Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP #295: Tanya Cunningham with Tanya Homes Group
Join us on a journey through the world of South Florida real estate with Tanya Cunningham, a seasoned realtor and broker associate with LPT Realty. Tanya shares her 20-year odyssey in the industry, focusing on the bustling markets of Broward, Palm Beach, and Dade counties. You’ll learn how her commitment to reducing stress for her clients and leveraging a strong network of realtor partners sets her apart in the competitive world of real estate. Get ready to discover how Tanya’s passion and dedication lead her clients to success and satisfaction.
Discover the latest trends shaking up the South Florida housing market post-COVID, with insights into the impact of historically low interest rates. Tanya and I chat about the market's volatility, the challenges of timing purchases, and the broader implications for buyers and sellers alike. We also explore how real estate remains a powerful tool for building long-term wealth, with personal stories illustrating its potential as a robust retirement plan. This is your chance to get a detailed picture of the intricate dynamics shaping today's real estate industry.
Peel back the layers of real estate myths with us, as we clarify common misconceptions about the ease of being a realtor. Tanya candidly discusses the intricate skills required to guide clients safely through transactions and the importance of professional support. We also touch on the personal side, reflecting on maintaining balance in life and work. From sharing tales of personal growth through loss to highlighting how technology like ChatGPT can enhance efficiency, this episode is a testament to the power of authenticity and resilience in both personal and professional arenas.
Visit: Tanyahomes.com
Call: (954) 513-7749
Follow: https://www.instagram.com/tanyahomes
Like: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100048483566029
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2:Well, hello, hello, hello there everyone. Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Got a fun one today. Our guest, Tanya Cunningham. I actually met her. What was it, tanya? Maybe like two years ago I was invited to a BNI group and we met each other through there and we've kind of stayed in touch, but infrequently. And the other day it was my birthday and she was nice enough to reach out and give me a call to wish me a happy birthday and we reconnected and I said, tanya, you're a realtor, you're very active in the community here. You should come on the podcast so we could talk a little bit about what you do and all the value that you bring to our great community.
Speaker 3:So, tanya, welcome to the show. I am looking forward to getting into this with you. Thank you, jeremy, and thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it and, yeah, it's great that we reconnected. We stay a little connected every year, but it was great to just chat with you last week and now, all of a sudden, here we are, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Here we are making it happen in 2025.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So let's start off by. I've had so many realtors on the show and obviously everybody knows what a realtor does, but every realtor is different and everyone brings a different element to the equation. So start there. Tell us a little bit about your business and then we'll get into your journey that led you into being a realtor in the first place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so thank you for that question.
Speaker 3:I'm a residential realtor and that just means that I help people who are looking to buy or sell a home. That's for, you know, living in, but it could be an investment, but it also could be for their primary use to live in that house. And the majority of my clients even though I do have investors are clients who want to buy a home to live in or they need to sell it and um, and my journey, the part of it that makes it interesting is that everybody is different. Everybody has a reason for why they want to buy or sell a home. It's never the same and it's about just understanding that clearly so that I can help my clients reach their goals and dreams. And what I've found over the years is that the clients that work with me and what they feel when they're working with me, is that I eliminate the fear, the anxiety, the stress, whether it's me or a team member. We eliminate those fears, that anxiety, that stress, um in in buying or selling a home, because there's a lot that's involved.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned you specialize in residential sales. Are you servicing primarily the South Florida market? Like where do you spend what area? I know obviously realtors. You're not necessarily going to turn away business. You get somebody that needs help somewhere, you're going to try your best to help them. But generally speaking, you have your pulse on certain areas. Where are your typical areas of specialties?
Speaker 3:Yeah my specialty? That's a good question, and Broward County is really where I call it my wheelhouse.
Speaker 2:That's your stomping ground.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a little bit of Palm Beach County and a little bit of Dade County, but you'll see that the majority of what I do is in Broward County and then, when I'm like you said, a lot of people will be asked for help and it might not be in the area where I am for help and it might not be in the area where I am, but the good news is that I have realtor partners all over the South Florida, all over the country, who I can lean into whenever a client needs help. So I always tell my clients and the people that I know if it's somewhere, if you need help, let's start. You can ask me and I'll guide you because I'll be able to connect you with someone if I'm not able to do it. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. You can ask me and I'll guide you because I'll be able to connect you with someone if I'm not able to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. You speak in with many realtors. You'll have a realtor that many cases works through a broker. You have some that are brokers themselves. Then you have some that work through a broker but create their own teams and I know you have your own group, tanya Homes Group. Is that through a larger brokerage? Are you your own broker? How does that process work for you and your business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting when you become a realtor, because after you become a realtor you can make some choices and decisions that are best for you. So in my case, I've been a realtor for I always say more than 15 years, but it's really more than 20. I just don't date myself, but so once.
Speaker 2:So wait. So you started being a realtor when you were 10?.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was 10.
Speaker 2:Ah see, flattery will get me everywhere.
Speaker 3:Yes, it will, jeremy. So once you have a few years under your belt, you can choose to become a broker, and then you have to go ahead and get that licensing and that's a process just like it was to get your real estate license. So I did do that a couple of years ago actually, and now I'm what's called a broker associate, and a broker associate is someone who chooses to take their broker's license and hang it with another brokerage. So they, so my, so my. My license is with a larger brokerage which is lpt Realty, and lpt Realty is the brokerage that I have my license with, and my team is know, I have a small team, so my team is a part of Tanya, me being a realtor, me being a broker associate but whoever works with me also is a realtor as well.
Speaker 2:So is the goal to be if you're a broker associate, is the goal to be a full-on broker or is there some function, is there some like utility in staying as a broker associate through the larger brokerage? I'm trying to understand that dynamic Sure and I want to make it clear.
Speaker 3:I can at any time choose to be a broker on my own and not hang my license with a brokerage. I've just chosen over the years that I really love being with a larger brokerage because of the tools, because of how I can serve my clients. I like to have the ability to have whoever is working with me even get more training. All of that is possible when you're with a larger brokerage if you choose the right one, and LPT Realty is a great brokerage for me to hang my license with. So at any point in time, if I chose to because I'm a broker, I can also go ahead and have my Just Be Tanya Homes group at the brokerage and not even have my license with another brokerage. As a realtor, you don't have that option. As a realtor or a sales associate, what you have to do is always have your last license with another brokerage. But I have the option and I choose to be with a larger brokerage because it's beneficial not only to me whoever is working with me on my team, it's also beneficial to the client.
Speaker 2:I want to ask you every time I have a realtor on the podcast, I actually haven't. I can't say I've had one recently, maybe a couple of months ago but I always ask to pull out your crystal ball. We're going to do crystal ball time right, like we're coming off. Post COVID was a crazy boom. It was a hot topic, prices were soaring and then obviously everything kind of flattened out and it's not really on the radar right now. I don't hear nearly as much about real estate right now. Talk a little bit about the state of the market right now here in South Florida, like what's going on with home values, interest rates, the whole climate of the real estate market, and then again pull out that crystal ball and look 12 months out, maybe this time in 2026, where do you see us?
Speaker 3:Okay, wow, that's a great one because it's been such a roller coaster lately. It's been very interesting. In fact, 2024 and 2023, we had the lowest sales in the country of homes since 1995.
Speaker 2:So the inventory was gone because everything sold like a fire sale after COVID, yeah Well it was, inventory was low in some instances, but also people.
Speaker 3:There are a lot of people that halted on purchasing because, if you remember, interest rates were really excellent. Uh, around 2022, 2021, we had some really 2020 even, I mean we had. We were coming off many, many years of great interest rates and then covid really added to that where it just you saw people having 2.5 interest rates, cheap money, we love cheap money it was, it was, it was amazing.
Speaker 3:So that's what that frenzy was about. I mean, you would literally have 30, 40 offers on one property, with no joke, where a seller could just sit back and just salivate over what was possible.
Speaker 2:It really was crazy. I'm looking back. I sold my house right when things started going crazy and I remember looking at comps when we listed it and it was like, okay, this is the right price. And it sold. And literally two or three weeks after the market had adjusted probably 20%, 25% there was comparable sales that I looked at. I was like, excuse me, what happened? I was like traumatized by that experience. For like months after the sale of the house I would drive around Like every time I saw a house listed I wouldn't want to look at it to see the price because I felt like I got such a low value for my home. But everything typically happens for a reason and I'm glad that I went through that process and it, it, uh, it taught me a lot about all this stuff and you really can't ever time the market, right? People say, oh, time the market, you'll drive yourself absolutely crazy, right? I'll ask you this question when? When is the right? When is the right time to buy? Tanya?
Speaker 3:Well, I always say now is the right time to buy, and the reason why I say that is because, especially even where we are right now, it might be that there isn't a lot of inventory and people might be thinking, okay, I just need to wait.
Speaker 3:People talk about they're waiting for a crash to happen, all of those things that they're expecting, but the truth of the matter is that the prices of homes will continue to increase over time.
Speaker 3:So if you're looking to buy and you're waiting for interest rates to drop, the interest rate could drop, but the price of the home would most likely increase and that wait that you were waiting for it didn't make sense because the cost of waiting is really. It doesn't work out for the consumer. So when it's about buying a home, we always say and I always say that based on my experience if it is the right time for you, if it's the right time for you, if everything is where you not only need to buy a home, but it's the right circumstances, don't wait, Because if, for instance, interest rates are higher than you would like them to be, then of course you can refinance when interest rates go down. But instead of waiting for the interest rates to go down. You're looking at the possibility, most likely, of the prices going up and then it wouldn't be worth the wait.
Speaker 2:There is no time like the present, and especially if you're looking for your home, right, the house you're going to live in, maybe your forever home. Yeah, the right time is when you're ready, like when you made the decision to buy a house and you find the house that you fall in love with and the rest will just fall into place, because if you own that house long enough, like you said, it's going to appreciate over time. And then, if you're from the other lens of picking up investment properties, what I've found from my experience is that if you could just make sure that you're having some monthly income from that property, some profit above your mortgage and your expenses, and you just have some positive cashflow coming in, if you own that property for long enough, you're going to accumulate so much equity I mean talk about like a secure retirement plan. I said this many years ago and I didn't stick to it.
Speaker 2:When I was younger I wanted to pick up like a property a year, starting in my twenties so that when I was 50, I owned a portfolio of 20, 30 properties and you're good for retirement. Haven't quite gotten there yet, but it's been on my radar now and I'm actively looking for new opportunities because it is so powerful. My best friend, brian, his parents, picked up a bunch of real estate. They're already, I think, getting close to 70s and they're 60s. They started buying properties before COVID and I think obviously COVID is an outlier event, but still, I mean, I don't know how much they're worth right now in real estate, but they have like probably north of $10 million in real estate holdings and they Airbnb them and they have positive income coming in. They're really building a lot of wealth through real estate.
Speaker 3:I think that's great, and it's not because I'm a realtor or I love real estate in general why I say that, but I think that when you purchase a property, it's just like you said if you just wait long enough, even if the property value goes down, it will go back up.
Speaker 3:And look at the crash of 2008, 2009, where people were doing some people had no choice, they had to do short sales. They ended up in a situation where they were upside down. But those people who were in a situation where they could afford their mortgage and they could hang in there, look at the way the values of their homes tripled, quadrupled, since then. I mean that was just not too long ago. It really wasn't that long ago. So the people who just held on to that property some of them may have sold it in 2020 or 2021, or even if they sold it this year I mean the value of that home is just the amount of equity they have is just astronomical. And you just don't see that with you know, with much else. I mean real estate is just yummy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I said, I said earlier, covid it was an isolated incident. It's incident, obviously it was. But if you look back through a long enough time period, there's always it seems like every decade or so there's always some catastrophic thing that happens, whether it was the 2008 collapse with the subprime lending and all that, or COVID. So, given a long enough period of time, that always seems to happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a cycle, it's like this, it's like that. And if it makes sense for you to hold onto that property and if you're living in it and you can afford it and you just wanted to hang onto it, or you want to rent it out because passive income is really great for investors, you can. There's so much that you can do with that, so much is possible, so that's what. I love about real estate.
Speaker 2:So you speak to tons of people. You do this full time for a living. What are some of the biggest myths or misconceptions things that you typically hear from people about the real estate industry in general?
Speaker 3:Well, it's not even a question. That's really the biggest myth that I find, I think even though I can think about it and come up with some but I think the biggest myth when it comes to real estate and realtors is that it's easy what we do. That is the biggest myth.
Speaker 2:You just show up and you get your 3% right. Yeah, yeah, that's what you know they don't understand.
Speaker 3:Most people don't understand how much it takes to guide somebody through the process of buying or selling a home and what it means for that person who's buying or selling to have them safely go through that process. A lot of people don't know it and that's why, according to the National Association of Realtors, the most litigation between a buyer and a seller is usually when a buyer and a seller are trying to do it in a for sale by owner situation, where the seller is representing themselves. It's not because they were trying to get one over on the buyer or the buyer was trying to get one over on the seller. It's just that they didn't know what they didn't know and because and because of that, they ended up in a situation where it became litigious. So I think that the biggest mistake is that, or the biggest myth is that people think that it's simple. It's not simple.
Speaker 3:It might not be that hard to get the license at first. You know you do your 62 hours and you pass the test, you pass the state exam, and then you have to do a few more hours after that, 18 months later or so. But that's just to get you in the possibility because you've become a realtor or a licensed agent, but that's just. That's just. That's the very beginning of what it takes. So what my clients always say to me is I even had lunch with a client on Sunday and she invited two of her friends and she said to her friends Tanya made it so easy, she made it so simple, and it's something that could be challenging. And it's something that could be challenging, but if you do it in a way that you understand what your clients' needs are how to guide them, how to once you know what they need, you know how to guide them properly, and in doing so, that takes skill, it takes knowledge and it takes experience. So that is the biggest myth no-transcript.
Speaker 2:everybody has their real estate license, but the truth of the matter is like 70% I think the post said 70, and who knows if it's accurate or not but like 74% of people that have their real estate license sold like no homes in 2024 or one home or something like that, and the ones that have sold like more than 45% or like 0.14% or 0.014% of all realtors. So there's a lot of people that do this as kind of like a side hustle or a hobby, if you will, and there's very few that do it professionally, to the point where they do a lot of transactions every year.
Speaker 3:Actually you're right, and that is a statistic for 2024. About 70% didn't sell one home in 2024.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it ain't easy right.
Speaker 3:You can't make a living that way.
Speaker 2:Something you said I want to touch upon because I think this is very important for listeners to hear anybody that's trying to sell their house you mentioned for sale by owner going at it alone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, listeners to hear anybody that's trying to sell their house you mentioned for sale by owner, going at it alone. Unless you have experience and I would say, even if you've had experience now, there's still emotion attached to that because it's your house you need to get help with that process. You're selling your house in many cases for many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars. It's probably one of the largest transactions, if not for many people, the largest transaction that they're going to undertake in their life. And to think that you're going to just do it on your own to save the realtor fee and you're going to go about marketing it and dealing with the contract. You need a good real estate lawyer to make sure the contract's good. You need a good title company. You need a good realtor. You need a team that's going to have your best interest at heart to make sure that you don't get into a legal situation with somebody and have problems along the process thank you, jeremy.
Speaker 3:I wish I could just take that. In fact, I'll just take that and you are that. That is everything you just said is perfect. It's like I I you know when, when, when someone is introduced to me, I do predominantly most of my business is by referral, because my clients are happy, they refer and so on, and even in say even though that's the case. When someone calls me, I say the first thing we're going to do is a consultation. And they say why it's not necessary? I say it's absolutely necessary. This is your biggest could be, like you just said, your biggest investment of your life, and we need to honor that. We need to treat it with the respect that it deserves and you need to understand what this process is going to look like. So we absolutely, without a doubt, have to have a consultation, as we cannot move forward. And they are so shocked of what they learn inside of that consultation. All these questions come up because of what I'm sharing with them and then they start to realize, oh, this is a big deal.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I'm sorry to cut you off. It's not just a transaction. No, I'm sorry to cut you off. It's not just a transaction. I mean it might seem like it is on its face, but it's an unbelievably impactful and important life change for someone.
Speaker 2:Whether you're moving or buying or selling your house, or even if you're just buying investment properties, you really want to have a good relationship and you want to have a good team in place, and the same rings true not just for real estate. I mean, I say this all the time when I interview all sorts of professionals. My dream situation is that I have a go-to professional in every aspect, every trade, that if I have a problem with something, I don't have to stress out about going to Google and reading reviews or asking for referrals or going on crowdsourcing on Facebook hey, does anybody know of anybody? I want to go to my phone and know I have John, who I've known for 30 years, who I feel comfortable, when I reach out to John, that he's going to have my best interest at heart and he's going to take care of me. It just takes so much pressure off because I'm not an expert in any of this shit.
Speaker 3:You know, I do what I do.
Speaker 2:I want to have a team of experts around me in every aspect, and it just makes my life a lot less stressful Absolutely. Absolutely, and that makes sense and that's why it our biggest motivator is often our family. I mean, for me I have a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old and really is the driving force behind everything that I do, and I know we talked briefly about this when we spoke on the phone. You have one child that's already spread the wings. They're grown and gone. I think you mentioned they're just going into college, right?
Speaker 3:She's in her first semester, her first year, her second semester of college.
Speaker 2:So tell everyone a little bit about your family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so thanks for asking that. So my daughterira is, you know I call her. I say she's the love of my life because, of course, when you have a kid, everything changes. Indeed, it does. I'm very proud of her. She's doing mechanical engineering, that's her major and she's doing really well. Yeah, I told you that she got all A's her first semester and now she's God bless her soul.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was on the phone with her last night and I was asking her about one of her classes and she's like, yeah, I'm just teaching myself that one, because what he's saying isn't making sense to me, but I'm figuring it out. So I said so, how is everything? She said fine, and that's all I need to hear. She's she's got it figured out and I'm I'm really proud of her for figuring it out. And I said remember, you can reach out for help, there are people there. And she's like yeah, mom, I know I got it.
Speaker 2:So she's doing great and um.
Speaker 3:And then there's my mom, who is also I call her my secret weapon on my team because even though she does have a real estate license and she does refer clients to me so that I can serve them so she doesn't do the day-to-day at all, but I call her my secret weapon because whenever I have something that I need to write, because I like to write so I have a magazine that I and she's my editor in my for for where the portion of the magazine that I write, she's also the person whenever, like if there was an HOA issue and we have to write a strongly worded letter or anything like that, she's my. She's my bulldog.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm sure she's great, but talk about secret weapons Like have you met chat GPT Jeez.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:GPT is something that.
Speaker 2:I'm so lazy with it though, like I, ever since I started using it, like literally, like I'll do, I'll be doing a just just for like a podcast. Right, if I have somebody come on and I want to get some questions together, you could just take the URL for their website, throw it in there and say, hey, I'm doing a podcast and like, obviously it knows me pretty well by now because I've been interacting with it. It just spits out in two seconds, crawls their website and pulls out 15 poignant questions I could ask. It's such an unbelievable shortcut. I remember I introduced my wife is from Peru, so she speaks English fluently, but it's still a second language for her to some degree and we have sometimes issues communicating because of the language. You know that, that it's mild language barrier, so sometimes she, we, we just can't, she can't just get me right. And then I introduced her to chat, like eight months ago, maybe a year ago, and she started using it and she told me she goes she goes, I think I'm going to leave you for chat.
Speaker 3:She gets me better than you ever have. That's hysterical. Yeah yeah, chat GPT is great and my assistant uses a chat GPT a lot for some of the stuff that we're doing. We've even created a clone of Tanya so that we so she asks it stuff to as Tanya you know, so when we're pulling up stuff we can use it sounds like Tanya and then we take that information and help with whatever it is we're going to send out. It sounds a lot like me and then I put my tweak on it. So it's very good, a very good support, this chat gpt I haven't, I haven't heard of cloning myself.
Speaker 2:I think I think one of me is quite enough. I don't know if we want to clone myself well, it's just having chat. Gpt ask questions like you, like jeremy, would I know so, tanya, I don't even know if we've ever talked about this in us just chatting. Maybe we have, maybe we haven't. What do you do for fun when you're not out there helping people find their dream home and purchase investment properties and the real estate game? What do you do for fun in your downtime?
Speaker 3:Well, I like to read a lot. And I find that to be a lot of fun. So I do a lot of reading and also I like to hang out with my significant other. We we tend to. We travel a little bit, go to the Bahamas quite sometimes I have a condo there, so we like going to the Bahamas, to Freeport.
Speaker 2:Condo in the Bahamas. I'll wait for my invitation to Freeport. Condo in the.
Speaker 3:Bahamas. I'll wait for my invitation. Yeah, it's right on the beach, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous actually there, and I love. You know, sometimes I like going to try out different restaurants because I like to eat I tend to, even though I'm very health conscious. I'm always finding somewhere that's really good to check out. When COVID came, I really discovered St Augustine. I like going there, sometimes because we couldn't travel far, so we started to like go within Florida and that was really cool, you know, going to Palm Bay, going to St Augustine, going to Anna Maria Island, so I like doing things like that. And I love to dance, so that's also another thing. And and I like working out, but, um, it's nothing, you know, I like, uh, lately I've been just doing a lot of walking. Um, yoga is my biggest challenge, so I've been doing that. I like to be challenged. Yeah, I don't consider myself a flexible person, so my mom is, and she helps me a lot with that too. So those are some of the things that I love to do.
Speaker 2:That's one of my bug aboos is the stretching. I'm a runner now. I run a lot but I have a hard time. I'm always stiff and stretching is always tough Before I go to sleep. I try my best to stretch for a little while and I recently I had never really done yoga and I recently did one and it was great. And I said to myself during the yoga I got to do this more often. I haven't been back. It's just like anything else life happens. So thank you for bringing that to my attention again.
Speaker 3:The yoga is on my mind. It's really really important. People think it's really really important.
Speaker 2:People think it's easy, but it is. Oh, it's not easy, it's brutal, especially the hot yoga, where you're going to the sweat factory and the oh my gosh, it's challenging.
Speaker 3:Yes, go back, jeremy, go back.
Speaker 2:Speaking of challenges, I always ask this question when I have a guest on the show and I think this says a lot about a person Looking back through your journey.
Speaker 2:This says a lot about a person looking back through your journey. I want you to talk about a life hardship or a challenge, because one of the things that I've learned throughout my life as I've gotten older, is that the difficult times, as as horrible as they seem when you're going through them, are often the things that shape us the most. And it's it's all good and well to have fun experiences and all that, but those, you know. I'm talking about those experiences where, when you're going through it, it feels like the end of the world, it feels like you're, it just feels like everything's ending and you don't know how you're going to get through it. But then you get through it and you look back at that experience. I mean, man, am I part of the french grateful for having experienced that thing? Because I wouldn't be where I'm at today without going through that experience. What comes to mind for you throughout your journey? That fits that bill.
Speaker 3:Well, as you asked that question, the first thing that came to mind was actually when my father had cancer in 2012. It was challenging because my daddy was in Jamaica, which is where I'm from, and I was here and it was. You know, that wasn't the best of times where real estate was concerned, because I had you know we were dealing with. Of course, we had the crash and all of that stuff, but I wasn't doing that well, I had to be dealing with being a single mom, taking care of making sure my daughter was taken care of as well as making sure that I was taking care of my father in Jamaica. So it was really challenging. I had to be going back and forth. I hired somebody who I ended up having staying with him full time and while that was happening, I was trying to make a living and the emotions of it right, and that started actually the tough part of what his journey started in 2010-11. So then, unfortunately, in 2012 2012 my father passed away and that in you know. So just imagine those emotions trying to make sure that I build, you know, my business in a way that I could and dealing with my father passing. So I'm not glad, obviously, that my father was sick and that he passed away. But what I am happy about is that I just remember the day that sick and that he passed away. But what I am happy about is that I just remember the day that I heard that he passed.
Speaker 3:I was literally at a closing so the phone rang. My mom called me. I picked up the phone and she said where are you? And I just knew, you know, and, um, I stepped out and I'll never forget who I was with at the closing because she knew something was wrong and she said to me what's wrong. And I told her and she she had gone through that with her own father. So I was with the right people at the right time when that happened.
Speaker 3:And when that happened I was depleted, obviously, and then I had to go through the motions of helping, you know, go through planning a funeral and all of that. But after that, wow, I came back and I just knew that I wanted to make my father proud and I knew that, having him the influence that he was in my life, it just was with me. And it was just so weird, jeremy, the following year it was like I just soared, you know, and it was because I had, you know, gone through that experience. But also I just felt my father's presence every minute of the way and I felt him. They say sometimes you can feel your loved ones. In technologies, weird stuff used to happen where I just knew that he was championing me on and that was a tough time for me, but I'll never. I appreciate that journey.
Speaker 2:That's the word I was looking for. I was actually. I had a thought and I lost the train of thought. I've never experienced the loss I've experienced like the death of a grandparent. I've never had aside from my dog getting hit by a car I've never had a human being really really close to me pass away. So I haven't experienced it.
Speaker 2:But I could imagine that, having gone through that experience, that it must give you such an unbelievably deep appreciation for life and for the time that we have left. So obviously the loss of a parent or a loved one is horrible, but it really just puts things into perspective about how fleeting time is and how important it is to not get caught up with all the bullshit, all the stress and all the negative emotions and allow it to skew your judgment and just, yeah, you're going to have negative emotions and you're gonna have thoughts that pop up. Feel it Right, but let it go away Absolutely. Just approach everything. The older I get, the more I try to bring patience, love, empathy, understanding all these things to every situation, like nothing good ever comes from conflict.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I agree, 100%, and that's really how I live my life, because I realized that all of that energy that you put into being angry, into just not really having that good energy go out to others, that's what depletes you the anger, the upset, the not realizing how important life is like every single day, you know. That's why I practice gratitude every morning with my gratitude journal and really connecting. I have to start my day with gratitude and connecting to that source that I call God and then my day can begin, because that's what's important.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Grateful, so very grateful. I had another thought and it evaded me, so maybe it'll come back, maybe it won't. I had another thought and it evaded me, so maybe it'll come back, maybe it won't. What would be one thing that you'd like to leave our listeners with? It could be about your business, if you want to leave a little plug for the business, it could be just something about life in general, a little piece of wisdom. I'll give you one thing Tanya what do you?
Speaker 3:got. Wow, okay, I think that the one thing that comes to mind is that authenticity is really important. Yeah, authenticity is the key to even inside of this conversation I'm you know you bring your authentic self. You bring your authentic self, whether it be to your loved ones or to the people who are in your, who you're working with as clients. I think that is the number one key to having people really get who you are people understanding that they've been gotten in terms of you understanding them, because people want to be seen, people want to be heard, and vulnerability is not a negative word. Vulnerability is actually the key to authentic communication, and I think that a lot of people feel like they have to be something else, especially with social media and all of these things. They have to be something else that they're not. But at the end of the day, when you bring your real self, who you truly are, to whatever it is you're doing, that's when magic happens.
Speaker 2:Well said. I love you touching upon authenticity. It's something that I try my best to strive for, and we all put on masks and in different interactions. But what I've come to learn is that when you do that, you're ultimately surrounding yourself with people that don't reflect who you are as a genuine person, and you're not going to be happy. But if you just act as your authentic self, you're going to attract people that appreciate you for who you are and you're going to feel comfortable in your own skin. And, like you said, that's when the magic starts happening. That's when you get to truly unlock your inner creativity.
Speaker 2:So many people I'm myself saying this all the time so many people live their whole life without tapping into their inner potential, their potential for greatness, and I think every human being has within them something that they could offer this world that's unique and beautiful and unfortunately, everybody gets caught up in the rat race and we're miserable all the time and you live your whole life without accessing that and I'm so grateful for starting to tap into that at this stage of my life. At four I just turned 45. And it just the perspective has gone from like oh, I'm halfway through my life to like, hey, I'm just starting my life. This is where all the magic really is truly gonna happen, and I'm so grateful for it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that time, that if you choose to spend time reflecting that's what I do first thing in the morning and I told you about that Then you actually will become clear about who your authentic self is. Because that's where you might think you are going this way and you might think this is what you are supposed to be doing, think this is what you were supposed to be doing. But once you take that time to be present and be in the silence, that's when you really are clear on who you are and what you ought to be up to.
Speaker 2:Yes, just sitting with the emotions. I had a conversation with my wife the other day and we were walking the dogs and often she'll want to explain how she's feeling She'll want to, and often she'll want to explain how she's feeling She'll want to vent her frustrations. Many times it's with my behaviors and I find myself, as she's talking, like wanting to defend myself, like I find myself like my blood boiling and I'm just wanting to correct her. And she told me before the conversation and she said please, I need you not to say anything and just sit with everything. I tell you. So just don't say anything, just listen to me.
Speaker 2:And she's going through and I forcibly restrained myself from saying anything and I sat with it and I reflected upon it and what I realized was that there was quite a bit of what she was telling me in there that was directly related to things that I need to work on myself, that I don't want to work on because it's uncomfortable, it's painful, and so my natural defense mechanism to that was to get defensive and to cut her off. But because she told me, don't do that, just sit with it, it really hit home and I came out of that experience with like some incredibly deep insights. And then I went back later when I was kind of calmed down and addressed some of the things in there that I thought were needed to be addressed with her.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. I mean, when people feel heard and you know they really feel heard, it makes a difference and you really. It might have been difficult but you ended up doing what she asked you to do and then she felt hurt, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was a win-win ultimately.
Speaker 3:Totally, and you discovered things about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yep, okay. So for anyone out there that's listening, whether you're in the market to buy your first home, maybe you're an investor. You don't have a realtor, you don't have anybody on the team that's going to help you through this process? Reach out to Tanya. Tanya, tell our listeners how they could learn more. Maybe share your phone number, your website? What's the best way to reach you? How can our listeners connect with you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for asking that. So the best way is actually by phone. My number is 954-513-7749. But you can also reach me at Tanya, at TanyaHolmescom, which is my email address, and then TanyaHolmescom or RealtorHatcom. They both bring you to my website, which is also my website, which has information on there too. But just send me, text me or call me. I love having conversations. I'm a texter too, but I love the conversation more than anything. That's my favorite. But, whatever works for you is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:All right, and we will, of course, drop a link in the description below to all of your contact information so folks can reach out. And I want to hear from you this is to you listeners If you're out there and you've had an interesting real estate experience, whether it was a botched deal, whether it was a seamless transaction, whatever that experience was, tell us a little bit about it in the comments below. Maybe leave some pieces of wisdom, some advice, and we're going to go through. I'm doing this on all these episodes. Now I want to go through the comments and I want to find the most engaging comment, the most valuable piece of advice, the most unique, interesting story, and I want to send you an invitation that's right, I'm talking to you to come join us on the podcast to tell your story, kind of put the message out in the universe. Let's make that happen.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, everybody for tuning in. We appreciate you and we will look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thank you, jeremy. Everyone. Take care, tanya, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:We'll talk soon. I know we will, yeah of course.
Speaker 3:Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:My pleasure Take care.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to GNPCooperCitycom. That's GNPCooperCitycom, or call 954-231-3170.