KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Kristin Washington

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

You're listening to Expansion, the podcast for EXP agents. Expand your skills, expand your value. Here's your host, Glenn Sanford. Hey, everyone, Glenn Sanford here, a host of the Expansion podcast, also founder, CEO of EXP Realty. And every week we actually interview another icon agent from EXP on what they're doing, how they're making an impact in their local markets. and how you can maybe be inspired to do something amazing or more amazing than you're already doing.

And that's really the idea of the podcast. And today I'm excited to talk with Kristen Washington. She's an icon agent out of Tampa, Florida, focused on affordable housing and using that as a lever point in her business, but obviously around making an impact. So Kristen, it's really great to have you on the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So you started off, I think, maybe as an investor and then transition maybe into real estate.

At least that's what I'm seeing here. Maybe you can share about your background. How did you get started in real estate? And then, you know, how did you go about eventually getting your real estate license? Yeah, so interesting. I have kind of a different backstory in a sense that I started out with over 26 years in health care management. I was a consultant for United Health Care and Oxford Health Plans. And I managed the sales division for that for about 26 years. And I was also an investor in real estate around that time.

So I was about purchasing properties. I had tenants. And I was flipping some of the properties. And then I got hit just like everybody else did around 2006, 2007. I got hit by the bubble like everybody else did and took a bit of a break and continued on with my consultant role in health care management. And then around 2016, some of my partners reached out and pleaded for me to get back in the business of real estate. And I decided, you know what, I'm not going to go back in on the investment side immediately. I'm going to go in on the real estate side and become a realtor.

so I know both sides of the program. So did that. And 2016 started out with actually introducing a program in the market where I bridged a gap between the investors and the builders. So I took my build partners. I married the bill partner with the investor. And we actually had an investment program that we went from producing 16 homes and building 60 homes, and now we're at about 50 to 100 homes that we build annually now, using

investing money. Yeah. Okay. So that's how that started. So I'm assuming, so are you, are you still a consultant in the healthcare industry? Or are you, is that totally past? I'm past that now. I am solely a consultant now in real estate.

I work with the local municipalities, and I have a nonprofit organization, and we work with affordable housing, and we build affordable housing as well now, including market homes, but we build them for the local, like a city of Tampa, Hillsborough County, Pascoe, Orlando, Sarasota, and the surrounding areas. We build affordable housing for them. Okay. So this is now, it sounds like a more of a mission-driven activity, or is this a... I tell everybody, my model. My motto is I am unapologetically transparent and intentional about what I do every day in the real estate business. And I'm very, this, you know, I tell everybody, follow your passion. My passion is making sure that people

achieve homeownership regardless of their income. I believe everybody deserves that. And the way the economy is right now, I'm even more driven to make sure everybody is aware of the, not only just the possibilities of homeownership, but how to access the billions of dollars that the government has out there now for them to buy these houses. So we literally, right now, we have people closing with $100 to $150,000 worth of assistance to help them purchase a home using down payment assistance money from the government. Oh, wow. So you've actually figured out how to, one, obviously, make an impact. In fact, I think, yeah, so you figured out how to make an impact. in the local community.

And then with that, I think last year and the year before, I mean, you're doing a lot of volume as well, you know, helping in this. What percentage of your business is in this segment? Is it 100%? Is it 50%? It is right now. It's right now about 60% of my business is affordable housing. And then the other 40% is market.

So we do what we call the Robin Hood effect, right? So we build market homes that allows us to use the profit from that to build affordable housing. And hopefully the 60% will actually grow as I continue to partner with the local municipalities right now. We have a program. If they give the lot to us, we don't pay for the land. We agree to build affordable housing on it to make sure that a deserving family can achieve home ownership and build generational wealth. So it's been working out great.

So you're pretty connected then with the local, you know, local municipalities, which, you know, individuals or roles you normally connect with to help facilitate this? So actually the local mayor's team, the mayor herself and city of Tampa and other local municipalities we deal with the real estate division directly. And that is determining land if it's buildable.

I go out there. I do the assessment to make sure it's buildable and it's going to meet the needs for my investors who are going to fund the project for the build. And then we write up a contract and we build. And it's a win-win situation because what happens here, Glenn, is the city is already paying taxes on these lots. They're just sitting there. And either whether they have dilapidated homeless,

on them or they're vacant lots that require care, where they have to send out somebody to cut the grass. They're also paying taxes on these lots. So what I do is I come take that off their hands. You don't have to do any of that any longer. You don't have to worry about the upkeep. The city can put that money back in their pocket because I'm going to take that lot. I'm going to build a house on it and we're going to sell it back to a deserving family that meets the income criteria. And it also increases the value in the neighborhood. And it just changed. It just changed the landscape of that local area. So it's a win-win for everybody. Okay. Now, when somebody does buy a home with government assistance, what are their commitments to the, to the, to the equation? I mean, is it just apply and you get some down payment assistance and then you're off on your own or is there other things that they're committing to?

So there's a couple of things that we have them do. We don't want to set them up for failure. right? So we want to make sure they're successful in this transition from being a renter into a homeowner. So their commitment is one. They do need to attend a first time homebuyers class. In that first time homebuyers class with our local partners and housing counseling agencies, we teach them the responsibilities of home ownership, what to expect, how to maintain their bills, their finances, and make sure that they don't go into foreclosure in six months or to a year because they can't afford it or they didn't realize they stepped into more than what they could handle. So we do a really good, job for you do a one-time home buyer first-time home buyer class which is about an eight-hour

class but then after that we put you with a housing counselor who teaches you the responsibilities it goes over your finances and put you into the point where your mortgage ready then i get the phone call they're ready to go they're ready to accept assistance and then we depending on where the area is located i'm able to get them anywhere up to 150,000 we actually had a couple people closed with $200,000 worth of assistance with $89,000 mortgage. The commitment once they receive that funding, though, is they must remain in that home as their primary residence for a minimum of five years before they can sell it. And we do that because if that was the case, we could put it out there for any investor to purchase, right? So we want to make sure that they're buying these homes

to live in these homes and not to turn around and put it into the market. So that is a commitment on their end. It's an affordability period of five years minimum that they have to stay in. home. Okay. Awesome. Now, you've also set up a nonprofit, I believe, and I think you were maybe describing some of the education and obviously the assistance. What was it that had you sort of go down that path and how has the nonprofit route been both supported to the community, but also then supported to your real estate practice? Yeah. So with the nonprofit, we were able to establish. a couple of things that we found out. I say we, my partners and I and my bill partners, we found out that a lot of our local Section 3 contractors and our builders who don't have

an opportunity that build privately and don't have the opportunity at larger RFPs with the local municipalities, they don't have portfolios, they don't have their income docs. They're workers, right? So they work with their hands, but they're not administratively strong. So they don't have a portfolio to say, hey, I'm a good candidate for this project, you know, to help veterans or to renovate houses in the area. So there's, it's a couple of different things that we do in our nonprofit. One, we educate the community. We go around, we do affordable housing seminars to help them understand that these funds are available and affordable housing is out there. It's just like a needle in a haystack, unfortunately when you're dealing with these local government programs. And we help shed the light

on where the money is and how to access it. And we provide all the tools to do so for the community and the buyer. Then on the other side of that, we actually work with different build partners, local GCs, minority GCs to help them understand how they build a portfolio and their book of business so that we can actually present them to the city because there's funding out there for minorities as well, whether it be women, minority contractors as well that they can get grant money to help them build these houses and renovate these houses for the city to help out with our crisis right now. So we help them to administratively meet that goal so they can actually secure some of the RFPs locally to build and renovate for veterans and for affordable housing.

Okay, awesome. Like if somebody wanted to enter into this space, I'm assuming that in the early stages, this is a labor of love, rather than going for gold, so to speak, financially. So it's, you know, that mission-driven piece, obviously it grows over time just like any niche would, assuming there's a marketplace. But how does somebody get into this community specifically? What would be some tips and ideas if people wanted to focus here? Yeah, so, you know, it's interesting. The opportunity has always been there. We just did not instill do not have enough realtors that are passionate about helping extremely low to low moderate income families achieve home ownership because there is a lot involved in the process. So it is, like you said, a labor or love that you really have to be passionate about this. It takes time. Your pipeline, it took me two years to build this pipe.

You know, your pipeline, however, though, will build in a matter of a year. And right now, I have a couple of agents that already have 25 to 30 clients that they're working in, working with, and they've only been in the business of affordable housing with me for about a couple months. So it is there. The opportunity is there. You just have to be willing to learn. The local housing counseling agencies are always looking for realtors to partner with to help train these clients. as they go through these homebuyer classes. This is not just subject to the Tampa area. This is nationwide.

There's billions of dollars that was approved by the, even before the Biden administration for affordable housing. And they just approved another several billion dollars to go into the local states and it trickles down to each local municipality as far as how much they get. That money has to be used or it goes back to the government. So the opportunity is there. They just need more. more realtors involved. And I always tell a realtor, get involved with the local housing counseling

agencies. That's your first step. They're going to connect you with everybody within the local municipality to work with for affordable housing to kind of bridge that gap. So the opportunity is there. They just need people that spearheaded and take it on. This is a struggle that's been going on for a while. And I think everybody agrees we have a housing crisis going on. And that $50 to $150,000 is actually something as accessible nationwide, depending on the municipality. So you mentioned that the money would go back to the government if it's not used. What percentage of that money is actually being used for helping at the local level? It doesn't sound like it's 100%, but is there, do you have any idea?

Now with the Tampa area, it was not. It was probably maybe 70 to 75%, but it is not. now 100%. With the seminars and the education that we have going on and the mayor being involved, even in Clearwater and St. Pete, because there's such a push for affordable housing, we are actually now using up 100% of the funding. So we tell everybody it's first come, first serve. The funds run out, and every fiscal year they're replenished. But as of right now, we do run out before the end of the fiscal year of the funding. Okay. Now, does the nonprofit portion, does that provide any, like, you know, local businesses and others, are they, can they, I assume, because of the nonprofit, you're getting donations into that to help?

Correct. And we partner with other nonprofits to continue the education and to complete the home build. So there's, there's about five of us total that are doing the affordable housing building. And there's about three of us that are doing the education portion of it to make sure we get out in front of community. Okay. How many other brands are represented in this focus on affordable housing, meaning other real estate brands are? Is it generally, are you the team or is there other agents sort of across the ecosystem? So there are. There are a couple other agents from a couple of different brands. brokerage. But I can tell you right now, EXP currently dominates the Tampa market. So we, we're my team of agents, we're very focused on this. So a lot of people know that if they have somebody in affordable housing, they call one of us to find out what we have in inventory. So as

of right now, EXP is kind of running the show when it comes to the affordable housing and builds in the Tampa market. Okay. And I assume when you say EXP, it's Kristen Washington. That is correct. Right. But the HSP sign is everywhere. Yeah. There you go. So how do you,

so how do you generate leads currently? I mean, you mentioned that 60% of your business is here, 40% coming from, you know, other other places. You know, you're, to have an active marketing campaign to generate leads of this or other segments? So for that particular part for the affordable housing, it is specifically the seminars that we're doing and the listings. Because we average more listings than anybody else, the signs for EXP are up all over the Tampa Bay area. So we get phone calls and leads daily from people saying, hey, you look like you know what you're doing. We want to work with you. So I get a lot

of non-represented buyers that are calling on a daily basis to find a home based off of just our presence in the market. The other thing is because we work very closely with the housing counseling agencies and because we're doing these seminars, you have to imagine if at each seminar I have anywhere from 25 to 40 people, a lot of them are coming in, not represented, and they actually just trickled down to my current team right now and they work with those people that show up to the seminar. Then the housing counseling agency has within their first time homebuyers program, when they do that training, they ask for realtors to actually speak on the process of purchasing a home. So when you're that face of real estate in that training, you become the face for the 75 to 80 people who are on that training to contact after their mortgage ready.

So that pipeline is actually built automatically just from our involvement with the community. Awesome. And then what do you use for a CRM and what does that look like? So KB. Corr is a go-to for the team. However, I will say we have been very blessed that the leads just come in so frequently right now that we're just trying to find a balance and working with all of the buyers. So we use KB. Corps to kind of organize some of the content and the information on our buyers. But our lead generation has actually been us going out there and just being involved in the community. And with the investment, program, investors reach out to us because they're making money as we build houses for them to put it on the market. So we have two sides of income coming in right now. Oh, awesome. Well, last question, and then we'll call it a day here. Obviously, a lot of great stuff here. I learned a ton chatting with you here today. But if you could give one piece of

advice to an EXP agent, what would it be? Well, my mom. My mom again, I will circle back to that. You know, be passionate. You know, go after what you're passionate about and you will excel. And be open. Don't ever assume that you know everything. There's always something to learn. Hey, thanks for spending time with me today, Kristen.

It's been great to pick up some clues from you. And thanks for everyone for listening. And be sure to check out Kristen on Instagram or visit her nonprofit website at gen wealth EMP.org. It's actually gen dash wealth emp.org

and until next time, take care everyone. You've been listening to Expansion. Tune in every Tuesday and Thursday for new episodes. Thanks for being the best part of VXP.