Molly Whalen

I attribute my success to my mother. I lived with a woman who was my mom who didn't live a perfect life, and I know she wanted more. It was really challenging for her to achieve it. She divorced my dad - she was a Catholic woman, and that had to be really hard. She got together with her high school sweetheart and they got married, but they were only married for 3 years when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was back in the early 70s when breast cancer was still a very new thing, and they didn't have all the treatments that they have today. She passed less than 3 years later. When she was put into a care facility and I called the church to prepare for her funeral, they told me it would cost $25,000 because she had remarried, which kind of put the Catholic Church out of my mind. My motivation has been that she was a great woman, but I don't think she was someone who got what she wanted, that lived to her potential. I try and help people achieve that. I don't really tell people that often, but that's really what's in my heart. I try and help law enforcement, I try and help single moms, I try and help the people who are often just below a line on our chart that nobody goes to. I want them to feel like they're important.

The best advice I received came from my husband, who was a police officer for 32 years. I grew up with an abusive father, and in that environment, you feel like you have to raise your voice to get attention. But my husband taught me that you don't raise your voice to someone who's yelling, because they're in their own world - they're not hearing you. It's not your time to communicate, so be you. He never raised his voice on the job, and that's how we communicate. That took my volume of communication down. We've had more than 30 years together with maybe 4 times yelling at each other, and over nothing. When we look back at it, we're like, what the heck did we do? Dealing with people is critical in my life. I love to help people, and I do so in a way where I engage them, I respect them. I always tell them how important they are in my life and how important I hope I can be in theirs. It's a different way to ask for a friend, and you see their head kinda shift and think about it. After 2 or 3 visits, we're friends.

If a woman is interested in getting involved in real estate, first, I suggest that they identify where they want to become involved - the town, city, location, state and location. Then I would suggest they interview some brokerages they think they might like to work with. Talk to them, see what kind of work they're doing, what are they focusing upon, who are the people in that office, and see how the reaction is from a person who is seeking a future career opportunity. You don't want to be a part of a dead community - you want to be a part of a live community. Check out some of those live communities and ask if there's a person in there that would let you be a ride-along for a day, sit in the office, so that you can see what success is made of. Then ask for guidance as to how they've gotten there. Right now, you need to be market aware, you need to be able to communicate with people. Do a Google search - where is the greatest number of people buying and selling real estate? See if that's a community you want to explore and move to for 6 months, learn their lessons, and get licensed in that area. More than the license, you really need to learn the how from individuals. See what's working within them. The license will come after that. Be an assistant, be a person who does running for them, because that's the important stuff - that's where you really learn and see if you like it. In your first 5 years of your career, you're gonna do a lot of work because there's a lot of learning. You gotta think about AI - it can win you, or it can burn you. You need someone who can teach you the win, not the burn, because lots of people I know have been burned terribly by AI. Seek out other real estate professionals and ask them, what makes you the choice of people in this community? How long did it take to achieve that? Could I maybe work with you for a day or a week to understand this business, to see if it's a business of my choice?

The biggest challenge right now is that the National Association of Realtors was sued, and in November of 2025, our business was 100% changed. People are still very uninformed about these changes. We, as real estate professionals, felt that we were always paid in commissions, and we rarely weren't. Real estate has become completely transparent now. My goal with the program I'm about to launch is to help people lift the cover off of the costs and understand what they are, where to look to find the costs, and how to learn to negotiate with the professionals. People need to understand that they have control over compensating the professionals they're about to work with. Another major challenge is affordability - I have 37 people on a client list right now that I won't let them buy until the mortgage goes down. Six and a half to 5% for the prices we have in Southwest Florida is not affordable. I don't understand how the cost of building a home has reached what it is, but I'm pretty confident that once the federal administrative person is replaced in May, our prices will make a significant change. Hopefully we'll get to a 3-4% rate. We have people committed to making changes in their prices. Pre-owned homes will then become affordable, because you cannot sell a pre-owned home for a million dollars. Hopefully rent will come down - we have people walking out on rents, because in Naples, Florida, a two-bedroom rental property is $1,900 to $2,300. The opportunity is in education - helping people become informed and confident so they know how to buy a home and have control over the process.

The most important values to me are helping people and making sure they feel important. I love to help people, and I do so in a way where I engage them, I respect them. I always tell them how important they are in my life and how important I hope I can be in theirs. It's a different way to ask for a friend. Before anyone makes a decision about real estate, I want them to know they can call me, email me, text me. If there's a question, I'll answer it. If there's a problem, I'll rectify it. This is not something you can do on your own the first time, and I'm happy to help. I am not a salesperson - I am a help-you-become-confident person. I want people to become informed and confident, to know that they have control. I don't want them to end up broke. I want to help them lift the cover off of the costs and understand what they are. I've been to closings where I walked away with a dollar, but I got that person in - a veteran infected by Agent Orange. When we got to the home and he stood up and lifted his wife up and my husband opened the door and he carried her in the house, that was worth a million dollars. I want people to feel like they're important, and I want them to achieve what they want. I try and help law enforcement, I try and help single moms, I try and help the people who are often just below a line on our chart that nobody goes to. To see them respond to brick and mortar is amazing.