# How Bunny Terry Built a $45M Santa Fe Real Estate Business From Digital Content, Community, and Gratitude

> Published: 2026-09-29 | Category: podcast-episode

**Guest:** Bunny Terry

Given 12 months to live in 2012, Santa Fe agent Bunny Terry now runs a ~$45M business, 85% from digital content. Her playbook for community & consistency.

## Content

# How Bunny Terry Built a $45M Santa Fe Real Estate Business From Digital Content, Community, and Gratitude

In November 2012, three months after she moved to Santa Fe, Bunny Terry was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. She still has the prognosis letter her doctor wrote so she could cash out her life insurance policy. It said she had twelve months to live.

Fourteen years later, Bunny leads a small team at REAL Broker that is on pace for roughly $45 million in sales volume this year, and more than 85% of that business comes from her digital presence. On this episode of The REI Agent, host Mattias Clymer talks with Bunny about starting over in a closed luxury market, why she markets the city instead of the houses, how a 67-year-old teammate became a YouTube lead machine, and the question she stopped asking after her husband died.

If you've ever felt too late, too old, or too far behind to build a business on content, this conversation is for you.

## How did Bunny Terry get started in real estate?

Bunny says she became an agent "completely out of necessity." After 28 years as a paralegal in Albuquerque, she was a single mom who wanted to move home to Logan, New Mexico, a lake town of about 1,100 people. She got her license in 2004 and co-founded a brokerage, Ute Lake Premier Properties, with her cousin. For ten years they sold everything from $30,000 lake lots to multimillion-dollar ranches.

In a town where she knew everyone, business came easily. Bunny compares it to "shooting fish in a barrel." That turned out to be a weakness later on. She and her partner knew how to be involved in their community, but they had never had to *create* business from scratch.

Her paralegal years helped her in one practical way: she knew how to read a contract, and she knew how to keep herself "out of hot water."

## What did it take to break into Santa Fe as a newcomer?

Bunny moved to Santa Fe in August 2012, still loyal to a lake development project back in Logan. Her cancer diagnosis that November meant a year of treatment, surgery, and more treatment. Her partners in Logan kept her on the books and kept splitting commissions with her, so she didn't move her license to Keller Williams in Santa Fe until 2014.

That first stretch was lean. From August to December of 2014 she sold two houses, and she had to borrow money from her son to attend a national conference. What she did have was consistency:

- **She showed up at 8 a.m. every day**, alongside the veteran agents she affectionately calls "the old dogs."
- **She signed up for floor duty** every time she could.
- **She attended every training and meeting** and took every open house anyone offered.
- **She got deeply involved in the Cancer Foundation for New Mexico**, building community around a cause she believed in.

"I don't know how you do this business if you're not willing to get involved in your community," Bunny says. Mattias adds that the 2014 market was much slower than the 2020–2021 boom many newer agents remember, when houses could sit for months. Growth in that market took steady effort over years.

## How did a cancer diagnosis change the way she runs her business?

Bunny grew up on a farm with a father, Kenneth Terry, whose answer to hard times, even when his crops washed out, was: "If life was any better, I would have to be two people." During her treatment, he asked her every day to name what she was grateful for. That practice became the basis of her book, *Lifesaving Gratitude*.

She is careful about how she frames it: many pieces of her medical picture worked in her favor, and she is not saying that people who don't survive weren't grateful enough. Her point is that "we get to pick what our perspective is," in a crisis and in business.

In practice, that looked like two habits:

1. **A red notebook.** Bunny carried it everywhere to write down good moments and new contacts, like the Dallas visitor she met while eating a Frito pie on the plaza. At the end of each day she wrote her top three good things. "If you're looking for it, they show up," she says. "You don't just get three, you get 12."
2. **Bold intentions.** At a Keller Williams team meeting, before she had sold a single house, she announced she would give $10,000 that year to a cancer organization she cared about. Colleagues later admitted they thought she was crazy. "I'm going to tell you it worked."

She also pushes back on the jaded talk that can spread through an office. When colleagues complained about being asked to call 10 people a day, her response was: "What's hard about that?" Her view was to do the work and be glad you're walking upright.

## How does 85% of her business come from digital marketing?

Bunny started blogging years ago as a personal outlet. A friend suggested blogging "so that our kids will know us better when we're not here." When she arrived in Santa Fe, which felt like a closed market full of agents who had been in the business since high school (one colleague, Paul Duran, is marking 50 years), she knew she couldn't compete for the same referral relationships. "I've got to do this in a way that nobody else is doing it," she decided.

So she built a digital presence around the city itself: her *I Love New Mexico* blog, a Facebook page, and eventually Instagram and YouTube. Without many listings of her own, she asked other agents whether she could promote their listings on her Facebook page, which helped her build a following. During COVID she started making videos herself, even though it was hard at 60 to put her face on camera "and act like I was an expert." What she knew from studying marketing was that people mainly want to know "that they can trust you and that you're competent."

Bunny shared her numbers openly:

| Year | Sales volume |
|---|---|
| 2023 | $12.5 million (solo, moved to REAL Broker in June) |
| 2024 | $18.5 million |
| 2025 | Just over $30 million |
| 2026 | Tracking toward ~$45 million |

In 2023 she hired a full-time marketing director so she could focus on what she does best. Her team is still small: two other brokers and a transaction coordinator. The result, she says: "I'm getting a call every single day from somebody who says, you know, I've been following you on Instagram or I saw your YouTube videos."

## What content actually works in a second-home luxury market?

"Nobody really has to move to Santa Fe," Bunny points out. Apart from people working at nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory, her buyers are mostly second-home and future-retirement luxury clients. Most are 55 and older, though some are 30-something influencers. They visit about three times, fall in love with the city, and follow agents online for a long time before they reach out. That makes her content a long-term nurture system.

The rule that guides her team's content: **"We're not talking about how we do real estate. We're talking about how you live in our city."** Here's what that looks like:

- **YouTube with an unlikely star.** Craig, a 67-year-old on her team, told her two years ago he didn't want anyone to see his face. Bunny told him he had "the most trustable face in the world." He now posts four or five YouTube videos a week (the best golf course to try, favorite restaurants for a first visit) and gets a call a day from them.
- **A weekend events email people keep reading.** Her daughter, the team's marketing director, who has an MBA and a social work background, sends a Thursday email to the full database with three things happening Friday, three Saturday, and three Sunday, plus links, the weather, and a reminder to bring a jacket. Bunny notes that they use Claude to help create it. Nobody has unsubscribed in the last three months.
- **Instagram without a huge following.** With only about 5,700 followers, a recent video about why Santa Fe is a unique place to live reached roughly 38,000 views in two days. The B-roll came from a local kid who films downtown and does drone work.

"There's nothing magical about it," Bunny says. "It's just consistency." Mattias agrees and points to his own years of blogging two or three times a week: even when individual posts didn't take off, his sphere always knew he was serious about real estate.

## What are Bunny Terry's golden nuggets for agents?

Bunny recorded this episode three months after her husband, Toby, passed away. Even through his illness, her team had its best financial year yet. She credits her community for that, and her advice comes from both experiences:

1. **Find your tribe.** "Find your people and take good care of them and let them take good care of you." She also says to be clear about who your community *isn't*.
2. **Keep a daily habit that anchors you.** For Bunny that means the red notebook and a morning thank-you "for the perfect clients that I get to meet and help every single day." By her count, 98% of her clients are perfect. A habit like this "gives you roots" through a hard loss, a hard market, or a hard buyer or seller.
3. **Ask better questions.** After losing Toby, she kept asking herself how she would survive. She realized her brain kept working on the wrong problem.

> "So the question is not how am I going to survive, but what am I going to create?" — Bunny Terry

She also rejects the idea that starting again means starting from nothing. "I am an expert at starting over," she says, but "starting over suggests that you erase what you knew before." Starting again means building on everything you've learned. She quotes a line she attributes to Seth Godin: it's not failure if you don't quit.

Bunny is 65 and turns 66 in December. Her message to agents in her age group who think there's no place for them in digital marketing is to keep moving and to know that you can start again every day.

## What book does Bunny recommend?

Bunny calls *You²* by Price Pritchett life-changing. It's a 34-page book about training your brain to make huge leaps instead of the small steps we tend to limit ourselves to. She liked it so much that she found Pritchett and worked with him. During that work she wrote down an aiming point of $30,000 a month and remembers thinking, "Who do I think I am?" She has since gone well beyond it.

"It's not accidental," she says. "We have to be purposeful about who we spend our time with and what we spend our time on." She also shares that she nearly quit real estate three years ago. What kept her in was moving to a brokerage culture built on "collaboration more than competition," where kindness felt like the most purposeful thing she could do.

## Listen to the full episode

Bunny Terry's story shows that you don't need a huge following, a big-city market, or a head start to build a relationship-driven business. You need community, consistency, and the right questions. Watch or listen to the full conversation to hear her tell it in her own words, and find Bunny on Instagram at **@therealbunnyterrysantafe** or pick up *Lifesaving Gratitude* on Amazon.

If you're ready to apply these ideas to your own business, including your content strategy, your database, and the habits that keep you showing up, try **[REI Agent Advisor](https://advisor.reiagent.com)**. It's a practical way to turn episodes like this into your next steps.

*New episodes of The REI Agent come out every week. Subscribe wherever you listen, and visit [reiagent.com](https://reiagent.com) for more.*

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<summary>Full Episode Transcript</summary>

I had a prognosis letter from my doctor
that said I was going to live 12 months.
And it was a letter that I was going to,
that I was, that was for an insurance
company so that I could cash out my life
insurance policy. So the question is not
how am I going to survive, but what am I
going to create? We're not talking about
how we do real estate. We're talking
about how you live in our city.
Welcome back to the REI agent. My guest
today is Bunny Terry, a Santa Fe based
real estate agent with over 22 years of
experience in one of the most distinctive
and culturally rich luxury markets in the
American Southwest. Bunny has built her
practice around relocation, becoming the
go-to resource for buyers moving to Santa
Fe from across the country who needs
someone who truly knows the market, the
neighborhoods, the culture, and the
lifestyle.
With over 5,700 Instagram followers in a
relatively small market, she has proven
that deep local expertise and authentic
communication, community presence can
build a powerful brand even without a
massive city behind it. Bunny, welcome to
the REI agent podcast.
Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be
here.
Yeah. So you, um, have been at this
obviously for a while and are no stranger
to, uh, putting content out there. What,
what got you started in real estate to
begin with?
It was, I, I, I've heard people say many
times, um, wow, I, nobody, when they're
17 years old and headed to college says,
wow, I, I mean, not many people say, I
hope I become a real estate agent, but I
did it.
Completely out of necessity. I was a
single mom and, um, um, I wanted to move
back to my hometown in New Mexico, which
is a small town, but on a lake and, um,
where people sell a lot of ranches and I
knew everybody in the market, but I
needed to find, you know, I didn't want
to, I mean, not that I have anything
against people in the service industry,
but I didn't want to be a waitress.
At the local truck stop. And I got my
real estate license in 2004 and moved to
my hometown and, and so, and for 10 years
sold a lot of, um, ranches and lake
property.
And, you know, I sold $30,000 lots. And
then I sold some multimillion dollar ranches
and it was a really good experience,
except that, um, I knew everyone. So it
was sort of like I was, and I was a part,
I was a partner with my cousin.
And we had our own brokerage. And what we
knew was how to be in the community and
be involved and have a lot of contacts.
We didn't know how to, um, we, we didn't
know how it was like shooting fish in a
barrel. So we didn't have to work really
hard at creating business. Um,
So that, that was the beginning. And then
when my daughter went to college, I
thought, I, you know, really want to live
in my small town and a small town of 1100
people for the rest of my life.
I'm sort of ready to, to Santa Fe since I
was six years old. I grew up, raised my
kids in Albuquerque and then moved home
to Logan, New Mexico, where I grew up.
And then I decided I'm just, I'm going to
move to Santa Fe.
And that's what I did. There were some
really significant detours in the middle
of that, but that's how my real estate
career started sort of accidentally, but,
but, but in a way that made it not
difficult to find business, we didn't
make a lot of money, but, but it wasn't
expensive to live there.
So, yeah, I mean, it's kind of actually
the interesting thing about this business
is that you, uh, obviously you have to
have a steady amount of business, um, to,
to, you know, earn a, you know, an income,
et cetera.
But it's kind of interesting how I was
thinking about this when, you know, we
had all this massive inflation happening
and, you know, most people's wages were,
were staying kind of stagnant, right?
While everything else got expensive,
housing prices went up. And so we ended
up getting paid more. Right.
So like, it was, it kind of, we saw the
immediate response to inflation, to, to
prices increase. Um, and it's kind of
interesting how our business does that
pretty instantaneously.
Like, you know, if you are in a cheaper
area, uh, you may not get paid quite as
much, but it doesn't matter as much if
you don't need as much money to live
there. Right.
So it's, it's kind of a unique thing I
would say. Um, so let me, I, I, I'm not
sure if I fully tracked the story, but
was it two markets that you, you kind of
had to build your business in, um, your,
your hometown and then Santa Fe, or was
there another one Albuquerque in there?
No, no, no, no. I was, I was a paralegal
in Albuquerque. I was a paralegal for 28
years, which is not a terrible profession
to be in before you become a realtor.
Because, you know, I know how to read a
contract. I sort of know how to keep
myself out of hot water, but as, as one
would hope, um, as a realtor. Um, but I
just, I was in Logan, which was a small
market where I knew everybody.
And then I decided to move to Santa Fe.
And when I moved to Santa Fe in August of
2012, I was sort of testing the water. I,
I was in a partnership and we were
building a development in Logan, New
Mexico on the lake.
And I had a lot of loyalty to my partners
there. And so we were still getting that
development off the ground. And at the
same time, um, I was getting acquainted,
but I didn't know anyone in Santa Fe. I
wasn't, I mean, everybody in New Mexico
is separated by about three degrees
because at that time, the population of
the state was just over a million people.
I mean, it's not a lot. It's stuck. It's
a small state.
Um, I was getting, getting, getting
myself immersed in the city and I was
diagnosed in November of 2012 with stage
four colon cancer.
Wow.
Shockingly. I thought it was the healthiest
person in the world, but during that
process, and that was the hiccup along
the way for a year, I had to have
treatment and surgery and more treatment.
Um, and my partners in Logan continued to
keep me on the books. They continued to
split their commissions with me. Um, I
was able to do a little bit of work of
marketing. So, so it took some time for
me to move my license into the Santa Fe
market because of that medical issue.
So, yeah, well,
Yeah. So I moved my license here in 2014.
Got it. And so you have to, to move your
license. Like you, you, you hung your, in
a different brokerage. Is that, is that
what that means? Or is it, do you have to
do it or something?
I had my license in Logan with our brokerage,
which was called Ute Lake Premier Properties.
That's just the name of the state. I mean,
the name of the, the lake that, um, where
our, where we worked and lived and moved
my license to Keller Williams.
Transferred my license to Keller Williams
in 2014. Stayed at Keller Williams for 10
years and then moved nine years, I guess.
And then moved to real broker three years
ago.
Okay. Um, yeah. So, so what was it like
then? I mean, so obviously, uh, there
would have been, you weren't, you didn't
move to Santa Fe and you weren't hyper-focused
on building your business, building your
network, your sphere.
You obviously had, uh, incredible life
circumstance to, to, uh, you know, work
through slash you had your, you know,
other, uh, business happening still in
your other town.
What, when did you kind of start trying
to, to actually, you know, build that
business up and what was that like in a
new, bigger area where you didn't, you
know, automatically know every single
person in the town?
I did. Um, you know, I didn't know any
better than to just show up every single
day.
I, I, I became acquainted with all of the,
um, they wouldn't like this term, but
sort of the old dogs at the brokerage who
showed up every day at eight o'clock.
Because I thought, you know, this is a
job. I have to treat this like a job. I
don't know anybody. Um, I'm going to be
there. I'm going to sign up for floor
duty. Every time I can, I'm going to be
in the training room.
Every time they open the doors. Um, it
was, I was doggedly determined to support
myself and I was still, uh, still a
single mom, except then my daughter was
in grad school and, um, my son had just
finished his doctorate.
So we were, uh, I was, I'm going to tell
you, I, the first year that I was at
Keller Williams, I had to borrow money
from my son to go to a national
conference.
I think the first year I sold from August
to December, I sold two houses. And, um,
so, so that, so the, the first, the
beginning was lean. I had, I showed up, I
really did show up every time there was a
meeting, every time there was a training,
every time there was an opportunity for
floor duty.
Anytime somebody wanted me to do an open
house, I, it, I mean, I'd always worked.
It seemed like the right thing to do. So
I kept showing up and working and over
time I, and being involved in the
community and because I had survived the
cancer diagnosis, I got really involved
in a local foundation, a local, the
cancer foundation for New Mexico.
So I started building a community in a
hurry and, and making sure that I was
doing things I really believed in, but
still built community. I just think, I, I
mean, I don't know how you do this
business. If you're not willing to get
involved in your community.
You really do like finding those, um,
those extra third spaces, I think Erica
and I often call it that where you're, uh,
you're really heavily involved. A lot of,
for a lot of people that's church, you
know, that can be, um, you can have
multiple third spaces. It can be the gym,
you know, you can have a really strong
community and like a fitness class or,
you know, pickleball, right. Or that's
taking the whole nation by storm.
Um, yeah, that that's, and if anybody's
listening now to 2014, that's the year I
started. Um, it was a different market.
Um, it was, it was, it was slow. I mean,
I don't remember what the median days in
the market was when I was, when I was
starting, but it was, it just wasn't, you
know, houses were staying on the market
for months.
Um, it wasn't the same at all. So, um,
you know, you, you can hear the, you know,
I started in 2020 or 2021 stories and
like, you know, you taking off and, and
that's cause there's a lot of activity
happening and it just wasn't the case in
2014 as well. So that, that totally makes
sense. Um, curious what, um, if you had
any, uh, different approaches to the
business, to life, um, after kind of
getting through that, that diagnosis, um,
was there anything that you kind of took
from that experience to, to say, you know
what, I'm, I'm, I'm doing this this way
now, or, or, you know, I want to make
sure that I'm living life to the fullest
or something to that extent.
I grew up in a household where my dad's
response to every, every time. And I
actually, I wrote a book about this. It's
called Lifesaving Gratitude. Um, because
he really sort of insisted every, for
that year that I was sick and getting
treatment, he would insist that, you know,
he would, every day he would say, you got
to tell me what you're grateful for.
And I would say, you know, dad, my hair's
falling out and my stuff, my gut's a
wreck. And I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm worried
about paying my lease payment. I didn't
own a home at the time. And he would say,
but what are the things you still have to
name the things that you're grateful for.
And because my dad was a guy, when you
would say to him, and he was, I grew up
on a farm, we had no money. When his
crops would get washed out, you could ask
him, how are things going? And my dad,
his name was Kenneth Terry would say, if
life was any better, I would have to be
two people.
And it was his response to every, it's,
and it sounds like a fairy tale when I
tell it, but that's who I grew up with.
And, and, and you can hear that all of
your life. And you can always hear people
say, oh, just look on the bright side, et
cetera.
But it's when you get in the trenches and
it feels like your life depends on it.
And you, and you sort of have to make a
hard choice to, to see life that way, as
opposed to I'm, I could pay attention. I
mean, I had a, I had a prognosis letter
from my doctor that said I was going to
live 12 months.
And it was a letter that I was going to,
that I was, that was for an insurance
company so that I could cash out my life
insurance policy.
And so I had to make a really conscious
choice instead of just something I had
heard by wrote over and over and over. I
had to make a conscious choice to figure
out how to see where I was.
And I, and, and so when I got through
that and I, we would have team meetings
at Keller Williams and, and somebody
would meet me in the hallway and they
would say, oh my gosh, did you just hear
that thing where they said we have to
call 10 people every day?
And I would hear a little bit of this
whole jaded realtor talk. And I would say,
yeah, so what's hard about that? I mean,
really it's, this is not difficult. Just,
it was sort of, it was do the thing and
be glad you're walking upright.
And I want to be really careful because I
don't think that there were a lot of,
there were a lot of pieces to the medical
picture that worked well for me.
I'm not saying that people who don't
survive are not grateful enough. I'm just
saying we get to pick what our
perspective is.
Yeah.
And that's true when you're in a crisis
and that's true when you're in a business,
you get to, you get to pick every day how
you view things.
So, so that, that is really what changed
the way I viewed the business. I would
stand up in team meetings and, you know,
people would say, well, you have to
express your intentions.
And I would say, well, you know, this
year, even though I haven't sold a house
yet, I'm going to give $10,000 to this
cancer organization that I care about.
And I know that, and people have said to
me since then, they're like, man, we were
all like, she's crazy.
She's, I mean, it's not going to work. I'm
going to tell you it worked.
And, but that's, that's how that
experience changed how I do business.
You know, so I just came across this
quote today, actually, and I think it
kind of applies.
It's Dolly Parton said, you know, the way
I see it, if you want, if you want the
rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
And if you take that a little bit further,
I think like I've, you know, I've heard
it described, I think my father would
talk about it this way too.
If there was like, you know, if you had
to go down, you know, if you had a hard
time in your life, which I can't, you
know, I can't say anything near to what
you went through.
But the peaks, or the, you have to go
through the valleys, you have to really
go through the darkest steps of the
valleys to truly appreciate the views
from the peaks, right?
So like, I think that perspective can
really be huge and, and also helpful when
it is hard to find the, the positive side
in life.
And when you're really in the, in the
thick of it, knowing that when you get
through it, which you will, you know, I'm,
you know, I'm talking about the, the
normal, like kind of like everything's
falling apart in contracts or whatever,
that kind of stuff.
Like, you know, once you get through it
and all that stress is gone, like you're,
you're not going to be phased by much at
all.
And that kind of perspective can help.
Um, I'm curious what other things that
you felt to, or like you, uh, kind of
relied on to, to, you know, take that
little step or whatever, to, to, to see
something positive, to have, find
something to be grateful for.
Like, you know, in the hardest moments
when you were feeling really sick and,
and, and all that.
So I carried a, um, little red notebook.
In fact, I still have a red notebook that
I carry with me all the time because I'm
also, I'm also a writer, but I would
carry this red notebook.
And, um, at any point in the day when
something positive happened and I, and
here's what I believe in, and Dolly
probably said something about this too.
You get what you're looking for.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And, and if, and if, and if, and I, and I
was really purposeful about keeping a
notebook with me so that if something,
first of all, I think, I think in the old
days, it's not sweet.
I mean, we use our smartphones, phones a
lot more now than we did, but you know,
12 years ago, it was, it was nice to have
a notebook where you could write down,
you know, I met, I met somebody, I was
sitting on the plaza eating a Frito pie
from the five and dime.
And I met somebody from Dallas, I can
write, I can, I can say, you know, I've
got this notebook.
Can you write your name down?
I did the same thing for anything that
happened that I wanted to remember at the
end of the day.
When I did my top three, I mean, you, you
guys talk about a top three, well, I
would do the top three great things that
happened.
And I'm telling you, if you're looking
for it, they show up and they should, you
don't just get three, you get 12.
And that was a real, you know, I hear a
lot of people talk on programs like this
and they give you sort of nebulous ideas
of what to do with your time.
But for me, it was really important to,
you can, you know, we can create, create
new neural pathways.
And people who have been sick, especially
have to be, who have had some sort of an
illness, have to be careful about the
neural or have had, who experienced deep
loss.
Have to be careful about what sort of
pathways they're creating neural pathways
they're creating and, and writing
something down and then looking at it at
the end of the day was, is really
powerful because otherwise we tend to
criticize and commiserate.
And now I can't, I can't remember what
the third C is, but complain, we, we're,
we are built at the end of the day to
come home and say to maybe, you know, if
you're, I mean, I did end up married to
the best guy in the world, but it would
have been really easy to come home every
day and say, you can't, you can't believe
what these buyers are doing.
We're in a market right now where all we,
we could spend our whole day complaining
about buyers.
Right.
I mean, cause people feel a little crazy
right now.
So you have to be, I work really hard
with my team to say, let's, let's turn
that, or let's figure out the thing that,
that we want to celebrate because you get
more of what you celebrate.
And, um, that's, I mean, I could sort of
go on and on and riff on that just
because I think it's important for your
brain.
Your brain finds what you tell it to look
for.
Well, you know, I think this is so true.
I think the most common, uh, way to
explain that and to talk about it is the
whole, if you're thinking about buying a
car, um, and, and you've decided that you're
going to, you know, drive, uh, buy a
Toyota Tacoma.
Uh, for example, and that's become like,
okay, I'm going to, I'm going to do that.
I'm going to save up for that.
You just start seeing them everywhere.
Um, and you just notice them like you
didn't before.
And that's the same, same kind of thing.
Like they were always there.
There's not that all of a sudden there's
more of them.
It's just that now your brain is, is cued
in to see it.
And it's the same thing with what, if you're
tend to be a pessimistic person, um, you're
going to see all the negative stuff in
that's happening around you.
And it's not that it's not there, but
this same, a different person with a
positive mindset, um, could see, just,
just notice different things and, and why
choose to, um, be, see all the things and
be depressed by them.
And then all that kind of stuff, if you
can take some time to practice, like you're
talking about, um, gratitude, et cetera,
to, to really, um, see, um, things in a,
in a more positive light.
I think it is definitely great for, uh,
your, your psyche.
Um, there's another, uh, book called 4,000
weeks.
I don't know if you've read that one, but
it's, um, really, it kind of, or have you
seen the calendars?
I had like the 4,000 week calendars that
you kind of like, you can kind of writing
it down.
Yeah.
Checking off, um, all the weeks that you've
lived and you can see how many are left,
which for most people sounds terrible.
And like, you know, like, um, like it's
really anxiety provoking for some people,
but the whole point.
And this is also like kind of a, a stoic
philosophy idea where you really have to
not take anything for granted.
Like you're not guaranteed time.
And, and with that perspective that you
should enjoy, you should appreciate the
time you have.
Um, you know, there's things like, I don't
know what the next, the, the, I'm not
going to know when the last time I, my
son's going to let me hold him.
For example, right.
He's four.
And, and so like, I shouldn't, if I have
that mindset, I can really appreciate.
The times that he's lets me hold him,
even though there's a lot of times where
I'm like, Oh my gosh.
It's great.
Right.
Right.
You're so much right now.
You're, you're a crazy old kid.
Um, and so I think it's just putting, I
say this a lot, but like having a
perspective of, you know, living
intentionally, living a way that you, uh,
you find, uh, how you defining the way
you want to live your life.
Because I think if you don't, then you'll
just have life happen to you in this
business.
If you do, do have great success in it,
it can, it can consume you.
Um, and I think it's important to, uh,
not lose sight of the forest for the
trees.
And I think these are some of the ways of
practicing that.
And I'm not saying I'm perfect at this.
It's just, you know, things that we all
can kind of strive towards.
I do want to pivot a little bit, Bunny.
I want to, um, ask you about how you have,
um, built up some of the, the marketing
things for your, for your area, for the
relocation and, and kind of how you got
into that space and what that looks like.
Well, I be, uh, as I, I told you before
we began this, I started blogging years
ago and it really was more of an outlet.
I had a great friend who said we should
write blogs so that our kids will know us
better when we're not here.
I mean, it's a way of, of, um, saving our
words.
And then I, I, and then I wrote a book,
um, at the same time, I early on figured
out.
That, um, we were going to live.
And I, I mean, I, I, it just seemed that
we were going to start living in much
more of a digital space over time.
And I was in a market when you, Santa Fe,
New Mexico is a very, it was a closed
market.
It felt like a closed market when I came
to town and I had already, I had already
been blogging.
And I, you know, I had a Facebook page.
Nobody knew what Instagram was when I
first came here, but, um, I had a
Facebook page where I had promoted my, I
love New Mexico blog.
And so I was accustomed to doing that.
And I just thought, you know, the only
way that I'm going to like break into
this market where people have been in
real estate since they were in high
school, basically.
I have a guy in my office who's been a
realtor for 50 years this year.
Wow.
And he's one of the guys that I used to
see when I would go into Keller Williams
at eight 30 in the morning.
He, his name is Paul Duran.
And he says, I invented real estate in
Santa Fe, but I wasn't going to get Paul's
clients.
And I, and you know, he had been doing
this forever.
And so I thought I've got to do this in a
way that nobody else is doing it.
So I created a digital presence that was
blogs about the city still.
And I still think that works.
Um, I started doing, um, I started
reaching, I didn't have, I didn't have a
lot of listings, but I would say to realtors,
can I promote your listing on my Facebook
page?
And just started building a following.
And, and I say all that with, with some,
um, caution.
I don't want you to think that because I
started doing this in 2014, it can't be
done now.
But I realized about, um, about the time
that I moved to real broker, which was in
June of 2023, I thought I need, um, I was
working at the time, right?
So I'm going to back up a little bit
right before COVID, I was working with a
young man who was brilliant.
And we were going to do online courses
for realtor marketing.
And because I was, I had become sort of
my market expert here on how to do videos
and digital marketing.
Well, you know, COVID happened.
I couldn't let the videographer in my
house.
It got really weird.
And, but, but I started doing it on my
own and, and there's this, you know, I'm
not 22.
I'm not, I don't, I, it was, it was hard
for me to put my, you know, 60 year old
face at the time.
That's how old it was then is to put my
face on a video and act like I was an
expert.
And, and yet what I did know, because I
studied it all the time was that every,
but people only want to know that they
can trust you and that you're competent.
And so fast forward to 2003 and my, so,
so here, I'm just going to be really
frank about my numbers in, I don't even
remember what I made in 2020 and 2021.
I have to go back, but in 2023, when I
decided to leave Keller Williams and go
to real broker, my volume was 12.5
million.
Not a lot in a market where there are a
lot of million dollar homes, but that,
that was my volume.
And I was on my own, didn't have a team
in 2024, it increased to 18.5.
And in 2025, last year we bumped, we just
got right over 30 million.
Wow.
And this year we're online, we're on, we're
tracking to be at about 45 million.
And I'm going to tell you 80, a little
over 85% of my business comes from our
digital presence.
And in 2023, I hired a full-time
marketing person because I thought I can't
run this.
It's a small team, have a small team of
two other brokers and a transaction
coordinator.
But I thought I can't, I can't do the
things I'm good at and also do the
digital piece.
So I hired a full-time marketing director
and I'm getting a call every single day.
Right before we started, I'm getting a
call every single day from somebody who
says, you know, I've been following you
on Instagram or I saw your YouTube videos.
Do you have time to talk to me?
Which is a pretty exciting way to create
business.
I'm just being myself talking about a
city I love.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about what you're
doing.
So these people relocating to the area, I
know we talked about that a little bit in
the intro.
I'm sure it has a lot of different, you
serve a lot of different people.
Is that a big chunk of it?
Is there a lot of relocation happening to
your market?
It's almost all, we're a second home
market.
Nobody really has to move to Santa Fe
unless they're going to go to work at Los
Alamos.
We're really close to Los Alamos National
Labs.
But this is a second home luxury market
primarily.
I still love a first time home buyer
because I like feeling like I helped a
young family get the dream.
I mean, that's, it was so cool when I did
it for myself, but this is a second home
luxury market.
So nobody has to come here.
These are people who tend to be long-term
nurturers.
You know, they come to visit three times,
they fall in love with the city.
They, they're, they're following people
online, you know, now that we're searchable
on Instagram, they find me because I talk
about the things that they care about.
But this is in term, when you say relocation,
it's really, um, the demographic is
usually people 55 and older, but I also
have some clients who are like 30 year
old influencers who have made a pile of
money and they want a second home in
Santa Fe.
So, so the relocation part is all luxury
buyers who want a second home, or they
want a second home that's going to
eventually become their retirement home.
Okay.
And so you're, uh, doing, uh, you know,
Instagram, Facebook, um, you mentioned to
me before you have a podcast, uh, are you
doing videos?
Like what's the content you're putting
out there?
We're, you know, I think that it's
important to figure out what your lane is
and stay in it.
But we, so I do primarily Instagram that
we also populate on Facebook, but some
YouTube, I've got a guy on my team who's
getting a call every day from YouTube
videos.
And he's a guy who said to me two years
ago, I mean, he's, you know, like five,
four, he's, um, not a perfect weight.
He's 67 years old.
He said, I do not want to do a video.
I don't want anybody to see my face.
And I was like, Craig, just give it a
shot.
You've got the most trustable face in the
world.
And when people meet you, they're going
to want to know what you look like.
They're going to want to know that they're
meeting a real person.
And he's doing YouTube every day.
Um, he's, I say every day, I think he's
doing four or five videos a week.
And he's talking about things like, um,
we're not talking about how we do real
estate.
We're talking about how you live in our
city.
Here are the best.
Here's the, here's the best golf course
to try out.
If this is your first visit, here's our
favorite restaurant.
Here's, um, we also have a really robust
email marketing campaign and everybody
should steal
this right now.
Um, my daughter runs a, who is my
marketing director, by the way, I hired
my daughter who
has an MBA and, uh, she's also a social
worker, which is important in this
business, but she
does a Thursday email and e-blast to
everybody in our database that says, here's,
here are
three cool things happening on Friday,
three things on Saturday, three things on
Sunday.
Here are all the links.
Here's what the weather's going to be.
Be sure to bring your jacket because it's
going to be cool this evening.
And they're not things that you, I mean,
they're unexpected events.
Claude creates that for us.
And, um, I haven't had anybody unsubscribe
in the last three months.
So, um, Instagram is, is where we're
getting the most traction, even though I
only have 5,700
followers.
Um, I mean, she posted, we created a
video.
She did.
Let me give her credit.
She created a video, um, two days ago
that right now is we've got like 38,000
views.
Wow.
It's just about why Santa Fe is such a
unique place to live.
And it's, there's nothing magical about
it.
We buy some B-roll from a kid we know who
walks around and does video downtown and
does
some drone work.
Okay.
It's, uh, it's just consistency.
Yeah.
You know, consistency wins.
It really does.
I think, uh, you really just putting
yourself out there, um, consistently
doing something
consistently, you're going to start
seeing results.
Cause I, I, I've mentioned this a couple
of times that I, I used to blog, didn't
really
get a huge amount of traction with it,
but, uh, you know, I did post it on my
Facebook every
single time I wrote something.
So it was three times a week, two times a
week after I kind of slowed down a little
bit.
Um, and you know, I know that my sphere
all knew everybody in my Facebook,
everybody in
my Instagram, et cetera, knew that I was
in real estate.
And I think that, um, you know, whether
or not they actually digested the content,
I was
consistently in their face.
Like, you know, I'm doing this, I'm
serious about this.
I'm, I'm expert in this, et cetera.
So like, you know, uh, you do that for a
few years and it really can help your
business.
It really doesn't hurt.
No marketing is bad marketing.
I think you'll know you've won when you
go downtown to do something and somebody
in a
store will say, have I met you before?
You're like, uh, uh, maybe, but probably
not.
Um, and I will say I, I, it's important
for people who are, I mean, I'm 65 years
old.
I'm going to be 66 in December.
And there are a lot of people in my
demographic who have been in real estate
forever that say,
uh, I, there's no place for me in that
digital space.
You know, I'm not, I don't know how to do
what you do.
And, um, I am an expert at starting over.
I am again, I don't want to say starting
over because it's not starting over
suggests that
you erase what you knew before.
Starting again means you had a hip, you
had not a hiccup, maybe you had something
huge
and terrible happen, or you had a bad
market.
It's not failure.
If you don't quit.
I didn't say that.
I don't know who said that, but I, but,
um, Seth Gooden, I think said that.
And, and so keep, keep moving and, um,
know that you can start again every
single day.
If you're just consistent with what you're
doing.
I love it.
It's really good advice.
Um, bunny, what golden nuggets do you
have for us, for our listeners?
There are so many, I, I want, I want to
be really transparent here.
I, uh, I, my husband just passed away
three months ago and, and I, and I don't
say, I,
I appreciate you saying that, but there
are things in your life that are going to
knock
you down and there, and, and, and, and
you should deal with them the, in the, in
the best
way that you know how, um, my best, one
of my nuggets is find who your tribe,
find your
people and, and take good care of them
and let them take good care of you.
My team over the last year, while we were
in this difficult medical space, and then
Toby
was sick, I still had the best year
financially I'm ever going to have.
And that's because I, I found my
community and know who, know who your
community isn't.
I mean, don't just, just focus on who
your community is, but I did, uh, and
also have,
have, you know, I talked about have a
daily habit.
This is number two, have a habit that is
going to make things.
Different for you.
If you, if you need to make a change.
And, and what I, and when I talk about
the red notebook, which I've got sitting
on my
desk right now, um, that's one piece of
it, have a place where you can record
what's important
to you and what you want to remember and
what you want to say.
And I'm going to say, thank you for
another, and this is a daily habit too.
Every morning I say, thank you for the
perfect clients that I get to meet and
help every single
day.
And I'm going to tell you 98% of my
clients are perfect.
So, so that is the other one.
That's, that's number two is have a daily
habit that, um, that just teaches your
heart and
your head to keep showing up.
Even when things feel like they're awful,
whether it's an awful loss or an awful
market or an awful
buyer or seller, have something that root
that, that, that gives you roots that can't
be disturbed
by a little bit or a lot of, um, I don't
know.
It's just hard times.
Sometimes people get derailed and, and,
and treat is, I, I, here's something
really important.
I learned recently, be careful of the
questions you're asking subconsciously.
Um, after my husband passed away, I've
asked over and over, how am I going to
survive this?
Well, that I, I learned that's the wrong
question because my brain kept trying to
figure out how
am I going to survive?
How am I going to survive?
And I realized that for me, the question
needed to be, I needed to rephrase it.
I, I, I know I'm going to survive it.
People survive loss.
People survive cancer.
People survive a terrible market.
But, but the other question I started
asking myself was what am I going to
build now that
honors who I was in the past and, and who
I'm going to be in the future?
And that honors my community and that
honors this guy that I loved that I lost.
It's so the question is not, how am I
going to survive, but what am I going to
create?
And you're, and my brain is helping me
figure that out.
And so those are my nuggets is that you
got to find, you got to find your
community.
You've got to be consistent with
something every single day, and you've
got to start asking
the right questions so that your brain
knows what to go looking for.
You've, you've, you've definitely
mastered, I think the art of priming your,
your brain
to really, uh, you know, see what, what
you want it to, and, and to, um, you know,
see
the best, um, have the best outlook of,
of life that you can and you've gone
through a
lot.
So, you know, that's a really inspiring
thing for a lot of people to hear.
I'm sure, because a lot of people are
going to be talking about, I got to make
10 phone
calls today or whatever, you know, and
hear, hear that, you know, okay, maybe I
have it really
good actually.
And let's, let's try to train myself to,
to, to be inspired by you and, and to, to,
you
know, you know, go out and be thankful
for everything that they do have and, and
the opportunity
to make 10 phone calls.
Um, and, and, and get some perfect
clients.
Right.
Um, thank you.
Uh, what about a, a book, a favorite book,
uh, that you think everybody should read,
um,
or maybe just one that you're currently
really enjoying?
I have a book that I feel was life-changing
and, um, I, it was so life-changing that
I went
and found the guy who wrote it and, um,
did some work with him.
And, um, it's a little tiny book that I
believe is 34 pages long called you
squared by price
Pritchett.
Um, and it's you like Y O U and then a
two, like, you know, instead of four
squared, it's
you squared.
And it is, it, you know, this it's, it is
the simplest, um, explanation of how we,
it's,
it's about how we, um, train ourselves
and our, and our brains to make huge leaps
that we,
we tend to limit ourselves.
We tend to think, um, how, I mean, I'm a
farm girl from Northeastern New Mexico.
What, what do I think I'm doing selling
up upwards of $50 million in a market
like this,
where I didn't know anybody 12 years ago,
but you, you can also find you squared on,
um,
online price Pritchett is a guy from West
Texas who was, who just figured out
because he was
a clinical psychologist, how our brain
works and how we best train it and, and
also have
quality of life.
That's important to us.
Um, I'm, I can remember that when I
studied with him, I remember writing down
an aiming point
of making $30,000 a month.
And at the time I wrote it, I thought,
who do I think I am?
Who, I mean, what, who do I think I am
that I could maybe make that kind of
money?
And we've gone way beyond that.
And it, but it's not accidental.
We have to be purposeful.
We have to be purposeful about who we
spend our time with and what we spend our
time on and,
and, um, how we run our business.
And, and when you're purposeful, it's fun.
I, I was going to quit.
I was going to quit being a realtor three
years ago.
And instead I made a change to a, to a
culture where it was more about
collaboration than
competition and, um, where I felt like
being kind was the most purposeful thing
that I could do.
I love it.
That's a new one.
I have not heard of that one yet.
So thank you for bringing that.
Um, if people are, are curious about, you
know, reading your book, um, and, uh,
following
you, uh, looking you up, if they want to
move to Santa Fe, where can they find you?
On Instagram.
I'm just the real bunny, Terry, Santa Fe.
And I put the word real in there because
that's the brokerage I'm with, but also
because somebody
hacked my, somebody took my name and
started using it elsewhere.
So the real, the real bunny, Terry, Santa
Fe on Instagram.
My book is on Amazon.
It's called Lifesaving Gratitude by
bunny, Terry, and I'm working on a second
one and, um,
having fun.
So come and find me.
Awesome.
Bunny.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
I do think it's really going to be
inspirational for a lot of people
listening.
Well, I'm so, I'm so privileged to be
here.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to the REI agent.
If you enjoyed this episode, hit
subscribe to catch new shows every week.
Visit reiagent.com for more content.
Until next time, keep building the life
you want.
All content in the show is not investment
advice or mental health therapy.
It is intended for entertainment purposes
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## Related Episode

This post is based on Episode 225 of the WELLthy Investor Podcast.
- [Listen to Episode 225](https://reiagent.com/episodes/)

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