How the Real Estate System Is Failing Veterans—and What One Company Is Doing About It

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Travis Winfield discusses his journey from military service to entrepreneurship in the real estate sector, focusing on building a national brand that serves veterans and military families. He emphasizes the importance of financial literacy, mentorship, and authentic relationships in achieving success. Travis shares insights on the challenges of starting a business, the need for specialized training in real estate, and his mission to educate service members about their financial options, particularly regarding home ownership. He also reflects on personal growth through faith and the significance of surrounding oneself with the right people.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Military Operated Real Estate’s Website
    • Travis Winfield’s Website
    • Travis Winfield’s Phone Number: 1-888-614-MORE (6673)

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Travis Winfield (00:00)
  if you chase the money, you’re never going to catch it. But if you’re just truly right about taking care of others, the money will follow. Because I do believe that Q, I mean, you probably work with lot of things. Money does one of two things to you. If you’re an asshole, money is going to make you a bigger asshole. Let’s be real. But money, if you are

  Quentin Edmonds (00:14)
  Yes,

  Travis Winfield (00:17)
  service heart and philanthropic by heart is going to amplify that characteristic of you.

  Quentin Edmonds (01:55)
  Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. I am fired up today. Y’all heard me say this before. Sometimes my guests got a way of firing me up right before we press play and this gentleman has definitely done that. And I’m telling you, you’re in for a treat today. This is someone that is a disruptor of the system. And I’m gonna let him tell you about the system that he’s disrupting, but it’s in a fantastic way. It’s much needed. It’s needed for a much deserved

  class of real estate. And so I can’t wait for him to dive into it. I’m listening. I ain’t going to waste no time. I want to introduce you all to Mr. Travis Winfield. Mr. Travis, how you doing today,

  Travis Winfield (02:35)
  Dude, thanks for having me, brother. I am fired up to be here today, man. I’ve been looking forward to it,

  Quentin Edmonds (02:40)
  Man me too, man. ⁓ And listen, I’ll go away some time. I want to dive in I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days I would love man if you want to give us an origin story of how you got into this space you win We love origin stories and also man what part of the world you’re in what market you’re operating in? So Travis sir, you got the floor, man

  Travis Winfield (03:02)
  Let’s go, man. Well, look, I’m here. was born and raised in Rich Virginia. I now hail from San Diego, California, where there’s a lot nicer here. Right. And I do. My origin story was like many rags to riches, like kids do not grow up with ⁓ nothing. My mom always had to make sure I had a roof over my head. like I spent I don’t think I had like a legit bed to sleep until I 12 years old. You know, I learned, you know, you know, when you’re poor, when you got to figure out how to make thousand dollar and dress

  and with mayonnaise, relish, and ketchup, right? So you had to kind of make life work,

  And so, but I’ve always been a hustler. got my, I got my very first job when I was 14 years old. As soon as I was legally able to get a job, had 17 different jobs from between 14 to 19. But then I fell in that category where I couldn’t go to college because I didn’t have money enough money to go. And my parents made just enough where they at the time where they couldn’t get financial aid. So I ended up raising my right hand and joining the Navy. And I spent my 24 years in the Navy and that taught me things. my gosh, man.

  When you spend more than half your life in the military, you do become institutionalized, I will tell you that. But it also gave me the tools, it taught me how to lead better, it taught me systems and processes and discipline. And it really…

  molded me to the man I am today, which then led me to now I’ve retired in 2016. I discovered real estate. I was really drawn to it. I built a pretty successful team here in Southern California, which I’m very blessed to tell you that I turned over to my son, Sebastian, about a year and a half ago. So I’ve literally exited real estate from doing the day to day. And what a blessing to be able to turn it over to my own flesh and blood who is actually doing better than I ever did in the

  business and he’s crushing it, but that freed me up to follow my true passion. And that is there has been no real

  brand, you know, of course, me being passionate about serving the military, that’s never stopped. And so everything I do is about getting back. And so what I’ve learned is our service members have

  banking and insurance that are specialized in military. There’s all kinds of other teams and stuff in real estate, but there’s no national brand that a service member or a veteran can trust no matter where they’re moving in the country. So my mission is to create that brand. we’re really focused on, we’re very niche. You have to have a military affiliation to walk in our front door. But then what we do is we certify every single agent. have to go through a very, very robust certification to even join our network.

  Once they’re done, then they have to actually prove that they have experience. have to close like at least three transactions the last 12 months to finish their certification. And then once they’re in, so now I can market to the veterans saying, Hey, you want to hire a more certified agent. And by the way, if I didn’t mention my company, it is military operated real estate, right? And our tagline is expect more from your agent. And so now I could tell the consumer, they want to hire a more certified agent because it doesn’t cost them a dime more than they hired any other agent.

  but they will know that their level of expertise is here and that we provide quality control and we should ensure the experience of our veteran is the same no matter where they’re going to be stationed and helping them with potentially their largest financial decision of their life. And so that is really a passion of ours. We’re focused on that, on building that. We’re trying to solve the military spouse unemployment crisis. If you didn’t know the military spouse has a 30 % unemployment.

  So whereas the national average is only four, so over six times unemployment rate for a military spouse. Why? Because they have to stay home and take care of the family while their service, while their spouse is out, you know, serving our country. So they can’t work it. So we built a more ambassador program where we’re building out a national cadre of military spouses and active duty service members where they can become brand ambassadors for us who connect the service member to our more certified agent.

  And then they get a little piece of the cut too to provide extra income for their family as well. We’re big into education. We are educating the consumer, right? Because I think we were talking offline. There’s over 20 million service members and active duty members in our country. only 12%, roughly 12 % have ever used their VA home loan benefit. And through my research, I discovered that about 80 % are just financially, not financially sound. So actually,

  wrote a book, yes, our company’s name is in the title, Military Money and More, and it’s literally designed to help solve the disease of financial literacy and not just a symptom of teaching them how to use their VA home loan benefit. So we believe in the marathon, not the sprint. We want them to go from, you know, where they’re still trying to figure out their finances, teach them everything, and then once they get to a roadmap and they’re ready, then they deserve to own a piece of the land they defended.

  Quentin Edmonds (08:48)
  Mm-hmm. Man, thank you. Thank you for walking us through the journey, walking us up to what you are now. We’re going to dive more probably into the business in different aspects, but I want to dive a little bit into you, I have this saying where I say, and I got it from someone. I need to make that very clear, y’all. I did not come up with this. I just can’t remember who I got it from. So I need to say this. But I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right?

  So as you go through life, every destination, every stop, you pick up something that fortifies more and more of who you are. So I listened to you, man. You didn’t have a bed until you were 12 years old. know, shout out to your mom, know, doing the best she can. You retired in 2016, turned it over to your son and you’re helping people. Like you are thinking of innovative ways to help people who needs help the most. You’ve served our country. So I guess what I want to say

  Over your moments of destiny when did it hit you that you wanted to serve people? Because i’m listening to you. You are serving people all throughout your life So when did that servitude mindset really kick in for you?

  Travis Winfield (09:56)
  Gosh, you know, I think it’s when quite frankly, I raised my right

  join the military because you you don’t join the military to get rich, man. Let’s be real. All right. You’re you’re you join the military to be part of something bigger than yourself. And I think that when you spend a career in service, it’s just part of your life. And so even I retired,

  One thing I discovered those the military is a bureaucracy, right? So you have to follow all of their things that they do. And so being getting out, feel like I was learning through a fire hose through learning, you know, financial literacy and, cause look, make no mistake. I’ve made every financial mistake you can make in life. My book that I wrote is not from me being on my little ivory tower, telling everybody what I did right. No, it’s about everything I did wrong. they,

  relate to those people that they’re not alone. But the point that no matter where what stage you are with your financial literacy or your dream of homeownership, you just got to start somewhere. And I think that’s where my passion is, is just education, education, education, and then just being a service. Like even all of our agents, for an example, we don’t just teach our more certified agents to be ⁓ real estate agents, we actually teach the benefits experts when it comes to

  all the benefits that go with being a service member. You know, I’ve told this story so many times, but it gives me goosebumps every time I talk about it. You know, what drove me and inspired me to work on some of these programs was about a year and a half ago, was sitting at a listing appointment and I always ask my clients, like, why are you selling? Like, do you have to sell? Because I want to teach them how to build wealth and real estate is one of the biggest vehicles to build wealth with. And he goes, well, Travis, be honest with you,

  ⁓ our son got accepted to, you know, UC Berkeley, which is a really expensive school here in California. And we got to sell so we can free up some liquidity so we can send them to college. I’m like, well, you’re a disabled veteran, right? He’s like, well, yeah. He’s like, I was like, did you know that your kid can go to any California state university school for free? Q, I did you not, I watched both their eyes as well up and they just started crying right there in front of me. Dude, they never, they didn’t even sell their house. They ended up sending their kid to college.

  but they become one of our biggest fans because it’s not about the money for us. It’s about doing right. Like literally in our mission, vision and guiding principles, I tell our entire company,

  if you chase the money, you’re never going to catch it. But if you’re just truly right about taking care of others, the money will follow. Because I do believe that Q, I mean, you probably work with lot of things. Money does one of two things to you. If you’re an asshole, money is going to make you a bigger asshole. Let’s be real. But money, if you are

  Quentin Edmonds (13:10)
  Yes,

  Travis Winfield (13:13)
  service heart and philanthropic by heart is going to amplify that characteristic of

  And I think that’s where like, don’t get me wrong, I’m no billionaire or anything like that. But I’ve done well enough where I now want to pour that into I don’t it’s about mission before commission. I mentioned that.

  So that’s the exciting part,

  Quentin Edmonds (13:36)
  Yeah, yeah, no you hit the nail on the head. I always say two things marriage and money are magnifiers Marriage and Mike what listen marriage is not going to fix you It’s just going to magnify more who you are money will not change your character It’s going to magnify more the character that you are. It’s just going to come out and explode. So I am with you man I am curious man. I want to know more about more I want to know if you don’t mind that name it it impacts

  When did that name spark in your brain? How did you come up with the name, bro?

  Travis Winfield (14:08)
  Gosh, man, not many was ever asking that before. I can actually tell you exactly when I came up. It was in 2017. I was still at another broker just doing real estate. And I just was walking around and, you know, I’m a visionary. I’m not an integrator. And that has been one of my biggest challenges in building a business is that I realized that I need to surround myself while people do great at what I suck at. And one day I was literally just walking around in my house and I was like, hmm, I really want to create a brand.

  And I’ll just had a random thought. Let me think of a brand I was in and in the military acronyms are everything. So I literally was thinking about real estate, what goes to RE and I don’t know, like I literally I was kicking around that military operated real estate. just kind of hit me. And then I go more and like, man, we use that word a lot. I work that in and you’re gonna be shocked how often you do use the word more. And so it’s just something that we’ve just kind of resonated with me. And honestly, I didn’t even implement it.

  This was in 2017. So I’ve had the idea for almost a decade, but it didn’t really come to life until this past year. I did try to change my name to my local team. I changed my back in 2022, I changed my real estate team that turned my son to the more group. But then, you know, I’ll get a little vulnerable here. 2022 was a tough year for me, like with a lot of entrepreneurs.

  I burned out, man. I hit a wall. I was running a real estate team. I was building a national brokerage called Century Residential. was running a non-for-profit. I’m still the vice president. I’m called the Enlisted Leadership Foundation, where we teach leadership to activity service members. And if I didn’t think I was busy enough, I thought it was a great idea to buy a brewery. So I bought a brewery and I ended up, you know…

  I basically bought myself a job. so a lot of things suffered that year. Then of course life happens, right? Does life ever get easier? So I lost very dear people to my life. My stepmother raised me, a dear friend. We lost a horse that year. And then my grandmother, God bless her, had an incredible life, literally passed away right in front of me. And during these experiences, after that occurred, my body, I guess, just kind of said, F you, I’m done. It shut down. I went to clinical depression for almost three months.

  And whereas as an extrovert, didn’t want to leave my house. It was it was one of the hardest years of my life. However, I will tell you this man, and I’m sure you know this. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger by the Kelly Clarkson, right? And and sometimes you got to shrink to grow. There’s so many different things about this, and I truly can tell you that that experience allowed me to make some decisions in life where I sold the brewery. I resigned from the brokerage. I focused on what was important to me, and that was my son Sebastian. So

  I literally walked in last year to my son after some lot of growth challenges. And I said, son, you’re ready. This is yours. I’m going to rename it back to the Winfield group because that is your legacy and I want your name in it. And he’s the last Winfield of our family. And I took more back with this idea. And it wasn’t until January of last year that I actually discovered my current partner, Chad Neto, who has been an absolute blessing. And he is everything I’m not.

  And then my other partner Tristan McKee, like we are the three amigos that are just really doing this for the right reasons.

  Quentin Edmonds (18:13)
  Mm-hmm, man. You said so much that I can go into but I’m gonna start to say on track man. I absolutely love you. no, no, no, this is exactly I’m so glad you’re sharing. I mean again, man, I can go in so many different directions. Let me just say I thank you for your gift of vulnerability and transparency. I know me say that later on but I thank you man because you just gave us some transparent moments and I want to let you know I appreciate that so much man.

  ⁓ I do have to ask you man, what is your big audacious goal man? Like what’s next for you brother?

  Travis Winfield (18:48)
  Well, so more as you know, we are a national brand. already, as of today, have agents that cover over 110 military installations around the country. And we’re just getting started. So my big hairy audacious goal is, as I mentioned to you before, as a service member, can tell you that Navy, Federal and USA, incredible companies with banking and insurance, they own 92 % of the market share when it comes to banking and insurance. But yet there’s no national brand in the real estate space that they can trust.

  So my goal is to be in the same conversation as Navy, Federal and USA in the next three to five years.

  Quentin Edmonds (19:24)
  Go man, let’s go. So listen, now talking to you, you somebody that wanna serve people, it seems like to me you understand the value of relationships. So I wanna talk to you about relationships. What is your perspective on relationship building? Do you put a premium on it? Has building relationships changed your life? Like how has relationships impacted you Travis?

  Travis Winfield (19:48)
  Well, you’ve probably heard this. Your network is your net worth, man. And, you know, ⁓ I think relationships are critical for growth. And, you know, we were talking offline, so I’ll just talk about this. I believe so much into it. A dear mentor, friend and mentor of mine, Larry Broughton, ⁓ incredible entrepreneur and veteran himself. He taught me this one time is if you live your life in thirds, and here’s what that means. the third of your life, building the relationships of the people who have already achieved what you’re trying to achieve.

  Then spend a third, and because those are your mentors, right? Those are the people to go and sometimes you might catch up with them. So you have to find other people, right? And so that needle might move a little bit, but always, always, always spend a 30 year life hanging out and building relationships with people who have already achieved what you’re trying to achieve. But then spend a 30 year life.

  maintaining the relationships that got you where you are, i.e. your family, your friends. I’ve been married for 28 years. I think that’s one of my biggest achievements. And I will tell you, there’s many business owners that will tell you that ⁓ your choice of a life partner will make or break your business. Right? So make sure you maintain those relationships. But then the last 30-year life, you should be paying it forward and spending a 30-year life hanging out with people who are trying to achieve what you’ve already achieved.

  And some people are like, well, nobody’s gonna wanna hang out with me, because I just am this. So they try to downplay who they are. Listen, I promise you, there’s always somebody trying to level up from where you are, whether it’s that kid still in high school or whatever it might be. But if you take the time to pour into them, I promise you God will help move you forward and be righteous in what you do in life. So does that answer your question on the value I put on relationships, Q?

  Quentin Edmonds (21:28)
  I so. I you said it that way. I guess it makes no man. You absolutely man.

  Travis Winfield (21:34)
  Can I just say this too though, and this is an important one because remember when I mentioned to you that I went through like my real struggles. I’m assuming, do you know Tyler Perry is?

  Quentin Edmonds (21:45)
  think I’ve heard of him before, yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  Travis Winfield (21:46)
  A few people have heard

  something in an acceptance speech and I saw for the first time just when I needed to see it and he said it back in 2022 and I was literally in the darkest of darkest days because I’ve always been a pleaser, people pleaser. I always want to give a yes to everybody but that would also give me anxiety to the nth degree and I was always trying to make everybody in my life happy and sometimes and so here’s what he said that changed my life.

  He said, it’s only 40 seconds. I’ll try to paraphrase it and not butcher it too badly. goes, he goes, sometimes people were only meant to be in your life for a season. Some people who you thought were going be in your life and your, in your world for a lifetime were only really meant to be there for a season. It’s like boosters of a rocket. When that rocket’s going up into space and those booster rockets fall off, that’s those people that doesn’t make them bad people. It just means they’re not equipped to go to the altitude that you’re heading to.

  Quentin Edmonds (22:41)
  Mm. Mm.

  Travis Winfield (22:43)
  Right? That right there, that one 40 second quote changed my life.

  Quentin Edmonds (22:52)
  Listen, I know you just dropped that gym. I just feel very, very compelled to say this. Is there any topic that we have not talked about that you want to talk about? Is there, and I’m not trying to be pressure on you. Again, I just feel led to say it. Is there any other words of inspiration, education, motivation that you want to give? Like, I just feel compelled to say that if it’s not, it’s cool. I’m not trying to pressure you, but I wanted to put that out there for you, man.

  Travis Winfield (23:21)
  Well, I’ll say this man, and I know we have limited time and I’m loving this by the way, Q. So you can have me on any time because I’m really kind of loving this conversation. Sometimes you get into a conversation with people, you’re like, man, that’s the right synergy that you want to be in. So I’ll just say this man. ⁓ And this goes to whether you’re a real estate agent or entrepreneur or whether you’re just you’re you’re a person who’s just trying to make a decision for the next thing to do in life.

  Going back to what Larry Broughton, Larry Broughton told me this also, but it’s a quote from General George Patton. Do you by chance know who he is? From famous World War II general, right?

  Quentin Edmonds (23:56)
  Thank you.

  Travis Winfield (23:59)
  You know, and we’ve all heard that people get into analysis paralysis. They’re afraid to take the next step in life, whatever that either business or in life, because they’re just stuck in analyzing things. So he said this, a good plan, violently executed today is better than the perfect plan executed next week. So just take massive action today.

  Quentin Edmonds (24:21)
  Yeah, I’m glad I asked that because I needed that. I’m glad I had no idea I needed that. Man, Travis Sir, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you?

  Travis Winfield (24:37)
  there.

  Absolutely man. obviously if you just want to follow me with my book, traviswinfield.com not too difficult to remember traviswinfield.com has as kind of my big funnel where people come in and can buy a link to my book, link to my businesses that I have. But the one I really want to make sure people are aware of is more. And so our website is military operated real estate.com military operated with a D real estate.com

  The acronym is MORE and you can also call us. We have a national phone line that’s 1-888-614-MORE and that’s MORE is 6673. So M-O-R-E. So you can call us, you can email us, you can go to our website to connect with us. Everything you want to know about us is on our website. We have a very robust website. So yeah, man, thanks for having me, Q. This has been phenomenal.

  Quentin Edmonds (25:31)
  So man, I sincerely gotta say three things, right? So first, thank you for your time. I think you know time is very precious, very valuable. We can put a premium on our time. So thank you for your time today. Secondly, thank you for your story. The late Kobe Bryant said before he passed away, he was on the Lewis Howes podcast. Lewis asked him, he said, what is it that you wanna do that you have not done yet? Kobe said, tell the perfect story.

  Kobe says nothing in this world moves without story. So our stories are so impactful. Jesus taught in parables. Jesus said that our testimony, we’re going to overcome by each other testimony. So stories are prominent. So thank you for your story. You’ll get the vulnerability. Lastly, thank you for your perspective. Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I sincerely appreciate and appreciate you, sir.

  Travis Winfield (26:24)
  It was my pleasure, Q. again, looking forward to continuing relationships. So you talk about relationships. I want you to know, bro, I’m liking this. We’re going to stay in contact if you’re open to it, my friend.

  Quentin Edmonds (26:34)
  you got to believe it. listen. We’re talking about that for sure. You better believe it though. ⁓ So listen, y’all can’t tell me y’all did not get the value from Mr. Travis. I told you it was going be a good one. deliver. Every time I say that, tell y’all call me out. When I say it, I don’t deliver. Call me out. Absolutely incredible. So definitely check him out. Get his book, check him out, connect with him, but definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Travis.

  Travis Travis. Why are you traveling man? Travis again, you Mr. Travis

  Travis Winfield (27:08)
  I don’t care, Q, I’m all good.

  Quentin Edmonds (27:10)
  Y’all

  stop man, stop man. Mr. Travis, I appreciate you. So listen, thank you again and to everyone else. Listen, y’all have a phenomenal day.