Builder Incentives, Lower Rates & VA Loan Wins w/ Jenna Ahrens (Meritage Homes)

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In this conversation, Jenna Ahrens discusses the distinction between years of experience and true expertise, emphasizing the importance of self-confidence in professional settings. She reflects on how individuals may have varying levels of actual experience despite their time in the field, and how this realization can empower her to serve clients effectively.

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Jenna Ahrens (00:00)
I would not own a home.

if it wasn’t for the incentives offered by new builds. I would not be here. I sold my best friends a house two doors down from me. They wouldn’t own a home if it wasn’t for what new builds offer. So while other homes right now, you you get market rate, you’re in the sevens, it’s rough. But as a first time home buyer, if you can walk in a rate that’s in the threes or the fours, because builders are getting these forward commitments.

It is so much easier for you. Like I’m saving people anywhere from 200 to $800 a month on their monthly payment because of these special interest rates. You can get your closing costs covered.

Dylan Silver (02:06)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is based in the greater Austin Metro and is a new home consultant with Meritage Homes. Please welcome Jenna Ahrens. Jenna, welcome to the show.

Jenna Ahrens (02:20)
Hi, thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:22)
It’s great to have you on here, Jenna. You know, I always like to start off at the top of the show by asking guests how they got into the real estate space.

Jenna Ahrens (02:30)
So I got out of the military, I was in the Air Force in 2021 and I essentially did public affairs, so marketing for the Air Force. And as I got out, I wanted to find a new way to serve people and apply those skills and I found that in home building. So Texas, San Antonio is military city. So of course I was out there and home building is such an integral part of the Texas economy. Like I would say about 30 % of people

are related to home building in one shape or another. So there was just a lot of opportunity here. I had a bunch of friends in it who said, you should do it. And I said, I don’t know anything about houses. And they said, it’s a people business, not a house business. So got into it and I haven’t looked back since.

Dylan Silver (03:02)
Yeah.

They were exactly right. You know, I think right now we were talking before the podcast here, the new home ground up construction space is really hotter than ever, I think, in a lot of ways. And also because fix and flips, the margins are a little bit slimmer for investors and it can be more challenging. So people who were ordinarily maybe in another asset class are looking more towards new construction. You mentioned you had friends who maybe were in the space. Did you think about

Jenna Ahrens (03:29)
We’ll be back. Okay.

Dylan Silver (03:42)
other asset classes or other verticals that you could be involved in, know, being a traditional realtor or looking at wholesale real estate or finding ways that you could do cash for keys, this type

of thing. What drew you specifically to New Home Consultant?

Jenna Ahrens (03:58)
That’s a really good question. So I would say that my reach and my scalability being so new to this career, I think it’s really difficult for a lot of agents. 90 % aren’t able to make it past their first year, right? They don’t reactivate their license. That is a very real struggle. And when I’ve gotten to the industry,

I’m essentially a listing agent who doesn’t have to ask for my listings, right? I get hundreds across the city, especially because I have found these top national builders with cross-selling models. So being there, I feel like it’s been a great way to learn the industry and build my network and just hit the ground running, especially because with social media being my primary driver of business, it’s a lot easier for me to reach agents. And if you can connect with one agent who might have tens or hundreds of clients,

you’re able to help a lot more people than just one specific buyer. So that’s been, I guess, what I’ve liked about working here. And then you have a lot more flexibility too. So when you work for a builder and we talked about investors and stuff, you have this urgency, especially in today’s climate, because in an ordinary economy, investors are not looking towards new builds because you’re spending a few more dollars per square foot for all the bells and whistles.

Dylan Silver (05:11)
Right.

Jenna Ahrens (06:01)
for warranties to be the first person to live in the home, but you don’t have, I guess, an urgency to sell the way you do with new builds in the pre-owned space. So when you have an economy like today, builders, they have quotas, they have deadlines for October, where the end of the year, they’ll have hundreds of homes with carrying costs that get uglier as the year goes on and they need to offload those.

Dylan Silver (06:11)
Right?

Jenna Ahrens (06:25)
So it’s a lot easier for me when I have hundreds of listings to connect with these agents who really focus on investors and say, hey, this is my aged inventory. And when people are submitting lower offers on, you know, 15, 50, 100 homes across the city, builders are going to listen to that a little bit more than when you’re buying one or two pre-owns. Even if it’s from the same people, you also aren’t buying within the same neighborhood. So I just feel like I’ve had a lot more traction.

in this very niche part of the industry, especially with it being Austin, Texas.

Dylan Silver (06:59)
I do want to ask you about getting a little granular here into getting into the industry and your first year or two years in the business. Is this a lot of learning for folks who may be thinking about going in a new home consulting? Is it a lot of learning on the fly? Is it a lot of long hours, a lot of long weeks? Is it a lot of competition between other people who are selling within the same community? What’s it like your first year or two in the business?

Jenna Ahrens (07:22)
Yeah, it’s really competitive and you hear about it being oversaturated and I’m very blessed to have started my career during a challenging time because I think that if I had started during COVID,

when homes were just flying off the shelves and rates were in the twos, I think I would have gotten accustomed to that. But because I was really just thrust into everything in the midst of a challenging economy, when rates were in the sevens, it really forced me to get creative. And I learned very quickly not to be a corporate robot and to just be myself. And when you present yourself a certain way, you’re gonna attract business.

a lot easier when you’re being authentic. So if somebody’s wanting to get into this industry, they have to be prepared to work. They have to be prepared to be loud and be different. And when you’re different, you’re better. So when I first started, a lot of my videos were these boring house tours. You know, they would take me hours on end to edit. And of course you get faster with time. And I soon learned that that wasn’t gonna make me business. I don’t know anyone who has seen a

TikTok of a home and been like, I’m gonna buy that house. So my advice to people would be be prepared to work your butt off. I worked for a builder where I got one weekend off a year. You work, you give away your weekends, but it is well worth it to be able to help hundreds of families. Cause the way I see it is like this seat is a privilege. So if we’re here and we have the platform where we can get on social media, we can reach whoever we want and help whoever we want. The compensation is.

Dylan Silver (08:48)
Yeah.

Jenna Ahrens (08:57)
going to be directly proportionate to what you put into it. So you can’t expect to just show up to a model home and have buyers walk through the door. Like the age of walk-ins is done. So be prepared to generate your own business, build your network, be authentic, be vulnerable, and really learn how to connect with people and build those lasting partnerships.

Dylan Silver (09:16)
You know, I think about the deal cycle coming from working with ⁓ Fix and Flippers and then with Builders and then now as a realtor and then also as a host of the show. The Builders probably last thought is, okay, we’ve got this home up, we’ve got it everywhere, people know our name, who is it that we’re going to put in place to be the face of our franchise, if you will? Who are people gonna see? And they might hire, let’s call it,

Jenna Ahrens (09:25)
you you

Dylan Silver (09:43)
five people, 10 people, however many it is to sell a certain number of homes. But the most effective of those people are gonna be invaluable to them.

Jenna Ahrens (09:52)
I think that’s it. Okay.

Dylan Silver (09:52)
So we were talking before the podcast here about some of your strategy, and you mentioned it now as well, that really you have to have your own brand. You have to be willing to go the extra mile, because otherwise people have got so many options, even so many options as far as which new builder to go with that.

when they’re showing up or when they’re on your social media, you’ve got like seven seconds to capture their attention. How are you gonna convert that? And so, you my hat goes off to you and really congrats for

what you built with your media presence and your branding. It’s clearly working.

Jenna Ahrens (11:01)
⁓ thank you. Yeah, personal branding is a big part of it. I say you work with a builder. You don’t work for a builder and your brand is not the builder. Yeah, you can co-brand. Like you’ll see my logo says your builder bestie at Meritage Homes, but my personal brand is your builder bestie. And so I really try to convey myself as like

I’m your best friend through this process. I do work for the builder, but I’m also looking out for you. And I did not have an easy journey to home ownership by any means. I had to go through credit repair. It took me years. I had to pay off so much of my debt after my divorce. And when you go through something like that on your own and you’re transparent with that and you share your story and your testimony of what home ownership means to you or what it’s like when you finally start to have things in your own name.

Right? And you can build your own investment portfolio as a 24 year old woman by herself. That is something that people, it’s going to resonate and it’s going to help you connect with people. And you’re going to be able to actually help whether that’s helping somebody buy 15 rentals or helping someone buy their first home because they know that you’ve been there too and they trust you to help them through the process.

Dylan Silver (11:56)
Right.

Jenna Ahrens (12:16)
So I think that’s a major part of it is sharing your personal brand. And that doesn’t just mean having a few branding colors or making some good Canva flyers. That’s being you and just sharing your journey with people. Cause we’ve all had our reasons and our whys and that’s ultimately what’s going to define your business.

Dylan Silver (12:26)
Right.

I want to ask you a pivot a bit here, Jenna. I came before I was in the real estate space. I got into real estate in about 2023. Prior to that, I had done about five years in automotive. And it was a grind. I think in a lot of ways, I’m grateful for that experience because it showed me really how hard work can be and how long days can be. And ultimately, when I think about a new home consultant, there is some similarities in a lot of ways because

Jenna Ahrens (12:58)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (13:05)
You have to do volume, you have to be there. When you’re just starting out, you might be around other people who may be way more experienced than you, you might be around some new people. But also too, the interest in you sticking around is on your shoulders, right? And so I’m curious, when you were getting into the business and then to today, has your why changed at all? And then also, what was your why initially and then today?

Jenna Ahrens (13:31)
Well, so initially my why I’ve always said I was going to own a home by 2025 and we did it. But my why was to help other people achieve homeownership, but to do it myself, because to me, homeownership is the freedom to make my own choices in life and have the freedom and independence to do the things that I want to do. when I guess my why remains the same except

Dylan Silver (13:50)
Yeah.

Jenna Ahrens (13:55)
Now I have a house, but it’s still the same thing. I have that same mission of wanting to help other people achieve home ownership. And when I did first start too, there was a huge part of that feeling of I’m the youngest person in every room I’m in. Most days I still am, even though it’s been a few years. And when that happens, you get these feelings of imposter syndrome like creeping in. But I was in a Jeff Shore training, one of my first weeks in the industry, and he had said that a person can have

Dylan Silver (14:08)
Yeah.

Jenna Ahrens (14:24)
20 years of experience, but that doesn’t mean they have 20 years of experience. That could be one year of experience 20 times. So just because I’m in a room with all of these people who may have been doing this a lot longer than I have, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to serve a buyer the same way I will. So I just had to remind myself of that. And especially in today’s world where

Dylan Silver (14:45)
No question.

Jenna Ahrens (15:32)
Social media is such a heavy part of what we do. There’s a lot of people who have been doing this for a really long time who have become accustomed to the old way of doing things and generating business. And that’s just not the way things work in 2025. So there’s that.

Dylan Silver (15:46)
Yeah, I mean to piggyback off

what you said, you know, about why and a home ownership and helping as many people as you can. You know, really I think it’s in a way ⁓ perfect the field that you chose because if you had gone for instance into traditional being a realtor, it is challenging. Those first two years, you have first of all so many startup fees. People don’t even talk about how many thousands of dollars you’ll spend as a realtor to just get started.

Jenna Ahrens (16:02)
Okay. .

Dylan Silver (16:12)
But then also on top of that, you have to learn the actual trade, right? And so because you passed a test, because you know some people, doesn’t mean that you know exactly how to take a deal from the cradle to the grave and everything that’s involved and bringing buyers and sellers together and all the paperwork and a 12 page trek contract and then bringing it to title

and then making sure that everything is compliant and optioned. It’s so much, right? And so you have, like you mentioned earlier on in the show here, basically,

Jenna Ahrens (16:35)
Mm. .

Dylan Silver (16:41)
all these quote unquote listings that you have the opportunity to sell people and help as many people as you can with all of the great and very much aggressive incentives rebates that that builders have access to. And you know piggybacking off of that I can say when I got into the business my why was rather I would say selfishly I wanted to generate wealth for myself. I was working in the automotive space and I had done a Google search online you know.

Jenna Ahrens (17:00)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (17:09)
ways to generate wealth or how to become a millionaire, something along these lines, and real estate just kept popping up. There were so many ways for me to get involved, and I’m a realtor now. I kind of thought at that time, you know, I never really want to be a realtor. That’s not something that I’m interested in. So I got involved in wholesale. Now today my why has changed, which is, you know, I live overseas. I

think about what are ways where we can make the dream of homeownership a reality for as many people as possible.

And I truly do believe right now that it’s new builds, ground up construction. It’s people like yourself, Jenna, where folks can go to if they’re in the greater Austin area and take advantage of all of the incentives that builders have,

Jenna Ahrens (17:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, especially so there’s a lot of people I would not OK, let me backtrack that

I would not own a home.

if it wasn’t for the incentives offered by new builds. I would not be here. I sold my best friends a house two doors down from me. They wouldn’t own a home if it wasn’t for what new builds offer. So while other homes right now, you you get market rate, you’re in the sevens, it’s rough. But as a first time home buyer, if you can walk in a rate that’s in the threes or the fours, because builders are getting these forward commitments.

It is so much easier for you. Like I’m saving people anywhere from 200 to $800 a month on their monthly payment because of these special interest rates. You can get your closing costs covered.

There’s just so many ways that builders can make home ownership more attainable for people. And that’s a big part of why I’m here too, because when a realtor gets someone who

has been told no or fell in love with a pre-owned home and unfortunately we weren’t able to make it happen there. They can bring them to me and say, what can we do? And if one lender can’t do it, we can put our brains together and find someone who can. My specific VA loan was denied by another builder. It was denied to buy a pre-owned. And then I said, you know what? I guess I’m gonna sell myself a house. We did a manual underwrite. We worked things out. So.

Dylan Silver (19:01)
Yeah.

Jenna Ahrens (19:07)
You just have a lot more resources and leniency when you are working with first time buyers because of that. Like we’ll max out IPC contributions all the time, like full 6 % for closing costs and like 4 % for VA. Another cool thing about VA is you can actually pay off debt once you can’t with other loan types. So in San Antonio, I worked with a lot of military families.

Dylan Silver (19:29)
Hmm.

Jenna Ahrens (19:34)
and first time home buyers. And then when you relocate, you can turn that home into a rental. And then now before you know it, a year or two has gone by and you already have a rental portfolio and you’re in your early 20s. It’s amazing the doors that it opens for you as soon as you start building equity in something. And your first home, you know this as well as I do, it’s not gonna be perfect. It’s not gonna check.

Dylan Silver (19:45)
strain.

Jenna Ahrens (19:58)
of your boxes, it may not check 80 % of your boxes, but you’re going to start building equity. And especially in Texas, where the appreciation is so dramatic, because I live in the fastest growing zip code in the United States right now. So to be here and know that I’m going to be able to rent out that home and resell it one day is just a really cool feeling. Like it’s empowering, if that makes sense.

Dylan Silver (20:09)
Wow.

No, yeah, I mean, it’s, you mentioned a couple key points. You mentioned taking a home, turning that into an investment property, building equity in both. And it’s not get rich quick, right? Because you might not be able to buy a home and sell it for 50 % more within 18 months, right? But it’s a get rich slow. And then also too, I tell this to people, if I could tell you that you’re gonna rent a property, you may pay to fix some things up.

Jenna Ahrens (20:37)
Okay.

Yep.

Dylan Silver (20:49)
at the end of renting it out, you’re gonna leave, you’re gonna go somewhere else, but you will get all of the money back that you put into renting it. They’d be like, well, how do I do that? And I would tell them, well, you buy the place. Now granted, that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna

triple your money overnight, or it might not mean that you make tons of money, but it’s effectively, another way to think about it is,

Jenna Ahrens (21:11)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (21:11)
you’re living without paying for the cost of living because when you go to sell it someone else is and in many cases especially where you’re based out of know greater Austin area the inflation is your appreciation so while the cost of everything goes up and up and up this benefits the homeowners so that’s how you you build equity in these homes we are coming up on on time here Jenna where can folks go if maybe they’re they’re in the the greater Austin area and they’d like to reach out to you they may be starting on the home journey

and not sure where to start

Jenna Ahrens (21:40)
My Instagram is probably the best way to reach me. It’s your builder bestie. And then my Facebook is going to be, you know, facebook.com slash your builder bestie. And if you Google it, my phone number is everywhere. So that’s the easiest way to reach me. And I’d be happy to help whether somebody is a realtor looking to collaborate and build our business together or a homeowner who’s just getting started and would like to walk through the process.

Dylan Silver (22:05)
Jenna, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Jenna Ahrens (22:09)
Thank you Dylan, I appreciate it. It’s been awesome hearing about everything and I’m excited to be here, so thank

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Investor Fuel

Builder Incentives, Lower Rates & VA Loan Wins w/ Jenna Ahrens (Meritage Homes)

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