My journey into real estate began when, at an early age, after my dad had died, I witnessed an agent selling off my parents’ custom-built home for what seemed like a very low price. The next year, he sold it for several times the original selling price. Even as a teenager, I knew something was wrong with that. It took several decades, a career change, and a lot of hard work to get here, and I’m proud to say that I’ve been a real estate agent for over 25 years now, serving people honestly and being the agent that I wish my mom had back in the day.
Wende is passionate about helping people. Beyond real estate, she also invests a lot of her time as president of the Nancy Painter Foundation, a local non-profit organization that helps single mothers in need.
To learn more about Wende’s journey, watch the video or keep reading below.
I’ve been in the real estate business for 25 years now, and I thought I’d like to share with you how it all started. It’s really hard to put my finger on when I first decided that real estate was going to be my profession. I think part of it came when I was a pretty young child and my mom ended up selling our family home that she and my dad had built in the late sixties. She ended up selling it in the early 70s. And this was a custom-built home at Lake Tahoe with views. She sold it with the help of a guy who was the local realtor, who was supposedly a friend of my dad’s and promised to take good care of my mom. And he sold it for $40,000 and turned around the next year and sold it for $250,000 without making any additions or improvements. And even though I was a child, that didn’t sit well with me. I knew that that wasn’t right.
Fast-forward several decades and a decade of helping kids and being a teacher and really following that wanting to help people for my profession, to 1996, when my husband came to me and said, I know that you really want to go into the career of real estate. Here’s a pile of cash. And he literally had a bunch of money. I can still remember, I was sitting there nursing our youngest child, and he dropped this pile of cash in my lap, and he said: “You know, I have been saving this money to buy you the diamond tennis bracelet that you wanted but instead, I want you to take this money and start your real estate career. Do what you need to do in order to do that.” And so, I did. That year, I continued to teach full-time, also, raised three kids and go to real estate school at night. And by July of that year, I had earned my real estate license and started my career in real estate.
For me, what that meant, was being able to help people the way that I knew they should be helped. And for me, the most important thing about being a realtor is to help my clients achieve their goals, to help them reach the success that they want to reach through buying and selling real estate. And by the way, I did finally get the tennis bracelet. That’s my story. I have to say, real estate has been the most wonderful or one of the most wonderful decisions I’ve ever made in my entire life.