Mom Guilt, Real Estate, and Building a Legacy of Love with Cheyenne McGriff

[0:00] Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Matthias, an agent and investor. And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist. Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing. Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors. Ready to level up? Let’s do it.

[0:23] Welcome back to the REI Agent, Erica. Let’s talk about the cash flow quadrant. Great. Let’s do it. I’m so excited. This is the stuff that keeps you up at night with excitement, exhilaration, mental stimulation. Yeah, so the cash flow quadrant is just simply like, you know, there’s being an employee, then being self-employed, then moving over to being a business owner, and then going down into being an investor. And the goal is to kind of work your way through it and try to be more on the business owner and investing side. But I think that a lot of people, when they first get into being a real estate agent, feel like they’ve kind of like broken out of the system and have made it. And I think that is a huge step and a very intimidating one, a very scary one.

[1:12] I mean, you did the same thing coming out of like being in a company that you did your therapy services for. It’s a being having a private practice, you became a self-employed person as well. And that is a big step. However, it is very much dependent on you as the person, right? Yeah. So moving into, you know, trying to get our businesses or trying to, I don’t know if you have any interest in this at all. But, you know, trying to move things over into that business quadrant more and investing quadrant. So obviously, we’re doing the real estate investing. An idea for, you know, private practice is that you could, of course, you know, buy a building and then have people kind of lease it. But maybe also somehow work under an umbrella of yours.

[1:59] Is that something you could do as a private practice counselor? Yeah. Yeah, I could. It could be where I would just be in a consulting role and have therapists under me seeing the clients. And how would that work? Would they get, like, you get a cut for every client they see? Yeah. I would take a percentage.

[2:20] And I think it’s, it is attractive in some ways. I think it’s also, being a therapist is not the best paid job for the amount of work that you do and the amount of emotional investment you put into the job. And so, but, and so I guess in saying that, it’s really nice to be able to be just in private practice on your own. And so, I would almost want to maybe create something where I’m encouraging and helping other people being able to do that. And like more of a coaching or creating some sort of a class supportive role there as opposed to being, having therapists underneath me. Because when I do that, everything rides on my license also. Yeah. And that, the liability there skyrockets. Sure. Yeah.

[3:10] I mean, the same would be for real estate teams or brokerages. Certainly brokerages more as far as the liability rides on them. So, that’s definitely a big factor, big consideration. I mean, and there’s always the fact that you don’t necessarily even have to own a business that would be related to what you do. I mean, you can buy businesses, you can buy, I mean, each, you know, they say that, you know, every multifamily unit or apartment building you buy is a business. And I mean, really each investment in general, each, you know, single family even could be seen that way. Airbnb, blah, blah, blah. They can all be seen as businesses. Of course, there are investments as well. But, but basically that you become more than your hours put in.

[3:56] You are becoming greater than the hours you put in. So, it’s not like you work eight hours, you get, you know, X amount of money. You instead have your money work for you and have others work for you as well to kind of free yourself up. And I guess the reason for the conversation is we just had a great conversation with Cheyenne McGriff. And she has a podcast and she talks a lot about mom guilt and how to kind of balance the life of a real estate professional and a mother. In my case, a father. And it’s a tough balance. And I think, you know, trying to aim or trying to steer the ship in a way that is intentional. That you can not, you know, always sacrifice to, you know, you still have the moments with your kids, with your family as you go.

[4:48] But maybe also try to set yourself up to be less dependent upon the hours you put in. So that you can have more time with the family. It’s kind of where that was all going. Did you like, did you like the cashflow quadrant? Are you going to think about that tonight?

[5:06] As always, when we talk about financials like this, I try really, really hard to stay present.

[5:14] And so thank you for bringing that conversation back into the forefront where I can’t walk away or do something while you talk. I just, it’s probably the best place maybe for me to sit here and be present and listen to you. Can I lay out our next five years for you real quick? You guys have the time? No, but it’s definitely, I think, demanding. I mean, it’s the gift and the curse of branching out on your own and not being an employee. It’s harder to shut it off when you’re not on. So it’s definitely something that I think everybody has to work through. They have to find their own way through this crazy world of real estate sales. And yeah, having that goal, having that North Star of trying to become 100% passive income is one of the goals.

[6:04] Owning a business could be another one for sure that maybe you can have enough delegation management, et cetera, in place that you don’t have to be 100% active. But yeah, trying to work towards that bigger picture is something that motivates me, especially when things are insane and I have very little time with the family. Yeah, for sure. Anyway, without further ado, let’s get right into Cheyenne McGriff. Yeah.

[6:34] Welcome back to the REI Agent. We are here with Cheyenne McGriff. Cheyenne, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. Yeah, we were talking a little bit before that you have your own podcast as well. I do. Yeah, it’s fun. So I love connecting with others through podcasting and just hearing about everyone’s journey in real estate and life and this kind of crazy world we’re living. When did you start your podcast? I just started it late last fall. Okay. So it’s a baby podcast. But it was born out of a desire to connect with other primarily moms in real estate that were dealing with the same things we are. Comparison with dealing with imposter syndrome, dealing with mom guilt, all the things.

[7:19] And it’s just been a fun way to connect across really the world with other agents. Have you found that those themes have been pretty common? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like something we all deal with, but we don’t share online because it’s not the fun, pretty houses. It’s the deep background, everyday hard work and sacrifice that comes with this career. Oh, yeah. I almost want to connect you with somebody we had on the show a couple weeks ago. So I might send her your information because, oh, my gosh, I feel like she would love your podcast. Oh, fabulous. Yeah. Well, tell us where you’re coming out of and tell us kind of how you got into real estate. And then we can get more into that theme as well.

[8:07] Absolutely. So my office is in Rapid City, South Dakota. So if you’re familiar with South Dakota at all or Western South Dakota, so think Mount Rushmore. That’s where I am. But I live in a small town of about 800 people. So if you’ve heard of the Wall Drugstore and the Badlands National Park, that’s where I am. So I work a lot of rural areas and also a ton in Rapid City, which we only have two cities in South Dakota and Rapid City is the second largest. And I think surrounding areas is maybe around 80 to 100,000 people. So that’s a big city for me. I have, of course, my husband and I have a four-year-old daughter and a little puppy and been in real estate since 2018. I got into the business encouraged by my grandma.

[8:57] So I work on a team with my grandparents. My grandma’s been in the business since the mid-70s. So I had a built-in mentor basically my whole life. She had always encouraged me to join her. But after college, I mean, I just wanted to try to do my own thing first. And then, of course, eventually ended up jumping into real estate. Wow. And since the 70s, she’s really seen a good bit of change in the way advertising works and marketing. And just even how the relationships work between agents, buyers, and sellers. So many things have changed. So much more paperwork now. Wow. That’s amazing. Yeah. Our company just had a 50-year celebration. And they’re talking about how the contract was, you know, I don’t think it even filled up a whole page at the beginning.

[9:47] So I’m sure she solved that as well. You got to love lawsuits to make things more paperwork heavy. Yeah. Absolutely. It’s just fun. I remember I was taking my classes. I would call her and ask her questions. She’s like, yeah, that was because of this that happened. And now we have this paper. Oh, my gosh. And now we’ve been seeing it, you know, with the change in the last year in our industry. So it’s just, yeah, it’s a wild world. It’s always shifting. It kind of keeps things exciting, though. And if you want to look at it, it’s a positive. And that’s why I feel real estate’s been a good fit for me because I had good jobs before I started in real estate. But I just like physically cannot handle being in one place for eight hours a day.

[10:29] So I just love the dynamics of real estate. I love how you can get into not just sales and investing and connecting with others. I mean, it’s just an ever-changing industry that keeps me on my toes. So true. So what kind of a rhythm are you in right now in your day and your week at this current season? I know over here, it definitely changes for us depending on whether it’s spring, summer, winter, fall. What’s it like for you right now? Right now has been very busy. And I’ve been in a season of change and growth in my business for 2025. I had just one transaction coordinator for about two years. And now I’m up to, I have an in-person part-time admin, a marketing admin, a TC, and an event planner for my client events.

[11:17] So I’ve just kind of grown my support team around me. And then, of course, my team members with my grandparents. So I’ve been in a season of growth and working to delegate more. I started to feel like I was starting to kind of get, I don’t know, drown in the work that I had and trying to do the things to make client experience better for everyone. And I just felt I needed some more support. So that’s been a big shift for me this year. As far as day to day, I try to keep the same morning routine every day. But as you know, in this world, you can try to plan your day as much as possible and something’s going to change or shift or somebody’s going to need to see a house in five minutes, you know, that kind of thing.

[11:58] So I would say I don’t have a great rhythm, but I’m working on setting good boundaries with at least having one day that’s off work for family focus a week. Okay. And your daughter, you said she’s four. So she’s in pre-K right now? She just finished her first year of preschool. So she’ll have one more than kindergarten. Okay. Wow. Well, our middle daughter is heading into kindergarten in the fall and is very ready to get on that school bus that she sees her older sister get on every morning. That’s exciting. And hard. Yeah, I know. I know. That’s both. What I’m curious what kind of client experience stuff you do or wanting to incorporate with your admin staff that you have. Yeah. So this year I had always done at least one client event starting maybe two years ago.

[12:49] I do one client appreciation event. And this year we’re on track to do five for the year. All very different. All trying to hit each dynamic of my clients. You know, one was kind of female focus. One was a Valentine focus. And then we’ve got a family focus one coming up in August and then a fall festival and then a Christmas. So I but I could not do that on my own. So I contracted an event planner and a friend to help me out. And it’s been amazing. I just like to do that little extra. I do client baskets for every client. I try to be very present in the transactions because one thing I don’t want to do is get so busy that I just write up a contract and then hand somebody off to my team. Which there’s nothing wrong with that.

[13:36] There are all so many very different ways to run your business. But the people part is really what I like about this job. And I do feel like my clients become my family. So I just very much try to stay as involved as I can while delegating the things that I do not have to physically do. So, yeah, I love that. You know, I’ve heard of, you know, there’s different, what’s the word, archetypes, business archetypes. And people have like companies have different brands. People have different brands. And one of them is kind of like the Disney. I don’t think it’s called the Disney. But it’s like trying to keep like that magical experience in that whole process. You know, I toyed with the idea of that.

[14:16] One idea I had heard is like you get that you have like champagne or something delivered to them when they get pre-approved, like a buyer at their work. I haven’t done that. That’s a little extra. A little maybe too far. Because you also get into the thing where they don’t drink. But, you know. Yeah, right. So anyway, but like just trying to make that experience be memorable and fun for them and feel like everything’s well thought through. And you’re right when you have so many things that you’re doing and you’re just, you know, in your car. Non-stop going from appointment to appointment. It’s hard to try to figure out those details. Let alone have, you know, quality time with your family. Right.

[14:51] And I never want anyone to feel like I’m too busy for them. So I try to just have my support staff help me with the things, like I said, that I don’t physically have to do. But I never want to be too busy to actually take care of my clients throughout the process. And after closing, of course, you do the gift and all that. But I have a community, an online community where I put my clients into. So every time after closing, I just say, hey, welcome so-and-so to our family. You know, give them a shout out. If you’re their neighbor, tag them, you know, so that everyone feels like they’re part of something bigger than just one transaction. That’s cool. That’s an excellent idea. Is that on Facebook?

[15:27] It’s a private client community, yeah. That’s awesome. That’s a good idea. Yeah, so how long ago did you, when you first got a transaction coordinator, at what point was that that you decided to bring that on? Well, very much, it was after I went on a podcast and said I would never get a transaction coordinator. And about two months later, I had a transaction coordinator. Well, they actually, the story is I was very busy and I was doing a deal with another agent in my market. And I just like could not get back to her on time for our response time. And I said, I’m so sorry. I’m out showing houses. I can’t get this back to you. Can you please give me more time? And she’s like, you need help. And she actually referred her transaction coordinator to me.

[16:12] And she said, you got to call this girl. She’s going to help you out. And I had been toying with the idea for about a month or two before this. But I couldn’t find anything that really fit. Like I didn’t want somebody that wasn’t, I wanted somebody not, they didn’t have to be local. But I, I don’t know. I just wanted to make sure that there was a little bit more in-house feel to it. And she doesn’t have a huge list of agents she does TC work for. So she can really pay attention to my clients and what we need. And I had one interview with her and signed her on the next day. My biggest fear was before my shifting I’ve done this year, I wasn’t like, I have kind of a scattery brain. So my things made sense to me.

[16:54] And I was embarrassed to say, oh, here, can you fix my scattery brain documents? And she just knew exactly what to do and got it started. And I didn’t even have to do, like, she just knew what to do. So that really helped me kind of level up as a business owner, I feel, and gave me more confidence down the line to continue hiring. One of the hesitations I had with that was, or one of the things that I kind of did for a long time was I had a transaction coordinator kind of keep track of things in the back end and then CC me that I would then, or, or like make a list for me basically that I would then follow up with my clients with and they would come from me. And I kind of wanted them to feel like it was coming from me.

[17:33] But ultimately that became a bottleneck that I would then, like, it was still required me. And so I like, it was, it was something that would, would slow me down. And ultimately sometimes it just wouldn’t get done then because more of the communication piece wasn’t getting done. I’m curious, did that ever, was that a concern for you at all? Is that one of the reasons you were against it? And did you have them communicate with the clients directly? That was one of the reasons I was against it. So I had done deals in the past where I felt like myself as the agent on the other side and the clients were just handed off. And I never wanted that feeling to come through. Like you never spoke to the listing agent again after you went under contract and I didn’t want that vibe.

[18:15] So that was my biggest hesitation. But I, I exactly like you, I was like, well, I don’t want my clients to think that I’m not working for them or that they can’t call me or that they need to call her. But once I did that first deal and I just said, hi, myself and my TC will be reaching out to you. She can help you out, but you don’t call her. You call me. If you have questions, you respond to both of us. We’ll both help you out. And they seem to not care at all. As long as things were getting done and balls weren’t being dropped, they didn’t care. They always knew they could call me and get ahold of me for anything. And she’s just made me much more efficient as well as if I’m out showing houses all day, I don’t have to be stuck in my office until 10 o’clock at night responding to everything I need to for other transactions.

[19:05] Yeah, totally. So it sounds like that too has made a difference just in you feeling like you can let go and be present then when you’re home. Yeah. Oh, that’s huge. Yeah. Let’s get into the bomb stuff. Yes. I’ve been waiting. I’ve been letting Matthias ask his questions. So I’ve been waiting. Yes. I want to hear. I want to hear about that in the more of the shadow side of what comes along with the real estate career. Yeah, absolutely. So mom guilt’s very, very big. And it’s gotten better now that my kid is a little older. You know, she goes to preschool. She has daycare. She loves socializing. So during the day, I never feel like she’s getting left out of anything. But what’s still a challenge is getting home at night and still having work to do because sometimes work doesn’t really start until like four or five o’clock when people are off work and then they can call you and ask you questions and set up showings.

[19:56] So it’s challenging really for me to stay present at home. A lot of times I have to set pretty clear boundaries that I’m still not very good at because I’ll get on the phone and I’ll be like, oh, this is just going to take a minute or I just need to respond to this real quick. And that real quick turns into an hour of following up and catching up on work, especially when my kiddo will sometimes say, mom, I really want to spend more time with you. Or mom, can you stay home from work today so we can be together? Like that just breaks my heart. And so I’ve been working on this year implementing Sundays off or at least one day a weekend when she’s home. Some like this week, it was Saturday. And so I try to at least have a day where we can have a family day.

[20:37] And she understands if I have to take a call here and there. But the goal is to not have showings, to not have things I have to physically be gone for. And it’s not a perfect system, but it’s been improving for a long time. My husband was mostly stay at home dad, but he recently started working again. So we’re just kind of rebalancing, which has been a challenge. But I feel like we’re doing the best we can. It’s so true. I mean, can you really go through raising kids without feeling like you’re just doing the best you can? Exactly. It’s chaotic. Amen to that. Yes. And we’re hoping, hoping we’re going to have another kid within the next year or so. So that’s really been my biggest push for getting more support and more organized.

[21:24] So that could, because when I had my daughter, my daughter, my husband was home. So now that he’s working, it’s just going to be a whole nother set of systems and time management and relying on others. So that was my big push for getting more organized and having more help. So with some of the other women that you’re talking to on your podcast, what are they saying that’s similar to what you’re mentioning? It’s the balance between having the, I don’t know if this is the best term, but like the boss babe energy, like the energy at work where you’re trying to be in charge, trying to be in control, and then letting that go to have that softer energy at home. When you get home to really be present, let the work go.

[22:14] And having that mom guilt is just so real. And I know what happens for dads too, just hearing my husband talk about it since he went back to work. Because in our household, because he was home most of the time, he’s really the primary go-to parent. Because my daughter’s more used to me being gone because it has been that way basically since she was a month old. So the moms I talk to all have different experiences. Most of them don’t have a husband that would stay at home like I did. I know it’s more of a rare case. So just dealing with them having to be the primary parent. When daycare’s closed, they have to be home. When school lets out early, they have to be home. When summer care is over, they have to be home and take their kids to things.

[22:54] And most of the time we find that our clients are pretty okay with it, as long as you let them know up front. If you’re like, hey, something came up, I’ve got to bring my kid. But then it’s finding like, okay, in this moment, am I mom? Or am I your agent? How do I balance these things? So it’s just kind of a growing, I don’t know about growing, but continually changing way to live your life. Yeah. Well, and I was also thinking, you know, in the evening, and I don’t necessarily have this experience. So you guys would have to tell me if this is true. But I would imagine that it would be just a lot of extra work to transition from an adult conversation where you’re maybe managing something that’s super stressful and then having to be calm enough on the inside to then transition into maybe like a child who’s really needing something and frustrated that you’re not there as quickly as they want you to be and having just be calm on both sides.

[23:52] Yeah. It just takes a lot of work. Client conversations aren’t all that different. People are very needy and they need you to do something right now and you’re not paying enough attention to them. Sometimes they’re similar conversations and I honestly, with my kid, one thing that I have tried to really work on when I get home is to get out of like problem solving. How do we handle this? How do we damage control and get through this? Instead of being like, okay, let me hear you. Let me listen to you. Let me hear how you’re feeling and help you through this. Instead of in my job, I’m very like, okay, this is what we’re going to do. This is the way through the problem. So it’s very, it’s like, I’m not super woo, but I feel like it’s very masculine, feminine energies that you have to shift back and forth.

[24:34] Yeah, that’s, that’s a good way to put it. I am reading the let them theory right now. Have you read that book? I haven’t read it, but I, everyone says I need to. It is. It’s so good. And I told Matthias he should read it too. But when one of the chapters, she talks about how adults really, most adults, unless you had amazing parents that taught you actually what to do with your emotions are mostly at the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old child. And adults tend to respond very similarly, similarly to children if they’re not getting something they want, or it’s not happening fast enough, like throwing in a tantrum or shutting down those kinds of things. So it is true. And it’s, we, we’re not that far off from our kids.

[25:15] Right. And one thing I feel good about though, with working is the reason, one reason I really wanted to get into real estate is because my grandma, she was at all of my sporting events, like all of my plays when I was in high school, like all my graduations, everything. She may have been on the phone, but she was there. Always showed up. She would take two days off to travel across the state to watch me in some athletic event. Like she was always there. And so I knew that that was a life that I wanted to be able to build was that I didn’t have to ask for time off to go watch my little kids program. I didn’t have to ask for time off to go to a volleyball game in the future, that kind of thing.

[25:54] And I also want to show her that if you want to do something like real estate or entrepreneurship, you can do it. You just have to put your mind to it. And mom, I wanted to see that mom loves working and mom loves being a mom. And you can love both things at the same time. I got to say, Cheyenne, it really, it’s, it’s, I’ve been sitting here like, because one of the stories I’ve told myself is that her being the preferred parent has a lot to do with her being a mom. And there’s the connection that mothers have. She’s also like, you know, therapist. So like soft, easy all the time. Not all the time. Not true. But, but, you know, I think, I think I really appreciate you saying what you did. And I think it really strikes me as, you know, that’s been some BS that I’ve been telling myself and that I, you know, can do better.

[26:50] I can try to help figure out more how to be more for my kids or, or, or to shift. And so that’s definitely something that I’ve, I’ve wanted to let the gender kind of thing. And the, the parental role kind of like explain a way that where, you know, there is just something that I could maybe work on a little bit more. Not that I, you know, I knew that to some degree, but you know, it, it, whenever you put, whoever puts the most time in with the kids is going to have that, you know, extra connection with them. And, and that’s definitely something that, that you have for the most part. Here recently, maybe case in point here, but here recently Erica had a meniscus tear and she couldn’t really put our son down.

[27:34] He’s, you know, almost three because he would fall asleep. And then like she couldn’t hold him and move him from the rocker. So I was doing it every night and I was forced to do it every night. But now we are like, you know, we’re, we’re tight. Oh yeah. And, and so it’s just, you know, it’s just a good reminder that like, you know, you really get out of life what you kind of invest in. Right. And so, um, yeah, I, and I appreciate that perspective, um, coming from you. That really means something to me. I was curious. Did you, did you feel that yesterday? Cause, um, I was watching this when we were all in the kitchen and I was thinking our entire family’s in the kitchen, everybody’s cooking something different.

[28:17] Like I was making sourdough bread and you were with Isla making dinner and Azra was working on her own. Um, she was making cookies on her own, but it, you know, you guys were there and present with each other. And, um, you were really involved with it. And it seemed like everybody was really enjoying it too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it’s, it’s just one of those, you know, in our season, like I was coming off also just coming off of a really, really, really busy, busy spring, uh, like a busier spring than, than normal. Um, so there’s just, I think there’s just seasonality with our business as well. And, um, you know, trying to be, I guess, maybe more intentional when you can, um, it’s another having the boundaries, but also understanding that like, sometimes it’s just going to be, you got to make hay when it, the sun shines.

[29:04] Right. Right. Yeah. One of my friends that I spoke with, she had a good point and she said, as a mom or a parent in real estate, you can have it all, but you can’t have it all, all the time. So you have to find, like you said, in your seasons, you know, am I in a season right now where it’s a work push? And then you talk to your family, like, okay, this is a short term. This is a busy season. It’s a work push season. I’m going to be less available at home. But then taking advantage of those seasons where it’s not, you know, for us is winter. So I try to take way more time off in the winter, take my family on vacations, things like that. So we’re more intentional with our time and just go in with the understanding that, okay, like this moment right now, mom’s in a push season.

[29:48] So it’s just really, like you said, finding the balance in those seasons and making the most of the time where you can be more available. That’s so true. It’s interesting, too, because the push season for me as a therapist happens between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Oh, sure. Everyone’s with their families. Everybody’s having a hard time. But it is when, you know, you guys are much more free and available. Well, that being intentional is another huge thing. So I’m in this kind of accountability mastermind group. And one of the ideas that another guy did was, A, that he tries to track having like 10 minutes of undistracted time with his kids a day. That’s with the hope that it would be more.

[30:29] You know what I mean? Like you set your phone down for 10 minutes and you’re going to engage with them and that’s going to help. So that has been a cool practice. But another one that he did that I’ve been trying to implement as well is having like a special mom-free outing overnight, ideally once a quarter. So we’ve kind of had our life kind of get thrown off balance here. But I need to do one with the girls yet, at least. I don’t know if that’s going to be camping or what, but, you know, that’s even in like the hecticness of, you know, the busyness of the spring, summer season. Like I think you could still probably get a, you know, a weekend away with, or a night away with the kids. Yeah. So the thing that I want to keep going as well to kind of keep that special relationship time with them.

[31:19] I love that. I love putting it as a mark on your daily tracker. That’s a really good idea. And you don’t want to think of your family as that, but sometimes you, if you don’t put it on the list, it gets pushed as well. I need to get this other thing done, but does it really need to get done right now? Probably not. So it’s good to have that. I love that idea, but it’s hard. I think in this world to step back and take that time away because it is competitive. We, there are so many other realtors out there trying to do the same thing that you are. And if you go on social media for five minutes, everybody’s selling a house every minute. And then you think, oh man, well, I need to be doing what this person’s doing or advertising like this person’s doing or sending mailers like this person’s doing.

[32:00] And then it’s like, oh, try to do everything. And then you forget about like, why do you even do the work? Right. If it’s not for making a way to spend more time and be more present with your family, why, why, why was everything worth? Yeah. I did. I did want to ask you working with your grandparents, has that opened up any new opportunities for just a different kind of relationship with them? What has that been like? Yeah, it’s been really cool. So like I said, I started with them, it’s been seven years and at first it was very much, I was just learning as I went, followed them around, went to appointments and got to see what I had always seen from the outside. My grandma doing got to see it from the inside and I learned a ton and it’s just fun to have that.

[32:46] It’s just a special relationship to have. I feel very honored to take on and continue the business she has built for decades because it’s quite an opportunity that I don’t think very many people get. And it’s fun that we can go to lunch and we can talk about some things like silly that my brother did at dinner the other night. And then we can talk about how I’m handling a home inspection request. So it’s just a fun relationship. That’s really cool. Yeah. Do you have something? Go ahead. Okay. No, I was, so I’m trying to get a picture for how big your family is. So are there a lot of other grandchildren in this picture? And you mentioned your brother. How many are close by in the area? So for my parents, I have four full siblings and then my mom has three and my dad has two.

[33:38] So there’s a lot of us out in the world. But for my grandma, it would be the four or six of us. And we all have very different. And it’s just fun to, I think at first I was nervous about working with family that it would affect our dynamics, but it has not at all. Yeah. I love it. It’s a really unique way to get to know your grandma in a different way. I think sometimes, particularly with grandparents, we only know them in their older phase of life and maybe not even in their working phase of life. And we just hear about it through stories. And so it’s cool that you get to kind of live some of that with her. It is. And one story I tell pretty often is when I first started in real estate, I was going to show some houses and I told her where I was going.

[34:24] And she said, you’re not going to show a house there. I was like, why am I not going to show a house there? It’s everything my buyers want. She said, Cheyenne, that subdivision was built over a mine and it’s probably going to fall in someday. And I said, okay, I guess I won’t show any houses there. And literally, I think it was like two, maybe three years ago now, the subdivision started sinking. No way. Yep. So just that knowledge and history of the area is huge. So especially if I’m going into a new subdivision that I’m not very familiar with, I’ll ask, hey, what do you know about this? What do I need to know about this? And it’s just, it’s such a big benefit for our clients. Wow. That’s incredible.

[35:02] Yeah. That’s crazy. I thought you were going to say like an Indian burial ground first. An actual mine. Wow. It’s very bad. So I guess this is kind of for my own curiosity, but so my parents lived in South Dakota, I believe, for a little bit. But I have never been up to that area. My parents live in Kansas now. And, you know, of course, we live in Virginia. But I’m just curious what the, how you describe the culture where you live. Any like major themes that run through just the people that you work with and what’s kind of expected there? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I love living here. I’ve been here my whole life, except for a short stint in Nebraska for college. And what I love about South Dakota, especially Western South Dakota, we like to pick on Eastern South Dakota, of course.

[35:54] But we are kind of like a big, small town. Really all put together, we have fewer people than a city. Our whole entire region. So it’s kind of everybody knows everybody. Everybody really treats people, people treat people well here and really care about one another. It’s just a friendly environment. I feel like I can go downtown in our city and I know like all the business owners and everyone’s pretty supportive of one another. It’s just a big, small town. And we’re all just proud to be members of the Black Hills community. Oh, cool. That sounds sound a little bit like what my experience and my parents probably, their experience in Kansas. They also live in a very small town. And it’s just, it’s very friendly.

[36:41] It’s very open and generally pretty safe too. Yeah, it is here. And that’s one thing I, so I live, like I said, in a real small town. And one thing I said I sometimes take for granted is that I can go out on a walk at like five in the morning or nine o’clock at night. And I’m never nervous. I’m never afraid. I’m, I mean, more afraid of like a mountain lion or something.

[37:06] But it’s just a nice feeling. And that’s why we chose to raise our kid in a small town like that. Just because everything I hated about it as a teenager are the things I like about it as a parent. Oh, how interesting. I have a, I have a attorney in town that for settlements that he’s from, I think, Michigan. And, or I think Michigan. Around there. He’s a big Michigan fan at least. But anyway, so we had, I have another really good friend from Illinois that, that came in and he just talked a little bit. Like they just had a little bit of a conversation and he just looks at me. He’s like, you’re from the Midwest, aren’t you? And he’s like, yep. He’s like, I can tell you’re a good person. Oh, that’s perfect.

[37:49] It’s so funny. But yeah, people are, are, are really nice. And we have, we’re in a tertiary market ourselves. And there’s a lot of benefits to that. Like to having, you know, we’re not seeing the first movers and we’re not seeing the huge spikes or, you know, huge falls either in the markets. So it’s definitely, there’s some advantages to that for sure. Absolutely. We had a big spike during COVID. Of course, everyone was moving here from, especially like Colorado, California. We had just had a big influx during that time. And it did affect our population and our housing prices pretty significantly. So our housing market has been a tougher first-time buyers, but I know that’s basically across the board from what I hear market-wise.

[38:33] One cool thing about working and investing here is a lot of times, like for my rentals, like, oh, I know your mom. I’ll just call your mom if you don’t pay your rent, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. So have you all gotten into a lot of investing as well? I would say I’m a very mini investor. So our first house that we bought, we were living in a, we were living in my family’s place. And I joke, we lived in a single wide down by the river because we quite literally did live in a single wide trailer down by the river. And it was great. We were 21. We didn’t have anywhere to go and it was perfect. But a couple years later when I was pregnant, we needed something different. So we bought a fixer upper house and we fixed that up, refinanced, used that to pay off debts.

[39:17] And then a year later we needed a bigger house. So then we bought that house and we just rent out that first fixer upper house. And then we did a flip and we used our flip money to buy a fourplex. And from there we’ve just kind of been waiting. We’re not super risky investors, I would say. Like we haven’t ever taken on like hard money or investor money. We’ve just done it all ourselves, which I know we could really grow if we wanted to go in that direction. But just for this season, it was like, well, we’re just going to wait to take that on. It’s such a great way of like having a retirement plan and, you know, trying to build up that, you know, escaping the rat race. Because even if we are self-employed, it is still a bit of a rat race.

[40:03] And, you know, being work optional is always a great place. I’m too busy. I don’t think I could, you know, just drop everything. I need something to do, to climb, if you will. But, yeah, kind of building up that portfolio as you go is just really is amazing. Yeah. My husband always jokes when I get overwhelmed, I’m like, I’m just going to quit. I’m going to sell everything. We’re going to run away to a beach. He’s like, yeah, but then, Cheyenne, you try to be the mayor of the beach town. And then you do all these things. You just would never relax. I’m like, yeah, that’s probably true. Totally. Totally. Well, I do have to ask if you have any golden nuggets you want to share with our listeners.

[40:44] It could be, you know, for first-time agents or new agents, I mean, or, you know, seasoned ones or anything that comes to mind. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the first thing I would say to a new agent is make sure you have a mentor. Don’t just hop in to the business without being around people that have been in it for a long time that are willing to offer you support. I tell everyone that I feel like I was put at least five years ahead being with my grandma and being, I’m in a very established office. So being here with so many seasoned agents, I feel I was really able to learn quickly and learn what not to do even faster. And for seasoned agents, so I’m in year seven now. I wish I would have started delegating two years ago at least.

[41:28] So I would say don’t be afraid to start delegating and make that first hire and even hire a coach to help you if you need to because it’s really going to be a game changer. Yeah.

[41:40] There’s been a lot of people that have done this before us, and it’s huge to take advantage of that. Why slam your head into the ground to try to learn it yourself if you can learn from others and what worked well for them? I love it. Absolutely. And how to not get yourself in real estate jail. Yes, that too. Speaking of learning from others, are there books that you recommend that you think every agent should read as a fundamental thing or ones that you’re enjoying now? Yeah, the best book I would say I read for real estate and investing was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I’m sure that’s been echoed on here often, but it really was the biggest one for me to change my mindset. Yeah, 100%. And it definitely, if you’re not from an entrepreneurial family, which I was not, and my dad was a professor, so it’s kind of perfect for that story, right?

[42:34] But yeah, it’s just a whole different mindset.

[42:40] I hear it’s a completely fake story that he made up to sell board games, but it’s really effective. But it makes sense. No, yeah, no, but it’s a really good, yeah, because it’s a story, the message lands more, and it’s really good. Yeah. Cheyenne, if people wanted to follow you on social media or find you, want to invest or buy in your area, where can they find you? Yeah, so my brand is all based around South Dakota, so our 605 area code. So if you find me on Instagram, it’s my name, Cheyenne Summer 605, so at Cheyenne Summer 605, very simple. And that’s my, you can find me that way on my website, too, at CheyenneSummer605.com. For Facebook, it’s Cheyenne McGrath, but it’s with our team, so the Soderquist team is where I am on Facebook.

[43:33] I’m most active on Instagram. And my podcast, you can find it on Instagram as well, but it’s called The Real Estate Mama Collective. Okay, cool. Love it. Awesome. Thanks, Cheyenne. And I really appreciate you joining us today. It’s been so good to talk to you. Well, thank you guys. This is so fun. You guys are so awesome and easy to talk to, so thank you. Maybe I can be a mom on your podcast sometime. You know, we need all perspectives.

[43:59] Yeah, thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to The REI Agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week. Visit REIAgent.com for more content. Until next time, keep building the life you want. All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.