03/15/2025
Friends,
It is time for me to say good-bye to Real Estate.
Three years ago, a loved one sat on my couch and told me they wanted to end their own life. Drug addiction had ruined them and they had nowhere to go and no hope for the future. I am proud and overjoyed to say that this valuable human is still with us and thriving today. But those early weeks and months were overwhelmingly difficult. I struggled to help this person find simple resources like a place to live, food to eat, a job to support them or medical care moving forward. By the grace of God, my loved one received all of these things and more.
I walked away from that season shaken by the helplessness I felt to find a solution– specifically for housing. I help people get into houses everyday. Home ownership is a joy and a privilege to share with my clients. But the people I help are people who have already figured out how to get from point A (no hope or future) to point B (owning a home). I enter at the tail end of that process and get to see its fulfillment.
This was just a thought in my head three years ago. Actually, it is still just a thought now. But I will get to its relevancy by the end of this letter.
Around that same time, I disbanded my team, let go of my office space on Main Street in Blue Springs, and started scaling back my business in preparation for my third child. I kind of abandoned my social media presence (which was pretty much the only marketing I did) in order to focus more on the things that mattered to me. Again, by God’s grace, my business has still continued to flourish these last 3 years.
I started considering a change in 2023, but sensed it was not the right time to step away from what I had been building since 2015. Chosen Homes is not just a paycheck. It is hard-fought expertise, reputation and skill. It is long-standing clients who trust me to represent them. It is ten years of mentorship, sacrifice and diligent work. A whole decade of serving others with authenticity and professionalism. Ten years of dropping what I am doing to go show a house. Ten years of writing contracts in bed at the end of the day. Ten years of spending my weekends at open houses instead of with my family. Ten years of feeling like I need to check my email or respond to a text or take a call no matter what time it is. And I was doing it all mostly by myself. Selling real estate has always been as equally rewarding as it has been lonely.
It is both wild and wonderful to be of a certain age from which I can look back on my life with a decade or more of perspective. I learned certain lessons in my early 20s that are now coming back around in my mid 30s. Like a perennial plant that only gets stronger and bears more fruit with age. I can only imagine how full the harvest of wisdom will be in later years of my life! I am well aware that I am still young and probably still a little dumb sometimes.
Today, though, in Spring of 2025, I stand confidently knowing that now is the time for uprooting, restoration and waiting to be replanted. A couple of the books I read in 2024 have slowly prepared me for this decision. They were Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud and To the Tenth Generation by Ray and Jani Ortlund. I also attended an impactful one-day seminar by Josh Tolley called “The Business of Life.” These three influences caused me to think much bigger about my career, my family and the trajectory of my life.
Coming into this year, I thought I would be stepping away from Real Estate in order to start a new business. As it turns out, God would lead me gently in a different direction: Sabbatical.
I have been married for 8+ years and we have 3 beautiful children. Real Estate is a thread that runs through all of those experiences. I remember what transactions I was working at the time I got engaged. I remember telling my clients I was pregnant with Elias before anyone else knew. I remember the closing I missed the morning that Judah was born and taking her on showings when she was just 2 weeks old. I have celebrated with clients through victory and I have mourned with clients who have experienced loss. The thread that connects all of these things is beautiful and strong, but it is also heavy. I have never carried one thing without the other, and I am tired. Tired of holding all the things in the air and not letting any of them fall. Tired of being pulled in 2 (or 3 or 6 or 8!) different directions all at once. With age comes wisdom, but also exhaustion.
Real Estate has been good to me. But my family is better. Starting a business or a non profit could bring lots of good as well, but my family will not always need me how they do right now. It has become abundantly clear to me that the right next step is to simply rest. To take a sabbatical from working outside of the home, and simply be a mom without being a Realtor. Be a wife without taking a call on a date night. Be at home without being connected to my phone. It is time for me to take a step back and allow time for my real estate career to dis-entagle from the other areas of my life, so that they can each stand and breathe and grow on their own.
Two things I have learned in the last decade of my career are these:
1- home ownership is a key to opportunity, and
2- God cares about where you live.
I have seen the first principle play out in my life and in the lives of my clients time and again. Home ownership creates wealth. Not just monetary value, but wealth of stability. Wealth of community. Wealth of hospitality. The sooner you start building wealth, the more it grows. Time is a necessary element for opportunity.
I have also seen the second principle in starkly specific ways: (go with me to Sunday school for a moment, if you will…) God not only has a purpose for you, He has a place for you, too. In the Bible, God does not just choose Israel to be his people. He also chooses for them a place on this earth that is inextricable from not just who they are, but also why they are. We, too, are people put on this earth for a purpose, and that purpose takes place in real time and space–a literal geographic location. And that location is intended for our good and God’s glory. What I am saying is: where we live matters.
Our homes are wells to draw from for all that life demands. No home means no well. No well means no water. And no water means no life.
Which brings me back to my loved one, sitting on my couch, feeling like there was no life left to live. And the question that has been banging around in my head since even before that incident: “How might God want to use me to connect people to their place and purpose?” How might it be possible for me to help people at point A (hopeless) get to point B (purposefully living life)? How do I help someone access the life-impacting opportunity and soul-level nourishment of owning a home and living abundantly?
I do not have the answers to these questions just yet. But they are there. And I have a feeling that eventually, I will come back to them in whatever way working outside of the home might look like for me in the future. Whether that be in a new business venture, a non-profit, a ministry, or even back in real estate, as boots on the ground making it happen. Today, though, I am headed home to my husband, my babies and the Well of living water that never runs dry. Today, I am simply grateful for the wealth of that opportunity.
Today, maybe you can ask yourself a similar question: Are you living out your purpose in the place that you ought to be? If not, don’t be afraid. It is for your good.
So, farewell for now, my clients. It has been an honor to serve you– to be Chosen by you. To watch each of you move and grow and give and receive. I hope I have done well by you. I will still drop what I am doing to help you if you need me– just not to show a house. 😅
In the meantime, I will be referring business to my friend and colleague Erica Peterson. In sending her an official referral, I will be able to get a little bonus from the transaction– which will go a long way in blessing my family now that I will not be working! So please still reach out if you have any real estate needs or questions so that I can connect you with Erica. She is who I would use if I needed a Realtor.
If you’ve lasted this long, thank you for reading. If you’ve lasted the last ten years with me, I can’t thank you enough for your business and for believing in me. I have had the best 10 years in Real Estate I could have asked for. I am not leaving because it is difficult. I am leaving simply because it is time.
Much love to you all,
KC Realtor Grace
