This episode's guest is Carla Sevilla, Partner, Glenwood Homes & Owner Chanticleer Properties. Following her graduation from Duke University, Carla started in residential real estate in 2001 while serving in the United States Marine Corps. After working with national home builders for several years, she started Glenwood Homes in Raleigh, NC and hasn't looked back. Listen to learn what she's working on now.
Welcome back to the She’s Wild Podcast hosted by Nancy Surak! Today’s guest is Carla Sevilla, Partner, Glenwood Homes & and Owner Chanticleer Properties. Following her graduation from Duke University, Carla started in residential real estate in 2001 while serving in the United States Marine Corps. She assisted her fellow officers in finding their new homes while stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA. Following her service, including a year during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Carla decided to pursue her true passion in real estate full time. She entered the UNC-CH MBA program on a full fellowship and concentrated in real estate development and marketing. During this time she also co-founded Chanticleer Properties with Phil and Margaret Hinesley. Following graduation, she was recruited by a large national homebuilder to run the marketing department in the Washington DC Metro area. After two years she was then promoted to a VP of Sales position in Raleigh and then the state of North Carolina. After having her fourth child she decided to go back to selling directly to the customers and began Glenwood Homes with two partners. Today she serves as the Glenwood Homes Sales Manager bringing national design and sales knowledge to the local level – a win-win for her company and her homeowners.
In this episode Carla shares all the lessons she's learned in her career and tells us what she's working on now.
Memorable Moments:
1:05- I decided to get my license and real estate after having a very bad experience purchasing my first home with a VA loan. And I was like this idiot realtor just made $10,000 on this transaction and did literally nothing. So I decided to get my license.
19:48- It was scary. I'll be honest, like it was really scary making that transition away from a salary and bonus opportunity with the national builder to being commissioned only and you eat what you kill.
20:05- A lesson I learned is that you can make unlimited money, as long as you work hard, and I am a very hard worker. So for me, I was like, I can't fail. This is how I'll feed the kids, we have to pay the mortgage, and just knew that I would have to get whatever I put into it, if that makes sense.
21:59- So a lot of the things, it's just doing it and you're going to learn it because no one can tell you every little iteration of what you're going to encounter in this business. So I just learned by failing or finding out new things on every sale, they're all different.
25:45- So when I started my homebuilding company with my two partners, we all three said the same thing, we are not going to do luxury, we are not going to get into move up, we want to be entry level and entry level only. Because I mean, during the downturn, I saw my friends, a lot of friends lose everything, houses, cars, companies, because they were going to the in the pyramid of the luxury market. That's the first one to crash
28:44- Save that 3% and get your license, because you're going to know the deal better than an agent would I would definitely get that first and foremost.
Connect with Nancy:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/nancysurak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak/
Website: www.nancysurak.com
Connect with Carla"
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-sevilla-a6b9b5/
Website: http://glenwoodhomes.com/
Carla’s Podcast Recommendation:
Bigger Pockets Podcast
https://www.biggerpockets.com/podcasts/real-estate
She's WILD Sound Production by:
Luke Surak, Surak Productions: surakproductions@gmail.com
Nancy Surak 00:00
Hi, welcome to She's Wild the podcast for women in land and development. Today's guest is Carla Sevilla, the owner of Glenwood Homes in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Carla story is really inspiring. And I know that you're going to enjoy listening into our conversation today. Carla, welcome to the show. Carla, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about your background in the development industry and help us get to know you better?
Carla Sevilla 00:32
Sure. My name is Carla Sevilla. I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. And I am a North Carolina native, grew up in Pinehurst and decided to stay in state and go to Duke for undergrad on an ROTC scholarship. So I was in the Marine Corps and was stationed out in Camp Pendleton, California. With my husband, we both met at Duke and he was also a Marine. And that was in the early 2000s. When homebuilding, you are a rock star if you are in homebuilding, and it was just every VIP treatment for the sales agents. And I decided to get my license and real estate after having a very bad experience purchasing my first home with a VA loan. And I was like this idiot realtor just made $10,000 on this transaction and did literally nothing. So I decided to get my license. And on the side during the weekends, I was selling homes to my fellow Marines and quickly became enamored with real estate and most specifically new construction. Even on the weekends, if I wasn't you know, working in the Marine Corps on base, I was visiting model homes, looking at sales processes, watching construction. And I just fell in love and decided that I wanted to make that my career and came back to North Carolina to get an MBA and real estate at the University of North Carolina, Kenan Flagler School of Business. They were one of five programs at the time that had a real estate concentration for their masters of business. And it was also one of the only programs that was near Duke Law School, which is where my husband ended up. And we decided to make North Carolina our home and just met so many great people there. We have a fantastic program and real estate does everything from commercial real estate, to land development and new homes was not a big part of the focus. In fact, my class, graduating in 2006 was one of the first classes that went into new home, I guess like construction like National builders Pulte, Centex, that sort of thing. So I started with them. And I worked in the sales and marketing department there, helping put together systems and processes doing a lot of innovative marketing that, I guess, because I was on the younger side, they hadn't even done an eblast before. So we did just the basic fundamentals back in 2006. And just loved it, they promoted me to run all of North Carolina was in the DC Metro Division at the time, and just continue to learn and decided I really was interested in not just the sales aspect, but land development, and building. And so I tried to, you know, Shadow my other VP counterparts and really learn the business. And Pulte then acquired Centex. And I realized very quickly, that was not a good fit. For me. Pulte was not very entrepreneurial, and Centex at the time, if you found a good piece of land, and you could develop the product to fit on that and they were extreme ly innovative and just trying to make the deal work for that market. So syntex wasn't a at the time was not a, hey, we're just gonna pop the same 30 foot product on these lots across the country with a couple different elevations, you could find a really interesting deal and you know, in town, and make those lots work, and they would develop the product to fit on those lots. So it just became more of hey, you need to stay in a specific box at Pulte. And the innovation and the entrepreneurial mindset that I have just was not a good fit anymore. And so at that time, I decided, Okay, I just had a baby. And I was on baby number three, and wasn't very happy. In fact, I was kind of getting sick going into the office. So I started to look at starting my own company and worked really closely with some previous Centex counterparts that were at Dan Ryan Builders, and just really enjoyed working with them again, that entrepreneurial spirit, getting deals done making things happen. They asked me to come join their team, and I said, look, I love doing this but I want to be with my own company. And so I started consulting for Dan Ryan and they gave me just their dog neighborhoods are like, well, you figure this out. And I became more of an owner mindset with them versus just a salesperson, full visibility into margin analysis, full visibility into what they're purchasing their home, their lots at what other deals they were looking at, they wanted me to kind of run the analysis from them. And then the beginning, Dan Ryan had five closings when I got there. By the time I decided we had to move to Boston, we were up to almost six or 800 closings. So they gave me full run of the sales and marketing and more of a business partnership. And at that point, I realized, wait a second, the builders making all the money here, and then the land developer is not the 2%, you're getting as a sales rep, because I knew all the margins and everything. And I said, I think I really want to get into this and started buying straight lots, and having people feed the build them for me. And just you know, at the time making 20% margin 25% margin. I was like, this is where it's at. And I got the bug very quickly. And it was great flexibility for somebody with children. So at the time, I had three kids, I could take them with me to drive deals. I think Carl, no, we had Carl, my fourth child, he went to his first closing when he was four days old. So the just take them with you you go. And it's just so flexible, and I loved it. So the next deal I did, I think I found you know, it was maybe eight pads, eight padded lots that were in a bank foreclosure situation. And I bought all of those built them. And they all sold and my husband's an attorney. So he was very like, I don't know, this seems a little risky. I'm like, trust me, I know what I'm doing at this point. But it took him a long time to get on board. I'll be honest, it was he is very risk adverse. I'm the eternal optimist. I'm always like, oh, yeah, it'll sell no problem. I know the market is gonna work out. He's like, Well, what if interest rates go up? Or what if this than the other. So he's a very good balance to me to kind of understand what I'm getting into versus me, I'm like, I'll sell it, we'll make money. We're good. That's how I look at things. So that was my first bigger deal was those eight lots. And then I found another piece that was 20 home sites. And that was kind of the next, again, hire my own sales agent at this point. And it went really well. And they all closed, made great margins on those. And then of course, that's when I just kind of went wide open and started doing land development. I was like, Okay, let's try to further integrate this and look for some actual raw pieces of dirt and develop the lats myself. And that was goodness, I think that was about five or six years ago, maybe. So I'm pretty new into that still. But I've been I've been doing this since doing real estate since 2000. But actual land development probably five or six years ago.
Nancy Surak 08:12
Well, let me just say, okay, there's a lot there. And I'm like, super excited to talk to you because I love. I really love the story of I was in a company and I had the opportunity to see the margins. And I sort of woke up and said, everybody else is making all this money. I can do that. I like I want to jump through my computer like ugh, you jump up and down, because that's what happened to me and brokerage, right. Like I was doing business development for other companies. And it was a great job. But I was like, I think I can make more money over there. Yeah, you know, so I went over there. And I've been over here for, you know, almost 20 years, which is great. But I love to talk to women like you who have figured out how to do your own thing and grow a company. But there's a lot that I wanted to unpack. So we're gonna take a little bit of a step back. Really, really curious. So you served in the Marine Corps. I want to first of all, thank you for your service to our country. Oh, yeah. That's really special. I live in a military oriented town down here in Tampa. We have MacDill Air Force Base. So we love our military here in this region. So thank you for that. I also want to just say like, you went to college on an ROTC scholarship. How did you originally get involved in ROTC? Was that in high school?
Carla Sevilla 09:33
No. I, so I'm one of four girls and my sisters both went to school, great private schools. And my parents by the time they got to me, they're like you, we're not paying for you to go to school unless it's in state. And I really had my heart set on going to Duke at the time and I'm like, Well, I've got to figure out a way to pay for this. And my mom just I always loved me You're on the water and ships in the Navy. I don't know why. But she's like, let's go look at the Naval Academy. And I loved the Naval Academy actually had an appointment to the Naval Academy. But they let you spend two weeks up there. And I quickly realized, oh my gosh, the only major thing that we do are engineering and linguistics. Those are like the two things you're allowed to come out of there with a degree and, and I'm like, I don't want to be an engineer. So then my mom's like, Well, why don't you look at ROTC? And she plopped me down in front of her recruiters. And they said, Well, based on your LSAT score and your grades, you can have a scholarship on the spot, and we'll pay for everything. So my mom was like, done, sign her up. We're not writing this check. So that's kind of how it happened. It was honestly just like, I wasn't, my parents weren't gonna pay for me to go to school. And that's how my husband ended up in ROTC. His parents were getting a divorce while he was at Duke. And he came down the hallway in said, Hey, tell me about this ROTC program. So I have no military family, except for you know, a great grandpa, our grandfather that was in World War Two, like everybody's, but I just always felt the call to serve our country. And once I started exploring, the Naval Academy just kind of diverted it to ROTC. And I will say it was the best experience I ever had. I'm not, I'm not a military person, you can probably tell by what I'm wearing. I'm kind of a girly girl now. But I just really always felt the need to serve our country. And I didn't want to take on all these student loans. So that's how it happened. And even though I served in Iraq for over a year, and I was in a war zone, I would highly recommend it to anybody. Just it was an incredible leadership opportunity.
Nancy Surak 11:45
It's a really wonderful story. And that's why I wanted you to tell it, I never was in ROTC. But in college, I was in an auxilary club for the ROTC students, and it was called Angel Flight.
Carla Sevilla 11:58
Oh wow
Nancy Surak 11:59
The ROTC students who were focused with the Air Force, this was at LSU, Louisiana State University. And I think I did that for about 18 months, like we supported that we were like their cheerleaders, basically. But we did all the volunteer work with them. And we were an auxillary club. And I met some really, really wonderful people, just really, just really wonderful individuals, men and women at the college level that went on to do really remarkable things in their military career. So so I'm really glad that you shared that story. Okay, so I also wanted to go back to talked about working for syntax. And I'm just curious, so I'm gonna throw it out there. Did you ever know, Willy Nunn down here in the Tampa Bay region? Had you ever met him?
Carla Sevilla 12:45
I haven't. No, I didn't know him.
Nancy Surak 12:48
After this, I'm going to have to make an introduction with you and Willy. Willy's a great guy, he used to run syntax down here in this region around the same time you are with Centex in the Carolinas. So that's why I was like, Oh, it was the same timeframe. Because yeah, I left, I think in 2008, to start his own homebuilding company, and wow, here and he's done very, very well, they, you know, similar story, you know, he kind of started off with you know, we're talking about buying your lots, your, like eight lots in the, in the, from the bank, I remember those deals, I was the broker on those deals back in like 2010 and 11. But have a great story. I was in a neighborhood in the south side of Tampa one day, and as a land broker, I'm sure this happens to your a blonde woman as well, you have to be really careful when you go on a piece of land. You know, I mean, generally anybody does, but you don't know who you might or what you might encounter. So I'm always like, kind of like got my antennas up for like anybody jumping out or coming up to me that I don't want to have an interaction with. And I was in this busted neighborhood where there's, you know, some homes built a lot of lots on the ground, some homes partially built that have been completely ransacked, and this was probably
Carla Sevilla 14:04
Oh, goodness
Nancy Surak 14:05
2010 While I see this beat up truck, or van coming down the street, right, and I'm taking pictures with my bank client, and I can see this van really slowly coming up. And I'm thinking, Oh, God, you know, who's in this van? What are they gonna say to me? Do I need to run? You know, and I hear my name. And I'm like, what is going on? Who is this in this van? So I turned and it was Willy, and he was looking for lots. That's how he started too so great story, I'll make sure I introduce you guys because you've a very similar experience. Okay. So getting back to you. So you went to school at Duke for undergrad then you went to UNC you now live in Chapel Hill. Is the primary radius of your business around the Raleigh Durham area or do you go further out from that?
Carla Sevilla 14:57
We do go further out. So we We started in the Raleigh market, my Glenwood Homes office is actually in Raleigh. But we did expand. We have communities at the coast now. And then we also go all the way to Greensboro. So I've looked at expanding into the Charlotte area, but the margins just when you're we only have a finite amount of capital, you want to make it work for you. The margins in Charlotte just are not there. And I think every national and every builder is trying to be in the Charlotte market. So we're just sticking with what we know. And where the margins are strongest, because again, we are not a national builder. And we're not a public company. So we don't really have unlimited capital, we have to be very strategic about where we're investing in land deals.
Nancy Surak 15:40
Right. So So you guys actually do your own land development now. Do you? Currently. Okay. What is like, Tell me about a project that you you're building out on right now or that you recently finished? So fun fact about me. I used to live in Raleigh. Before I lived in Florida, I my husband and I lived on the north west side of town when 540 was going in. So we went to Florida in 2001. So I just missed you, we would be like great friends. Another fun fact, because you probably saw me light up when you said Graham is I actually know where that is. It's actually been to Graham more than once. And I'm sure you know this if you don't you need to know this. They have the best haunted house I have ever visited in my life in Graham North Carolina. Did you know that?
Carla Sevilla 15:51
So, yeah, okay. We've got two that are getting ready to get recorded Plats. One is a deal that I found in Graham, North Carolina, which is a bedroom community to it's right next to Burlington, which is actually the fastest growing MSA in the state. So Graham is right next to Burlington and people live in Graham to get to UNC and Duke. It's about a 25 minute drive. So very affordable small town feel. And we bought, you know, just a smaller tract of land a few acres. And we are finishing the proof roll now and it's going to be about 35 townhomes. Now that we are the market center, there are no townhome products in Grand except for one deal that was again, bank owned that I found I think it was 16 lots in Graham, that it folded because again, there's very few townhomes and grant. So we set the pricing and they flew off the shelves. So I said okay, this works. We market tested it on with some very cheap lots. Let's go and buy some more land here. I did not know that. Okay, that's valuable, I have four boys.
Nancy Surak 17:50
Yes, listen, so it's in Graham. It's off the main thoroughfare like I don't even know what the highways called. But I all I know is that if you go deep enough in Graham at night, you feel like you're in a horror show because there are no like street lights in certain areas. Right. But it's called the Hollywood Horror Show. And it's in Grand North Carolina. And just little fun fact, the guys who started a two brothers who did special effects makeup, they grew up in Graham, they go back every year, this time of the year like September and October, they get all these like home, their hometown friends to volunteer and it is a phenomenal haunted house. So if your boys like that,
Carla Sevilla 18:28
wow
Nancy Surak 18:29
I would highly recommend you take them go check it out. It's a lot of fun.
Carla Sevilla 18:32
Okay, that is a good tip. I'm excited.
Nancy Surak 18:36
If you didn't know you were gonna get on this podcast that I was going to tell you about a haunted house. Did you know Okay, so. So you. You know, I appreciate you know, I know, I've taken you out to like a whole tangent, but that's sometimes happens. Right? Okay, so back to your career. When you decided to jump, right? And you said, I'm gonna go do this consulting thing, and it was successful. Then you decided I'm gonna really go off on my own. What was the biggest lesson that you could share with the people here listening to us today? What was the biggest lesson you learned through that whole timeline and process?
Carla Sevilla 19:16
I would say for me, I mean, I did it when I knew I couldn't. I couldn't. I didn't have a choice of failing. So I literally had a newborn and walked away from making the highest bonus you could make at Pulte. Okay, we had a new mortgage on the house had a newborn, two other kids at the time. And the market was I had just come out of the dip and I'm like, okay, I think that this bottomed out, and the worst is behind us. And it was I mean, it was scary. I'll be honest, like it was really scary making that transition away from a salary and bonus opportunity with the national builder to being commissioned only and you eat what you kill. I, I will just say, what I love about the businesses, a lesson I learned is that you can make unlimited, you know, unlimited money, as long as you work hard, and I am a very hard worker. So for me, I was like, I can't fail this is I have to feed the kids, we have to pay the mortgage, and just knew that I would have to get whatever I put into it, if that makes sense.
Nancy Surak 20:24
Yeah, no, absolutely. So you said, you know, I gotta bet on myself. Right? That's the lesson. Taking a bet on myself. I'm gonna gamble. I'm gonna make it happen. Awesome. So I love to ask questions. Sometimes I can be a little bit of a surprise. Okay, this is always a fun one. Because people come up with some really great answers. What is the strangest thing you've ever encountered? In a deal?
Carla Sevilla 20:50
Oh, goodness. Well, that little townhome piece in Graham. We, we found a boat, just a random boat on the land. It's like, where did you come from? We are under the you know, hundreds of miles inland from the coast. But just a random boat was just sitting in the middle of the dirt that we bought.
Nancy Surak 21:13
Yeah, that's, that's always fun. I during the COVID shutdown, I had a piece of property was it now was on a river. So it made sense. But I had a boat, just like abandoned. And yeah, there are certain things you have to do. I don't know about North Carolina law. But in Florida, there's certain things you have to do in order to get a boat that's been abandoned on your property like taking care of. So it's, you know, I hate when I find dumpings on property because it's expensive for whoever the buyer or the owner is because they have to take the steps to dispose of it. And you know, it's not inexpensive to get rid of that stuff. You know, when it doesn't belong?
Carla Sevilla 21:48
No and and then the other crazy thing is just on my second deal, I had never heard of a burrow pit before. And then I expensive lesson if you're now what those are. So a lot of the things, it's just doing it and you're going to learn it because no one can tell you every little iteration of what you're going to encounter in this business. So I just learned by failing or finding out new things on every sale, they're all different.
Nancy Surak 22:13
So which brings me to you know, we're in a really interesting time. And I'm sure I think North Carolina is holding on. Okay, Florida is doing pretty well. But we're seeing a pretty good adjustment right now in your business in the home building or in lot development. How are you guys doing? Are you what's happening in your market up in your area? And what's happening with prices and the impact of these increase in interest rates?
Carla Sevilla 22:40
Yeah, it's, it's, it's been very quick. Again, I was in this business during that massive downturn where everyone was like walking to a funeral basically. And that was a much slower downturn compared to what we're dealing with now how quickly it transitioned, I'd say, in a matter of 90 days, the market just completely stopped. We are normalizing. So listings that we have with our home building company would have sold in a day. The second we hit it on the market with multiple offers large deposits, and now we're negotiating, we're doing some incentives, we're doing broker bonuses, things are taking 15 to 20 days to sell now versus a day, the day you put it in MLS. So it is coming back to more of a normalization, we haven't had a huge price decline, which has been good, because of the under supply here and the triangle. But we are seeing people taking offers, which we weren't doing that before. So I feel like we're going to be pretty well insulated, because of all the demand for in the triangle for all the big tech companies that have announced their moves. So those moves haven't even happened yet. And we're still in less than a, you know, two weeks supply of homes here in the triangle market. So I still feel like the markets a little bit tight. And they're not going to go back to the days of you know, 90 days on market, maybe we're going to hit 30, maybe 45. But as long as the sellers pricing their home appropriately. I think we're gonna weather it pretty well, because we, again, I was with polti when the major downturn happened, we were the most profitable division in the company during that time, because we never had that huge run up and we still haven't had a massive run up. I mean, prices have gone up but we're still relatively affordable. You can buy a beautiful single family home for under $400,000 here so you can't do that in California and DC. People are still moving here.
Nancy Surak 24:40
Can't do that down here in Florida anymore either in the Tampa Bay region. Our statistics just came out my data just came out. For the new home market. We track that as a company our company is now nationwide I just happen to be in the type of market. But we happen to track that because we sell tracts of land to builders and develop All right. So we need to know like what's happening on on the new home side? The average new home is over $500,000 in my region, currently, for the second quarter, which is like unbelievable, average, that's the average.
Carla Sevilla 25:14
That's the average. Yeah.
Nancy Surak 25:15
And because we used to live in North Carolina, we we've always said, If we ever moved anywhere other than Florida, it would be back to the Raleigh Durham area because we loved it there. It was beautiful community. Yeah, it's crazy to see that they haven't seen the incline in valuation in their residential market that we've seen down here in Florida. So I think you, you really did have to discover this, right?
Carla Sevilla 25:42
I hope so. And I feel very comfortable. So when I started my homebuilding company with my two partners, we all three said the same thing, we are not going to do luxury, we are not going to get into move up, we want to be entry level and entry level only. Because I mean, during the downturn, I saw my friends, a lot of friends lose everything, houses, cars, companies, because they were going to the in the pyramid of the luxury market. That's the first one to crash, the luxury this, you know, I guess you call it vacation home market, those are the first ones to stop. So we are entry level, everyone needs shelter. And then when you get into it, you can say let's do the rent versus buy analysis and help those buyers understand how they're going to be saving money. And that's how I survived the last downturn with Centex and Pulte. Because we were really good about making that value proposition to potential buyers. And we were able to turn a profit during those years and be the most profitable division in nationally in those two companies. So I kind of learned a lot of hard lessons during those times and I guess transferred it over to our new company with Glenwood Homes.
Nancy Surak 26:54
Well, even if I'm wrong, right in Raleigh, Durham doesn't skip over whatever this correction is that we're seeing predominantly play out. In on the west side of the United States, you still have another exit opportunity, which is the build for rent space, if you really want to do that. That wasn't there last time? Right? The build for rent all came after 2008.
Carla Sevilla 27:22
So what's awesome is I have a property management company, and I'm happy to manage it for them.
Nancy Surak 27:27
Which, you know, I mean, we're, I'm seeing that then the nationals.
Carla Sevilla 27:30
We have that option here.
Nancy Surak 27:32
Yeah, I'm seeing the Nationals dip their toe into that, because they've figured out well, that's a new, it's a new profit line for them. It's a new way for them to underwrite. If something doesn't go, well, they'll build it, and they'll rent it. And if it's in a decent location, like yourself, if it's 20 minutes outside of where jobs and the economic center is it, it's gonna fill, I mean, people they need, especially if it's relatively affordable, or even close, you're gonna be fine. Awesome. So okay, so let's, we're gonna wrap up because I want to be respectful of your time, I always ask three questions at the end of every podcast. The first one is if a young woman were to reach out to you and say, Carla, I listened to your podcast, I'm super interested, what? what's some advice you might be able to give me about? You know, jumping off on my own and doing my own thing? Or getting into the development arena? What would you tell her?
Carla Sevilla 28:28
I would say definitely just get your license first. Because the save that commission on your deal is it helps it would help me close the deal. Sometimes I wouldn't even have the full down payment, but my commission broker credit would get me there. So save that 3% and get your license, because you're going to know the deal better than an agent would I would definitely get that first and foremost.
Nancy Surak 28:50
Awesome. And do you have an inspirational books or podcasts that you listen to that you you know, get you hyped up? Or that you say like I go, you go back to regularly that you could recommend to the folks here today.
Carla Sevilla 29:03
I so I do a lot of property management as well. In addition to the development again, a lot of what we develop goes to be managed by, you know, our company. So I do listen to BiggerPockets podcasts, I really liked that one. I don't have a ton of podcasts or listened to in the real estate industry. Other than that one just because I like to understand the investor mindset because we do sell to a lot of investors, I'd say about 60 to 70% of my sales are to investors. So I want to really understand what they're looking for what they're trying to do in terms of return on their investment,
Nancy Surak 29:40
Which is just great. So that's why I started this one because I kept looking for podcasts for women in my space. And I was like, oh, I want to listen to what they're saying. And I couldn't really find it. There's lots of stuff from the investor perspective. And there are a lot of stuff in the commercial real estate arena but not a lot about women who are in our space that are either doing land development or building and it's such a broad audience, you know, broad section of our business, but it affects Yeah, every single human everywhere, is what happens in the built space. And the land space affects everyone because we all need a place to, you know, live shop, play, work, you know, fill in the blank, right? So, so it's been fun, I've really been able to interview amazing women like yourself that have done some really creative, really cool things in their, in their company, and in their careers. And I really appreciate you jumping on and sharing your story because I hear from the people that listen, and they're like, Okay, Carla did it. I'm going to do it too. And it's like, I get so excited. It's fantastic. Okay, so last question is, if somebody wanted to follow what you guys are doing, are you personally? Are you active on social media? Do you guys have any social media presence that you'd like to share with us here?
Carla Sevilla 30:59
Good question. I personally am not active on social media. I was I, for me, I was very like, it was keeping up with other people. And it wasn't giving me very good like mindset mentally. So I'm not on social media. But you know, if they want to ever call me or text me everything, you can easily find our website with GlenwoodHomes.com, or CPtriangle.com, which is my general brokerage and property management company.
Nancy Surak 31:28
Awesome. Well, Carla, again, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pure pleasure to get to know you. Next time I get up to Raleigh, I will definitely let you know that I'm in town. I'll buy you a drink, or dinner. And, you know, just I absolutely love seeing really strong women in our industry. And I'm very, very happy that you said yes to be here today.
Carla Sevilla 31:50
Oh, well, thank you for inviting me. This has been a lot of fun. And I'm gonna definitely listen to more of these episodes, so I can maybe get some lessons learned from other women.
Nancy Surak 31:58
Oh, yeah. There's no some great I mean, I have CEOs on I've got folks who I had the woman who is over development for Lakewood Ranch, which is the number one selling community in Florida. I think even mabye in the country. And she talked about her career and what they're seeing what they were seeing in Lakewood Ranch. So now I've got some good, I got some good stuff. So you should definitely check it out. Good. All right. Well, we'll talk soon. And again, thank you so much for your time. Take care. Thank you for joining us for another episode of She's Wild the Podcast for Women in Land and Development. If you enjoyed today's show, please go out and rate us so that we can be found by other women in our industry. And if you know women who are working in land and development, please share this podcast with them. And if you know a total rock star woman, badass chick who is killing it in land and development anywhere in North America. I want to know who she is. Please reach out to me so that I can feature her on an upcoming episode.