam/
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah. So I was 26, like I said. And it, it was, I walked in as from kindergarten world, right, where you're like, be kind and treat each other with the golden rule. And then I walked into a real estate office and I was like, hi, I'm Megan and super bubbly and super, you know, just basically who I am now again. But I was greeted with not as much excitement as I had, let's, let's, let's call it that. And just a lot of like, I remember the first day I did floor time and the agent telling me that I was going to flounder just like the rest of them.
00:00:36 - Bill Risser
You're listening to the real estate sessions and I'm your host, Bill Risser. With nearly 25 years in the real estate business, I love to interview industry leaders, up and comers, and really anyone with a story to tell. It's the stories that led my guests to a career in the real estate world that drives me into my 9th year and nearly 400 episodes of the podcast. And now I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 378 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend. Today we're going to go up to the palm coast of Florida and we're going to be talking to Megan Farrell Nelson. Megan and her husband Brady have a team with Real Brokers LLC. They've been in the business roughly twelve years, kind of in that range, doing some really cool stuff. I've had a chance to work with them at the re bar camps in Florida, whether it was at the state level or one coast up in Jacksonville. So I know you're going to enjoy this conversation. Let's get this thing rolling. Megan, welcome to the podcast.
00:01:35 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
00:01:38 - Bill Risser
Well, I can't tell you how much fun I think we're going to have today because you and I were re bar camp. Know we've been in a few sessions together. I'm watching you take a picture right now, so I know you're going to post this. A social thing. I wouldn't expect anything else. That's great. Well, Megan, I want to start at the beginning. This is what I do. I like to find out the backstory of interesting people in the and so, doing some research, I was looking around, I saw a lot of Pennsylvania in there, a Scotia of North Carolina. And then you've been in Florida for a little while now. So I'm just going to guess born and raised in PA. Am I right? And tell me a little bit about growing up in Pennsylvania.
00:02:25 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah. So I'm actually from Scranton, which everyone thinks is so cool because the office, Dunder Mifflin, does not actually exist there. But yeah, I grew up in a city called Clark Summit, right outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Grew up with all the seasons, including the snow. And it was college. I can remember I was walking to class in college and my face hurt and my hands hurt and I was like, this ain't it for me. And I was going to school to be a teacher at the time. And so when I graduated, there was a big push for hiring in the Carolinas. And so I went down to the Carolinas because I knew I wanted to get out of the snow and ended up getting a teaching job.
00:03:04 - Bill Risser
Scranton is, I think, that's closer to Philly than Pittsburgh. Right.
00:03:08 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
It's northeast. So, like, the pog knows I'm about an hour and a half outside of New York City.
00:03:14 - Bill Risser
Okay. So I'm just going to know, do you grow up as a Phillies fan or an, when you, when you live in Scranton or does it go the other way?
00:03:22 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
I grew up as a New York Giants fan and a Yankees fan. Yeah. Crazy.
00:03:28 - Bill Risser
How does that happen?
00:03:29 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Philadelphia is actually further away from where we live than New York. And I don't know, I guess you kind of go with your parents, right? And my dad was a Giants fan and a Yankees fan. And then my mom's side of the family, they're like hardcore eagles, like, season not. We can't be around each other if the teams play each other kind of.
00:03:47 - Bill Risser
Stuff, which the Giants and the Eagles play every year.
00:03:55 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
And my brother moved to DC and I was like, cool. So now you're like, Redskins, Eagles, Giants. So perfect.
00:04:00 - Bill Risser
Got it all covered. So tell me, growing up in Scranton, I know roughly how old you were talking 20 years ago. You're going through high school, right? And before that, what is it like growing up there?
00:04:13 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
My dad was a builder and my mom was a school teacher, so I was always involved around my parents because my dad, we could go to the job site whenever we wanted. Like, had a bobcat in our backyard. There's a bobcat in my parent's backyard right now, which, if you don't know a bobcat is a piece of machinery, not the animal.
00:04:37 - Bill Risser
It's a little tractor.
00:04:38 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
It's kind of tractor guy. But yeah. So I grew up basically, like on construction sites or at school with my mom or with my mom after school and things like that. So I kind of was immersed in the real estate business world without really knowing that, and then the teacher world, which is the path I ended up pursuing initially out of college.
00:05:01 - Bill Risser
By the way, I have to ask you about college.
00:05:03 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah.
00:05:04 - Bill Risser
Tell me a little bit about that, because I've never heard of.
00:05:08 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah, King's College. It's in Wilkesburg, Pennsylvania, and it's like, christ, the. So it was a religious school, I guess I was not religious. That's not why I chose to go there. I went for sports because at the time, that was my thing, was sports. And that's how I picked my college. But, yeah, I went there, majored in early childhood and elementary education.
00:05:35 - Bill Risser
Awesome. Now, wait, you said sports. Did you play sports there? Was that part of the plan?
00:05:40 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah. So my mom is actually a d one, NCAA national champion in field hockey. She was on the national team? Yeah. She's in all these hall of fames all over the place for field hockey.
00:05:54 - Bill Risser
Where'd she go to school?
00:05:55 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
She went to Chippensburg University, which used to be d one. Now it's d two, but at the time it was d one. And, yeah, they won the national championship. She was like, MVP. She's incredible. And I started playing when I was really young, and then it kind of was like, oh, well, you're going to play, and you're expected of me. And then my middle school years, I was like, I'm not playing and I'm not being like my mom. And then I came back around to it in high school. And turns out some things are also inherited. And I was pretty good at field hockey. And when I went to college, my girlfriends who played hockey, some of them played lacrosse, and they were like, hey, why don't you try out for lacrosse? I said, okay. And I tried out, and I ended up making the starting team my first year. So I played field hockey and lacrosse in college.
00:06:45 - Bill Risser
Wow. So for those that don't know, me included the difference between field hockey and lacrosse, one, I'm going to guess, is the stick you're holding. They're quite different, am I right?
00:06:58 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah. So you have a hockey stick, and it's obviously the balls on the ground, but honestly, it's very similar. So I'm showing, Bill, when you dribble, you do this on the ground, and then when you run with the lacrosse ball, so it's the same basic motions with your wrists, just one's in the air and one's. And they both have goals. So you're trying to get down the field, up and down the field, and really, it's a lot of speed game and an endurance game. Another fun fact about me is I'm a marathoner. Yeah, I've run five full marathons. And so, yeah, I'm a little bit of a, I guess, like, glutton for physical pain when it comes to that kind of stuff, but, yeah.
00:07:41 - Bill Risser
Wow.
00:07:42 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah, I was really good at running in college.
00:07:45 - Bill Risser
I guess both those sports, incredibly physical. Right. I don't think. There's not the level of contact that can happen sometimes in sports, but I'm sure it's still there. And you probably have a few stories. We'll get to those on episode two. I could talk to you the whole show about your. I had no, we've, we've met quite a few times. We've worked together, and I've never knew that you were a lacrosse and field hockey jock. That's great. All right, so let's get to the fact that you get out of school, you end up in North Carolina teaching, but somehow we have to get you to Florida in real estate. What's that transition look like?
00:08:28 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
So I was a school teacher making $30,400 a year in North Carolina, which as a 20 year old, that's not such bad money. But once you start getting to 25, 26, and you have to talk about buying houses and stuff, it's a little bit more challenging. And I was working at a gym, I was waitressing on the weekends, and I was teaching full time. And that sounds all good when you're single. But then I started to build a life with someone else, and I needed a different income. That person I was building a life with lived in Palm Coast, Florida, and I lived in North Carolina. We had dated long distance, and at the end of the school year, he owned a commodities brokerage. And it was time for one of us to move. And so it made more sense for me, who made $30,000 to move my life. And also I could teach in Florida. And when I got here, I knew I didn't want to jump right back into teaching. So I was know, hanging out a little bit and just staying at home, enjoying the beach and Florida life. And I actually got really kind of depressed. I was. I need. I need something. I know this is going to sound kind of weird, like, you can only go to the beach so many times when you're by yourself, right? And I was 26 and I was excited about life, and that just wasn't it. So upon a few suggestions from some friends, they were like, hey, why don't you get your real estate license? You like people, and you like to talk. And so I was like, okay. And that was almost eleven years ago, and eleven years later, we're still here, still doing it. But, yeah, I got my license in 2013 and joined a local brokerage down here and just hit the ground running.
00:10:19 - Bill Risser
First of all, I've interviewed a lot of people on the show, and you didn't teach a long time. Just a few years. But I'm going to assume even in those few years, whenever I talk to teachers who move into real estate, there's a slight advantage there. I think there's just a different way of thinking about things. Education is a massive part of a great agents tool chest. So my guess is that was a big help for you, right?
00:10:44 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah. So I was actually a kindergarten teacher, which I adored. And so when I transitioned, I was like, all right. I went from taking care of their most valuable possession, which is their baby, right, to the largest transaction. They're going to have experience. And so it's kind of like kid gloves both ways. And like you said, over explaining things is really big in real estate and education. And I went from teaching people who knew nothing about standing in line and reading and writing to breaking it down on a very low level for them. And so it really did transition naturally into helping with real estate because I was able to break it down. I'm able to break it down now, even, and talk to people who've never sold before or take it up to people who have done it. Lots of. Yeah. And everyone, like teachers and nurses, they're the best agents because they know that's. That's another thing. Brady, also my husband and my business partner, he was a former educator. And so it's kind of cool how we do. Like, we just left an appointment this morning, and we were both educating the whole time. And it's really been a fun transition, and not just with our customers, but also now we have an office in a team where we're recruiting agents in, we're training them. And so that has been a huge thing. We didn't even realize when we opened our office how much that was going to be a part of what we enjoyed is the education part, because it brings us back to who we are in our core. We are educators. So it's a really cool transition. Now I can sell one house and make $30,400 instead of.
00:12:34 - Bill Risser
True. Yeah. Especially on the coast in Florida. So I want to ask you this. You are relatively young, maybe I'll say very young that first year in the business, because it tends to be a second career. But usually people are in their 30s, sometimes even 40s, right. Maybe even later before they make the leap. So, first of all, what was it like the first year? I mean, I could imagine that you had some old veterans hanging around, that it was just a little bit different. Any stories from there?
00:13:04 - Megan Farrell-Nelson
Yeah. So I was 26, like I said, and I walked in from kindergarten world, right, where you're like, be kind and treat each other with the golden rule. And then I walked into a real estate office and I was like, hi, I'm Megan, and super bubly and super, just basically who I am now again. But I was greeted with not as much excitement as I had, let's call it that. And just a lot of, like, I remember the first day I did floor time and the agent telling me that I was going to flounder just like the rest of them and being like, so nice to meet you, Sharon. That was kind of my first experience with it. And then I think it's just like starting anything new. It took me time cutting my teeth, as they call it, to get the earn respect. I was the youngest president of our local board ever, too. I was president in 2019, and I was 32, I believe, at the time. And that was even more challenging than getting in the business. I could get people to trust me with their house, but once I got into leadership, they were like, what's this little girl going to teach me? So it definitely was an uphill battle at the beginning, which anything new is. But I also think I had an advantage being young because I didn't care what anyone thought, right? I moved here, I knew one person, his best friends were real estate agents, so I wasn't getting referrals from them. So I had to go knock on doors. I had to join clubs. I had to join. I supported the humane society when I got there because I knew everyone liked two things. Everyone likes their kids and everyone likes their dogs. And so if I could find a group that if I'm there, they already like me because they know we're on the same page. I did that with the humane society, and I wasn't embarrassed to knock on doors. I wasn't embarrassed to make calls. I wasn't embarrassed to do video. And that was back when video wasn't the cool thing. Everyone, I remember, they were teasing me. She puts her listings on Facebook, and I remember sitting in the seat and ignoring it and feeling really bad because I also came from kindergarten world as a teacher who if I thought someone was doing something not right, I would have reached out and offered help rather than stood behind them and commented, but don't worry, because the next year, I remember the same agent, as I'm sitting there on the computer, came up to me and said, hey, are you putting your listing on Facebook? And I said, yeah. And she said, how much money do you think you made last year off of Facebook? This is probably in 2015. And I was like, I can account for exactly $30,000. And that was the first year I had made six figures. So...
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