KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Married in Real Estate: The McArthur Family's Story of Success

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Summary:This episode shares the inspirational journey of the McArthur family, who successfully built and scaled their real estate business as a married couple. The discussion focuses on the unique challenges and triumphs of mixing family and business, emphasizing the importance of clear communication, defined roles, and setting firm boundaries to prevent burnout. It provides a philosophical and practical framework for leveraging a partnership, utilizing complementary strengths, and maintaining a shared long-term vision for both the business and the marriage. This is a great listen for couples working together or agents looking to successfully integrate their work and personal life.

So today you're going to hear from Todd and Joni MacArthur, and they're talking about their 40-plus year marriage and how they've done it through some really challenging times and what their roles are in real estate now. Because if you know anything about real estate, it has a high divorce rate, especially when one of the spouses is not in real estate. And that's how their story plays out. But stay tuned and hear it for yourself. Welcome to Real Estate Riches, where Kathy Burns empowers realtors to achieve the success they've always dreamed of. Starting her career at 55, Kathy built a thriving business that offers the freedom of time and financial independence. And now she's sharing her journey to help others do the same. Whether new to the industry or looking to level up, this channel is your hub for proven strategies, inspiring stories, and the tools you need to grow your real estate business.

Join Kathy each week to explore global opportunities, successful systems. and expert insights to take your career to the next level. Get comfortable. Pick a video and start learning. Your journey to success starts now. Hey, everybody. It's Kathy Burns here with Real Estate Riches, and I'm so excited today because I have my friend Johnny, husband Todd,

and they are going to talk to us about marriage in real estate. So I'm really excited for you to hear about it because there's a lot of people challenged with this, right? Okay. Hi, guys. Hi. How are you? Great, great.

So this is Todd and Joni. MacArthur, and I just wanted to have them on. They were telling me that they were doing this event yesterday, and they were going to be sharing their story of how many years they've been together and the fact that marriage in real estate, which is tricky because, you know, divorce in real estate is kind of high. So I would love to hear your story. Absolutely. So cool. Let's go. Let's get started. Give us a little background and what prompted you, number one, to even talk about this. well i offer a networking group on the second and fourth tuesday of every month at our local title office and i started it because realtors realtor is that we just don't get to see each other

everything that we do is on our phones and on our email and so yeah and we just we don't really ever get to commune with each other and so um i'm a firm believer and and being abundance minded and not having a scarcity mindset. Right. And so we share everything at these meetings and have been doing it basically on like real estate stuff. And I'm a God's girl. And I just really felt God encouraging me and speaking to me to say, Joni, who you are while you're doing real estate is just important.

doing real estate, hitting up the offers and negotiating and all of that. If it's falling apart at home and there's friction in the marital relationship or with your teens or what it's like to do as grandparents, which we're grandparents now. And I just think that... Great place to be, by the way. Yeah, me too. Grandparents, yeah. But, you know, I just, I felt God nudging at me to speak on something more than just business.

Yeah. Because if your marriage is happy and whole at home, you're going to do a much better job out in the workforce. Sure, sure. Yeah. I think so, too. And Todd, are you both partners in your business? I'm not a registered real estate license. Like, okay.

Licensed or real estate agent. But, yes, I'm her transaction coordinator. So I'm basically, I have the household. Ah. I retired a year ago. Mm-hmm. So now I'm the full-time cook, which I always have in anyway. Shopper, house cleaner.

Love that. Love that. So it allows her to do more of what she loves to do. And I always say I may be Johnny MacArthur real estate, but I would not be able to do the amount of volume that I do and what I do if he didn't do what he did for me. And we just completely switched roles, you know, because I used to do the cooking, cleaning, all that stuff. And then it's a, I help stage. Yeah. I signage, all that stuff. It's all good. We have If we have FHA requirements or VA requirements, he puts up handrails and walls.

Yeah. There isn't anything this dude can't do. He's pretty talented. I'm not very computer survey, but. Yeah, we're still working. A lot of the hands on stuff. We're still working on that. Well, a lot of couples that I know, if they're not at least in harmony with what their business is about,

then it kind of pulls apart. because real estate infiltrates your life 24-7. It does. And like you said, you're God-centered, and as a couple, you're God-centered. And that really is important because, you know, when I walked away from a lifestyle that I had, I was a newly born-again Christian, and I basically said, God, open out my Red Sea and get me out of this spot I put myself into. And he did and gave me the opportunity to recreate my life and has blessed me.

much. So God's a big piece of my partnership because I don't have somebody over there doing all those wonderful things, but man, am I jealous? God's a big, big part of our relationship as well. I mean, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for, you know, our relationship with Jesus. Yeah. And we'll get that a little bit more here and just a bit it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you, You had a corporate job before, Todd, or you were working at another avenue? I, we started out when we were first married. I was basically went to trade school and was an automotive mechanic. In 1990, I started my own business, which we ran for 18 years.

Wow. I left that because times are hard in 08 and 09. Went into financial planning, working for John Hancock. good good gig did pretty good at it for two years that I was there but he was top sales I did not like it I never liked it I was that too no thanks I wasn't working with my hands so it just didn't fit with me yeah so then I yeah we've got some life stories that lead us on to my last job and of 12 years and now I'm working for joanie yeah he was going to electrician for a tool and die shop.

Oh, great. Man, all those trades, they're critical. You know, it's a dying art, it feels like, because there's not enough tradespeople that we need them. We need trades. No, there's not. Agreed. Yeah, you're right.

Agreed. Yeah. And so you were doing the sales this whole time, Joni? Yes. Okay, so in our younger years, I was a veterinary technician for 17 years. Wow. I know. And then I did nonprofit for two years. Then I got into sales with a company called Silata Design's Jewelry. And it was a direct sales company. And we went into people's homes,

kind of like Tupperware. And I remember. Yeah, we did shows. And I worked it hard. I was in the top ten every year. She worked very hard. It was a very good business. her to be in. Yeah, I had over 250 women on my team and I just, I saw, I saw what it could provide for us. So I worked it. Yeah. But I saw, I saw that it was slowly coming to a hall. I saw the writing on the wall. And so a year before they closed their doors, I got my real estate license. One of my really good friends, Janice Wright, who lives in Massachusetts, so really encouraged me to get into it. She was also with Silpada and left.

And I still keep in touch with her today. So it's kind of cool. Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, the skills that you learn in a direct sales environment like that are ideal, especially for EXB, which we're both at. Yeah. I think it's important for any kind of sales.

I mean, they taught you people's skills. Because when I've been involved with direct sales companies and I have, I never made, I was never success ever. But I worked it. I just, I was doing two businesses at the same time. And I don't believe you can do two things at the same time. You either give it 100% or no percent. Yeah, for sure. But one of the things about direct sales is they believe in personal development.

Yes. Did you have that there? Totally. The really cool thing is I learned all of my sales skills and silhouada designs. I really did. They taught me everything. I basically took what I did with jewelry and moved it over to houses. And it was a little bit different, but I learned how to not take things personal.

I learned to have tenacity, how to be determined, how to set myself up for disappointment when your family and friends use somebody else. Things like that, because it happens. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And to not take it personal, to really just see beyond it. Yeah. So what are some tips that you would give couples that are together like you two are? Because you've had the balance of everything.

You've had it where he was working at another job and you're gone all the time. And then it evolved. You probably helped along the way, Todd, I'm sure. Like she needed different things done. I mean, there were times with Silata I would have to leave work early because there was an ice storm. And she had a show scheduled in northern Michigan, which is an hour and a half drive from here. Mm-hmm. She's like, are you guys going to cancel?

Oh, no, everybody's going to show up. Well, they're used to driving. Those women up north, they're hearty, man. They are hearty. It doesn't stop them. Yeah. So it just, it's things like that. We work together.

Yeah. It's so nice now being able to be with Joni in the evenings because she was always gone a lot with Zapata. Mm-hmm. And my job started very, in the morning and I would never be up when she'd get home. So we didn't see each other. You didn't see each other a lot during the week.

But, you know, we were committed together through our bond through Christ. And it's just, it's, we're not going anywhere. So we're together for life. Yeah. That's great. That, you know, and it's rare too. Yeah. I think, I love how you were telling me that you were doing your networking events and

you were having a prayer session before. Is that what you did? Yeah, we did. Tell us a little bit about how you do that. Well, we just start the networking group at 10 with a devotion and prayer. And then we networked from 1030 to 1130. So we have been through so much crap in our 44 years. We'll be married 44 years, May 16th of this year.

Nice. And we've just, we have been through. a lot of lows, a lot of highs, but a lot of lows as well. But they've been really good for us. You know, sometimes to have adversity in your life, you don't ever welcome it. Sharpened us. But it has, I always say, it didn't define us. It didn't define us, but it refined us.

Yeah. So it was really good for us. Some of your biggest sucker punches have your greatest gifts. it's so true yeah you just have to be willing even though you get knocked down you just you can't allow yourself to stay there you got to stand up and you got to start figuring out what was the gift and i think an important thing something i learned years ago was how to forgive when you don't want to how to forgive how to expect nothing appreciate everything i have all these Joniisms of they give me an awesome opportunity to extend grace.

I use that all the time. So yeah. Yeah. It's been a hard life, but it's been a good life. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of couples out there that don't have that partnership within their marriage. Like you do have clearly got a partnership.

Yeah. What would you say to some of them, like either the. The husband's gone doing it all the time, but a lot of times it's the wife that really takes on more of the real estate roles in what I'm seeing. And that's the really wear on a relationship. What would be some suggestions that you would have for them as a couple? Well, as a man, I, she, Joni's been in real estate for over 10 years. So it's not like this is new. I just had

up my game at the house. I mean, she's busy. And if we need to hire something done, we hired it done, but we just never done that. I think the home front has to be taken care of. I mean, no matter what. I mean, we have a small farm,

so there's a lot of lawn to mow. I tend to be picky. I like a clean house. It would, like, stress me out. I hate clutter and I just I like a tidy house. And so we've, he takes care of that and I don't have to worry about it. Well, there's a lot of couples that don't have that harmony.

So that's kind of what I'm asking. How would you kind of give them some, I know that your faith is powerful in keeping that harmony and not a lot even have faith. So, but they're still trying to do it. They got young kids running around the mom. I know in my own case for my mother, my father did not participate in anything. He was struggling in his own health issues and stuff. So my mom's running around as a real estate agent, 24-7, had teenage girls who were not taking care of things.

She'd come home, no food on the table, no house cleaned, and feeling really exasperated. What would you say how to pull things back, you know, for couples? well that's where we have you have to share well and we kind of have departments you know like I'll say to him he'll he'll mention something and I'll look at him and I go it's not my department but you know I get it with kids the thing that I can attest to is that we spend a lot of time making sure that we're mentally healthy because it's a lot of work to be mental healthy. Really is. It is. And you have to be able to identify what voice you are listening to and who it's coming from. And we've just really learned that, again, not to keep pounding our faith,

but to be honest with you, for all of you that are listening, that is the only reason we are together. That is the truth. And I mean, we went through so much stuff in our life that we shouldn't be together. Statistics would show that we would be married to somebody else or single because we went through some crap. And one of the things was not to get into all of it, but like we went through eight years of financial devastation prior to getting into real estate. And we just saw how God provided. And we grew up. I feel like we grew up spiritually during that time. But it's because we leaned in and we didn't fight it. We leaned into it and we said, instead of why is this happening to us, we said, what

we supposed to be learning through this? Because our pastor always says in life, you're either going into a problem, you're in the middle of a problem, or you're coming out of it. Yeah. And that's just life. That's life. And so whether you're in real estate or you're in nursing, whatever you're in, that is just a reality of life.

And so we really honed in our skills. because during those eight years of financial, where are we going to get the money for a gallon of milk? Or are we going to lose the farm? Yeah. We saw miracles. And we saw... True miracles.

True miracles. Yeah. We really did. We had a tornado come through. And we needed a new roof. And we walked around the house. In the spring, walked around the house. We knew it needed to be.

be done, but we walk around our house, we pray around it. I wrote, Todd, I had my little sheet, and I'm writing down everything that needs to be done. We need a new roof. No, I know. I said, where are we going to get the money for that? And Todd said, Johnny, just write it down. God's going to provide. That was Tuesday.

On Saturday, we had some friends come over that were very good friends at that time. Still are. Yeah, still are. and we get together once a month and do dinners, and they knew what we were going through. So everybody brought a dish to pass, and what they wanted to drink, it was a Saturday. We had my niece here picking up her dog, and we live up on a hill, and we have a beautiful farm field across from us. And when it storms, you can literally see that storm marching across from that field. and I said Todd looked out the window as he was in the kitchen cooking and I was finishing setting up the table and talking to our niece and he goes, do we have a storm coming?

He goes, wow, look at that, look at that storm coming across the field. And I go, they didn't have any watches or any warnings. It was a beautiful sunny day. About this time of year in April. Yeah, it was. And he started to see rotation in leaves. Well, it was hailing. And it was up against the south side of our house.

Then it was on the west side. And then it was pounding our north side of the house. And we watched it. It had to have been a 150-year-old blue spruce pine tree blow down, hit both of our cars. We were on our way to the basement at that time. And there was a little twin-tailed tornado that passed right over our house. So we get out of the, I mean, it's over in an instant.

And we get out of our basement and we walk outside and just golf-sized hail is all over our yard. And so was the roof. Not kidding. So it was the roof. So that was an answer to prayer in five days. And we got a new roof. We got new siding. We had really ugly old steel siding.

And that was like not even on the list to change. We got new siding because it had all kinds of dents in it. We got a new front porch and we got four new shutters and we paid zero. We didn't even pay 10 cents. Wow. Wow. I love that story. I mean, we've got so many of them that happened during that time.

that just really confirmed that, yeah, this really stinks what we're going through, but he's providing. He is providing. So it really strengthened our faith. Yeah. And I think, I think that's really it. What you're building your life on, what's your foundation? For me, my foundation is my faith, my Jesus, you know, so it is my foundation of which everything happens. Yes, there's sucker punches in life. Everybody gets them. But it's up to us, like you said, which voice are you listening to? Exactly. Are you being directed by a dark path or a light path? And that's really kind of how to think about it. Exactly. You know, real estate or whatever profession you're in, if you're married, you know that it's work. It's work. And one thing that Todd and I learned through

some other storms in our life is that we took the word divorce out of our vocabulary. Yeah, we did. And it wasn't a matter of if we were going to work it out. It was a matter of how we were going to work it out. And, you know, there's so many times. I mean, you get two different people that are living together and have different ideas and are raised differently. And you can get in some pretty nasty arguments.

We are so off that it is crazy. Terrible. It is, we are complete and total opposite. We are. But we love each other so much. This is great. That's great. Well, I think that's really the foundation for a lot of people that are going through those tough times.

You just got to sit down and you've got to be willing to listen. Yeah. Yeah. And with a mindset of, like you said, there is no topic of divorce. It's what's the solution. How do we figure this out? We are very different. Do we go to counseling?

Do we do whatever we need to do to make it work? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We've gone through our several counselors. Oh, yes. Very much. We're not afraid to ask for help, that's for sure. Yeah, and I think that's important.

You know, everybody can't do life alone. I agree. It's a tougher road. Yeah, exactly. The tougher road. Any other tips you got to want to share? Got to want to. I don't know.

Think about that. I will, too. Um Well I always have to do As a man Your wife always appreciates a date night Just spontaneously

And even after 44 years After all these years We still want to be pursued Yes You do and I appreciate that But we have a We started a new app

It's a calendar that our son turned us on to. So now we share everything. She's at. She knows where I'm at, which is really cool, because I know that I can, like, poop, I'll throw a date night in there. Here's where we're going.

She'll block it out so she doesn't do real estate. Yeah, yeah. That's great. I love that idea. Yeah. You got to take time for each other. And, you know, when you're working together all the time, you have to have those downtimes of when you are not working.

You know, when you're a couple, not a working couple. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can just be Todd and Joni and not Johnny real estate, Todd, transaction coordinator, cook, laundry, all that stuff. Jack of all trades. Yeah.

For sure. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Jack of all trades. Well, this has been great, guys. I really know that this is. going to benefit. Lots of couples are going to say, you know, I haven't worked on that. We need to work on that. You know, we got to fix this because they don't want to, especially if you got kids,

you want to fix it, you know? And it's easy to let things just slide and go in a bad direction. That's the easy, hard path, if that makes it. And, you know, in all transparency, you know, like we were married young. We got married. I was 20. He was 21. We were high school sweethearts. We were. We loved each other way back down even. Yeah, we did. It's amazing. But the struggles that we have gone through financially, finances are the number one reason why couples get divorced. And we were married seven years. had two kids. We had bought our first house and had lived there for like five years. And Todd went down a different path that was different from a family path. And it was really,

really hard. It was dark, deep and dark. Yes. I won't get in too much of that. But anyway, that's where God brought me. We've all been there. God brought me to my knees. through that situation. And that's where I actually found him. So it was my life and our life a few years after that has never been the same sense. Yeah. Never.

Well, and we were actually separated for two years and got back together within two weeks. See, that's real right there. And that's what, because you're in the beginning, it just sounded like you're this perfect couple. No, you've had your struggles. And I'm not talking just financial struggles. you had relationship struggles, but you, you know, even though you were separated, you work to come back.

And, you know, even when we have our own mistakes in our path of our walk, you know, the fact that God was there, you were probably praying for him to have an awakening and having God surround him. Yeah. I wanted to be doing back then, to be honest, just so mad at him for what he was doing. And yet You go through it You're young

We were in our 20s You know You used to have to think about that We got married at 20 I was 20 So when this started happening I was only 27 I mean

We were young Young Well think about we're babies Your babies then In reality Your baby's on life Shoot And we had babies

Yeah Yeah We had You fought for your family That's what you did? You fought for your family. We did. We did.

And, you know, real estate-wise, we were married in 81, and we bought our first house in 84, sold that, and rented for a bit while we were getting back on our feet from our separation. And we bought some apartments. We bought five houses and 10 units. And part of our demise were the apartments. Really? Yeah. We live in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. And we had a, you probably heard of Gibson's.

It's like an appliance. Frigdare. Yeah. It's had several things. Local company, there was over 5,000 people employed to that. company. Yeah, they were our way or another employer. We had just bought them a year before

and they announced their closing shop and moving out. And things were okay then, but it just progressively got worse and worse and worse. And that's when all of the lenders were doing 100% financing, no money down. I couldn't find a renter.

Yeah, it was bad. And the renters I lost were terrible renters. They're buying houses. It's like, are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, there was, unfortunately, a lot of repair that needed to be done that wasn't disclosed when we purchased them. And we had a saying back then of there's a hole in the bucket, dear Lila, dear Lila, there's a hole in the bucket, dear Lila, a hole. Those apartments were draining us.

Oh, they were draining us. And that was part of our financial. issue and then he had a company that he ended up having to shut down because of the road. He had it for 18 years. 08.09 took the toll. It really did. Yes. There's nobody doing anything, even hardly fixing their cars at that time. But nobody had any money.

Money was tight, tight, tight, yeah. I know. Yeah. Well, this has been great, guys. I think there's a lot of life lessons here. Yeah, for sure. I think so. Yeah, absolutely.

We got caught in a perfect storm back then, but, you know, it was really good. It was almost like God drew us out into the desert to be able to find ourselves. Yeah. I love that. It was kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah, because you can see it all over your faces. You're a happy little couple.

Thank you. That's great. Most of the time, yeah. Both of the time. I'm sure there's still bumps. But if you've gone through that, you can live. work anything out. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks so much, guys, for being on here today. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thank you for asking us.

So if you guys like this, man, stay tuned for more, but weren't they wonderful? I just love the lessons that we learned here. And I hope that if God's not in your life, we're praying for you because it's changed my life and I know it's changed their lives and he can change yours too. So stay tuned. Subscribe below. We get a lot. more coming. Thank you. So thanks for joining me on this episode of real estate riches. Wasn't that great? I'm sure you've got a nugget or two. I know I did. So if you liked it, please subscribe below, share it with everybody, make some comments. We really find that invaluable. And if you're thinking that you would love to talk about this a little bit more, let's schedule a business

strategy call. I'll have the link below. Let's see if we can't mastermind together and see if we can't empower each other. That would be great. So until next time, signing off hope to see you on the next one