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Show Summary
In this episode, Nicole Cartee shares her inspiring journey from a potential career in architecture to becoming a successful real estate professional and co-founder of the Odyssey Group. Entering the industry during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicole navigated intense bidding wars, shifting market conditions, and the challenges of guiding both first-time buyers and seasoned investors. Alongside her husband, she later established the Odyssey Group, a brokerage built after a partnership split, strategically carving out a strong presence in The Woodlands, Texas. Nicole discusses how adaptability, discernment in mentorship, and a deep understanding of investor psychology have been key to her success. She and her husband also reveal their marketing strategies, focus on building authentic client relationships, and the importance of pivoting with market changes. From connecting with high-level professionals to engaging their community through grassroots efforts like door knocking, the Odyssey Group demonstrates how balancing creativity, strategy, and genuine connection fuels long-term success in real estate.”
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Nicole Cartee (00:00)
I think it’s going to be kind of market dependent. I know that’s not necessarily what a realtor wants to hear, but you have to understand who’s buying in what market because I don’t really feel like there’s a hundred percent nobody’s buying right now a market. I feel like there’s a type of person that’s not buying and that’s how you choose how you pivot.Dylan Silver (01:49)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is the team lead of the Odyssey Group based out of the Woodlands in Texas, where she focuses on residential real estate, also works closely with investors. Please welcome Nicole Cartee. Nicole, welcome to the show. Great to have you on here, Nicole. I always like to start off at the top by asking guests how they got into the real estate space.Nicole Cartee (02:06)
Hello.Okay, well, I’m gonna try to make this sound not like a sob story. So the long, the long story short again, I was going to school for architecture and I actually, have epilepsy, fun fact. ⁓ so that is right. Whenever that started to kind of happen with me and I was trying to figure all that out and it became very cumbersome per se. ⁓ so yeah, I was actually going to school. I was supposed to transfer to Rice University for the school of architecture.
And dead center on my transfer time is whenever that got really bad. And so I completely dropped out. My doctor basically told me you either need to drop out of school or quit your job. Like some type of stress needs to be removed immediately while we figure things out for what’s going on. So that’s what I did. So I ⁓ was also doing personal training at the time and I knew that completely to like basically just work from home. I did online personal training. And so while I was doing that, I was literally sitting there thinking.
First of all, online training, unless you sell packages, which I did, at like $4,000 for like the six weeks and stuff, like you’re not gonna make money. And it’s just a really hard business to be in to like get, and I mean real estate’s hard too, but it’s hard to get repeat clients. And the way that I train people too is I don’t believe in teaching people nutrition in a way.
where they have to keep coming back. I believed in teaching people in a way where like they knew how to treat their bodies and they could move on and do it again. And that’s why the packages were so high. That being said, I had an epiphany moment where I was like, I don’t wanna do this for the rest of my life. And this is just not feasible. I don’t like the way that this business structure is looking. And I was watching a lot of like home flip shows.
online or on TV and stuff and I was like well I didn’t get to do architecture but I wonder if I could find ways to like build houses or flip houses like I’d be good at that like I’m good with interior design ⁓ and someone mentioned to me well like yeah you should do real estate like you can make all kinds of money it’s super easy right so I got my real estate license ⁓ in 2020 so I was a COVID baby ⁓
Dylan Silver (04:32)
I’mNicole Cartee (04:39)
Yeah, and that’s how it started. And my first couple of clients, I was in bidding wars as a baby agent up against people from California and all of that outbidding us $40,000, $50,000. And my first few clients were also VAs. So that was fun. I was fed to the wolves very quickly. It was great.Dylan Silver (05:01)
It’s interesting. think one of thethe the whether it’s unusual or whether it’s unfortunate, you know, it’s just reality is when people are in school and something comes up, it could be anything illness. It could be, you know, ⁓ financial. It could be, you know, deciding to take a break. Oftentimes it’s an inflexible thing. Right. And so it’s like, well, what do I do now? And it kind of throws a wrench into everything. One of the things that I love about real estate
Nicole Cartee (05:25)
.Yeah.
Dylan Silver (06:18)
is there’s so many different ways to get involved and there’s really no one starting point. There’s no one way to be active as a real estate professional, whether it’s as an investor, as a lender, as an agent, whether it’s as a consultant, which I’m seeing more and more of coaching people who, who, who do syndications and so on and so forth. And there’s a lot of people who even pivot and take breaks and, and, and are also able to change their business over.Nicole Cartee (06:37)
Yeah.Dylan Silver (06:47)
years and you kind of have to in order to stay in the real estate space. You mentioned Nicole hopping in in 2020. I wasn’t in the business then I got in in 2023. But that was an interesting time because you had I believe lowrates. You had bidding wars going on like you mentioned and it seemed like especially working with investors that everything was a deal.
Nicole Cartee (07:02)
Mm-hmm.Mm-hmm. Yeah, to an extent. So, I mean, there was definitely some deals out there because sellers were excited to sell. But as I had also mentioned, too, it’s like…
If you’re talking about getting in initially, even just on the investor side. So whenever I first got in, as I’m sure, you know, happens to a lot of real estate agents. And I tell most people that are new to either avoid this or be have good discernment to not allow 45 different versions of real estate at one time, try to mentor you. And because I had such, I think such a passion for what I was doing, I was so excited.
I had a lot of people kind of magnetized towards me to try to use me to get to go like, let’s do investing, let’s do wholesaling, let’s do foreclosures. And I was like, I can learn it all. Like it was insane. So on one end I had normal just clients. Like I said, I had VA’s and first time home buyers for my first couple. And then on the other end, I was at the same time working with wholesalers. Cause as a realtor, once they get that deal and then you purchase it, then you, you know, you could make money as well. And then you could sell the house.
So that being said, I remember going with an investor to a house, this was in Lake City, and he was saying, we’re gonna go to a wholesaler’s bid day, and it’s gonna be the only time he shows it, and then we’re all gonna bid on it buy it. And I’m like, that sounds like a foreclosure. He’s like, well, no, just with the market we’re in, there’s gonna be a lot of people. I was expecting like six, is like a lot of people. There were like 35 people. I’m not exaggerating.
I thought there was bodies just everywhere all over the house like and it was such a strange feeling because you knew like This house is a piece of crap like I’m sorry, but it needs to be flipped There was like mold in certain areas. There’s dirt cockroaches the pool was filled with this like most like disgusting cream like something out of Sharon noble just ooze coming like on the top and I’m sitting there thinking like
Dylan Silver (08:48)
Yeah.Yeah.
Nicole Cartee (09:17)
what world am I in where there’s 35, 40 people walking around this home ready to fight for it. It was crazy. And now you have flips where it’s like, I recently had a listing. It was my personal listing and my other client, whom is an investor, ended up purchasing it. But she had it well below $70,000, like what it was worth. And no one is making offers right now in the world that we’re in now with this market.And it was funny because she gave me her actual low finally. I called her and said, look, we’ve done so many price drops. don’t really know what else I can do as far as the market. MLS is concerned. But I come from like my first couple of months in real estate was with investors and I know how their brains work. And I have an investor and I’m pretty sure if I can get it to work at this number, he will buy it from you. I said, do you want us to make an offer to him? And she was like,
Dylan Silver (09:44)
Yeah?Nicole Cartee (10:48)
That sounds amazing. Yes, this is the number I’d be willing to go down to. Perfect. So I called him and I was like, I have a reverse offer for you. She’s willing to sell his house to you for this much. You probably flip it and make about $150,000 after your remodel. Do you want the house? Absolutely. So it’s just crazy to me though that I came from somewhere where like you said with 2020.how there’s people just like scratching at the ends like raccoons with something shiny for the house. And now we’re in a market where it’s like you have to beg people to buy stuff. So I’m excited for that to go away.
Dylan Silver (11:15)
Yeah.I want to touch on that. I
want to touch on that, Nicole. I I was living in San Antonio for multiple years from about 20, excuse me, 2019 to about 2024, if I’m not mistaken. Then I moved up to DFW, Denton, North DFW for about nine months. And the thing that I noticed when I got into real estate in 2023 is it was the tail end of that.
fix and flip craze and you talk about walking into what was really a very distressed real estate. I mean it was an eyesore in a lot of ways and you had people, know, bidding wars going on for this distressed real estate and there was a lot of activity in wholesale and in fix and flip and everything seemed like a deal and people were doing great and then you pivot to today and you know one of the reasons why I stopped being more active in wholesale was because I saw that it was
more and more challenging for individual wholesalers to find buyers. Because like you mentioned, these properties that were heavily distressed, the people who were in bidding wars, for now you could have a property on the MLS that’s in rentable condition below market, even far below market, and there might not be offers for it. And so I ended up pivoting my business to, okay, well how do I get involved
Nicole Cartee (12:36)
Yeah.Dylan Silver (12:48)
maybe in new construction or ground up.builds and how do I become a realtor and that’s how I ended up pivoting myself. I do want to ask you about pivoting on your end. ⁓ You were involved initially you mentioned working with investors and then finding your niche and then recently very recently you started the Odyssey group ⁓ based out of the woodlands and you really have a niche that you’ve carved out. What made you or what were the factors that
Nicole Cartee (12:51)
youDylan Silver (13:18)
led you to creating the Odyssey Group and then also to findingthe niche that you’re involved in with business professionals in the Woodlands area.
Nicole Cartee (13:30)
So Odyssey Group came from ⁓ an unfortunate parting of ways from a business partner that we were with with a previous brokerage that was mine and my husband’s is his business partner, mine through marriage basically. ⁓ So yeah, we had a team that was under eXp for a while and then we made the decision that we wantedto become a brokerage because it was more financially feasible.
Nicole Cartee
some unfortunate turn of events with that business partner we just decided that we no longer vibe with that person in the way that he wanted to run things. So, Group became a thing because my husband and I actually I feel like we as a couple were marketing so well to the point where we’re starting to become recognized places. We’d walk around Academy or Target in our neighborhood and people are like I know y’all y’all are realtors.Oh, hey, I saw that video you made. I have no idea who this person was. And then I’d go home and be like, oh my gosh, the Google ads are working. And like, this is great. Like people are starting to see us and like our reels are starting to get to a point where we have builders that’ll tell us. One of them even told me he’s like, you know what’s I love about y’all’s reels, Nicole? They’re super genuine and y’all are doing the couple thing and they’re just funny and then they’re informative. But I can really tell that you’re being super genuine with everything.
And just like you and John are doing great. And so in the process of leaving that old brokerage or even thinking about it, we are both kind of like, you know what, like we are doing well. People are starting to see us as a like team. Why don’t we just break off and do our own team and find a brokerage that will support us in the ways that make sense for us. So that’s how Odyssey Group was born. And that was just a few weeks ago. So we’re super excited.
And I am the technical team lead, but we do both lead that we plan to lead that as a husband wife duo. And we have one new agent. And then you had asked me about our niche and what we found as far as like working with professionals in the area. So I think that also has come from just like a year of working really hard on my marketing. Like you had mentioned AI like.
Dylan Silver
Yeah.Nicole Cartee
I don’t if you know who Jason Pantana is, quick plug for him there, but like, he’s an absolute genius. And so I had seen him once at another Tom Ferry seminar and I took everything he said. just like went full force, analyzed all of our websites. So that’s something I spend a lot of time on, making sure that we’re being put out there. And so I just think the type of material that we put out.And just the energy that we’re putting out on that gravitates towards that type of person. And then the other way as well is whenever we do open houses. And my husband is very much the like bubbly, can talk football, college, you know, all that type of stuff. Like he can look at whatever college logo and he knows who they all are. And that’s not something I’m good at. He’s super just can like talk about literally anything, even if he doesn’t know what it is.
He’s just, he’s got the gift of gab. And so he can talk to literally anyone. And then I’m more of that analytical, just straight to the point numbers person. So when we have couples that come to open houses, I feel like, there’s just something about that dynamic between us that really has attracted, like most of our clients are the CFOs, CEOs, engineers. They just, I don’t know. It’s, seems to be our niche. So.
Dylan Silver
Yeah.Nicole Cartee
We’ve really tried to focus our marketing to grab that 35 to 50 year old couple that likes wine, dogs, golf, and football. So it works really well.Dylan Silver
It’s a magic.Yeah.
There’s some magic there.
Absolutely. There’s a there’s the duo and then there’s the marketing and people seeing the marketing and then the track record. you know, I’m sure people can can feel the presence and the vibe, if you will. I do want to ask you about ⁓ pivoting in general and your thoughts on being active in real estate yourself since since 2020 and seeing different market shifts and then also pivoting your business and your niche, starting a team.
Nicole Cartee
theThank
Dylan Silver
inevitably, one of the great things about real estate and also one of the challenging things about real estate for people who are getting started but also existing operators is you have to be able to pivot. I had someone tell me, you know, have to be able to stand your ground but you’ve also gotta be agile and be able to make changes and adjustments. Do you have any feedback for folks who may…Nicole Cartee
ThankDylan Silver
be in real estate and maybe seeing that, hey, things may be me slowing down or maybe I do need to make adjustments. What kind of adjustments should I make in general? What’s your thoughts on pivoting as someone who’s done it in real estate?Nicole Cartee
⁓I think it’s going to be kind of market dependent. I know that’s not necessarily what a realtor wants to hear, but you have to understand who’s buying in what market because I don’t really feel like there’s a hundred percent nobody’s buying right now a market. I feel like there’s a type of person that’s not buying and that’s how you choose how you pivot.
So one of the ways that we have helped basically pay our bills through this, we’ve still gotten some listings and some of the listings are selling, but as you know, they’re all sitting right now. And so I had a conversation with my husband. I was like, look, we don’t have a lot of buyers coming to the market. Sellers are a little scared to list. And if we do have those, we might sit. But in this market, while normal,
buyers, your renters that are wanting to first time home buyers, you know, start that process or people that might be used to buying for some reason think they’re going to get back down to a 2%. I don’t know why. Who’s always buying in this market is investors. So that was our pivot for this as well, is we’re still going to make sure that people see us and know that we’re here for listing, but we really put a focus on finding properties for like the investors that we have at the table. And then before that,
the pivot beforehand whenever everything was kind of like, you know, like new construction and they are now, but buyers are scared. So before that kind of changed. But yeah, before that we really focused on new construction and buyers are buying like crazy because you know, the interest rates with new construction and you have all these incentives and stuff. So our marketing was more geared towards showing them those options.
Dylan Silver
Yeah.Nicole Cartee
And then once it started to turn, think January, February, it kind of got to where it’s like, we really notice people are just too scared, regardless of what’s being offered. And then when I was younger, the pivot for me as well that I made, and this is more of a personal mind thing, which I also think is very important for realtors to understand themselves. I’ve gone through a lot of growth. I was never perfect. It’s taken me a long time to understand that you have to knowwhat you’re capable of and you have to be willing to know that there’s a difference between like I’m setting a goal to achieve versus I’m giving myself a mountain of things that would actually cause me to do worse. You can be really good at one or two things or you could be kind of crappy and semi-good at 80 different things. So one of the biggest pivots for me coming out of my first couple months to a year itch in real estate was, you know,
I had relationships with some investors, foreclosure people, wholesalers and stuff. And my pivot mode was I am dipping my toes in way too many different things. I need to figure out what’s made me money. And I literally sat there and looked at like, okay, I’ve had 13 clients in the last eight months that actually bought something. Where did they come from? Open house.
videos like Reels Marketing, Open House, Open House Door Knocking, Open House Door Knocking, Door Knocking. I was like, okay, so I have one or two investors that I can keep working with moving forward because I know they’re serious. And outside of that, my market person that regardless of what the market is doing, because that was over a long time span, I know that I am really good at getting X type of human being, no matter what.
Dylan Silver
Yeah.Nicole Cartee
SoI think part of the whole pivoting thing also you need to just take into consideration anyone that might be thinking that like, what should I do? It’s just a re-analyzation of like, what were you doing in the moments that you made money? And even the last few years, that was again another conversation I had, me and him had to have like looking at our business, like when it started to get slow and this market started to happen was like, okay, let’s take a step back and look at what were we doing when we made a lot of money?
Let’s just do that.
Dylan Silver
and more of that. You mentionedhitting doors when you were getting started. That tells me that you were hustling because I came from that world and that background. That’s a different beast entirely. You never know what you’re gonna get. There’s also a fair level of nerves that come into play, especially in Texas, right? Especially in Texas. But we are coming up on time here, Nicole. Where can folks go if maybe they’re looking at…
Deals in the woodlands area would like to reach out to you or if they’d like to maybe get in contact with you and get your feedback on their journey in the real estate space
Nicole Cartee
Of course, and we still door knock by the way. So they can go follow our Instagram that is carteesundercontract. Just all one word. That’d be the easiest way for the first just one click to find us because we have so many other things. We do have a TV show that will be coming out soon as well. I’m super excited to like drop that plug. That will be announced on our Instagram as well. That’ll be on Amazon Firestick and Roku.Dylan Silver
Wow.Nicole Cartee
So if you want to know the name of it and when it’s going to launch you have to follow the Instagram and then yeah, I’ll just I Know I’m not going to put my number on there if you want our info you can message our Instagram But yeah, just reach out and we can definitely help you with anything Woodlands Montgomery County Greater Houston area. We would love to help outDylan Silver
Nicole, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.Nicole Cartee
Awesome, thank you for having me.
