# Rachel Grunn on Triple Net Trailblazing and Riding From Runways to Real Estate Riches

> Published: 2025-06-03 | Category: podcast-episode | Tags: podcast-episode, triple-net-lease, commercial-real-estate, women-in-real-estate, cash-flow-investing, real-estate-agent, work-life-balance, family-first-business

**Guest:** Rachel Grunn

Rachel Grunn walks listeners from Paris runways to triple net mastery, sharing how niche commercial investing, intentional motherhood, and disciplined systems built a thriving North Texas real estate business and a family-first life.

## Content

## Triple Net Trailblazing and Riding From Runways to Real Estate Riches

When Rachel Grunn joined Mattias and Erica on **The REI Agent Podcast**, she brought something rare to the microphone: a global career, a niche commercial investing strategy, and a deeply intentional approach to motherhood and business. From Paris runways to triple net mastery, her story is a blueprint for any agent or investor who wants **wealth, freedom, and family** to live in the same plan.

This episode is essential listening for women in real estate, agent investors who want to escape transactional burnout, and anyone curious about how **triple net leases**, niching down, and disciplined systems can build a business that fuels real life instead of consuming it.

## Who Is Rachel Grunn?

Rachel Grunn is a North Texas-based real estate professional, investor, and commercial property specialist. She started her career on international runways, walking for major fashion houses across Paris, Asia, and beyond, then translated that discipline, travel rhythm, and self-managed lifestyle into a high-performing real estate career.

She now serves clients across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with a particular focus on **triple net commercial properties**, residential investments, and joint venture deals. Her business is built around cash flow, family time, and a refusal to chase commission for its own sake.

## From Paris Runways to Real Estate Riches

The conversation opens with Rachel sharing the unlikely path from international modeling to real estate. Living abroad as a young woman taught her independence, time management, and the kind of self-reliance most agents do not learn until much later in their careers.

She grew up around real estate, watching family members invest and operate properties from a young age. That **early exposure** turned what felt like a complicated industry to most people into a familiar one. When her modeling career began to wind down, real estate was not a pivot. It was a return.

For agents who came into the business later in life, the lesson is hopeful. Rachel did not arrive in real estate with two decades of experience. She arrived with **transferable discipline**: schedule mastery, professional polish, and the ability to perform in unfamiliar environments. Many top agents share that same hidden resume.

## Starting in Sales: From KW to Going Solo

Rachel started her formal real estate career at Keller Williams, where she absorbed the systems, scripts, and community that have launched countless successful agents. She then made the move to **go solo**, building her own brand and choosing the kinds of clients and deals that matched her values.

She talks honestly about the trade-offs. Going solo means more freedom and more responsibility. There is no team lead to absorb mistakes, no built-in lead source, and no automatic schedule. But for Rachel, the upside was the ability to **niche down** into commercial and triple net deals, where her network and personality created an outsized advantage.

If you are an agent considering a similar move, the playbook is clear. Learn the systems somewhere with infrastructure, then take what works, leave what does not, and build a business that fits your life rather than the other way around.

## The Power of Triple Net Commercial Properties

The heart of this conversation is Rachel's expertise in **triple net leases**. For listeners new to the term, a triple net lease, often written NNN, is a commercial lease structure in which the tenant pays not only rent but also property taxes, insurance, and maintenance. For the owner, it is one of the closest things in real estate to truly passive income.

Rachel breaks down why she loves the strategy. **Triple net properties create predictable cash flow** with minimal day-to-day operational headaches. National tenants on long leases mean a single property can produce decades of steady income, and the structure scales beautifully for investors who already have residential rentals and are ready for the next level.

She also explains the trade-offs. Cap rates on top tier NNN deals are often lower than aggressive residential plays, and **tenant quality matters more than the building itself**. Vetting the lease, the credit of the tenant, and the location is more important than the cosmetics of the property.

For agents who serve investors, this is a category worth learning. Most clients with growing portfolios eventually outgrow single-family rentals. The agent who can guide them into commercial and triple net deals becomes the agent they keep for decades.

## Joint Ventures and Finding the Right Tenants

Rachel also pulls back the curtain on **joint ventures**. Many of her best deals have been structured as partnerships, where each party brings something different to the table: capital, deal flow, operational expertise, or tenant relationships.

She is candid about how careful she is when selecting partners and tenants. Real estate is a long game, and a bad partner or weak tenant can erase years of patient work. Her filter is simple. **Trust, track record, and shared values** matter more than the spreadsheet on day one.

This is a lesson agents should carry into their own businesses. The clients you choose, the brokers you partner with, and the vendors you recommend become part of your brand. Choose them like you are choosing co-investors, because in many ways, you are.

## Cash Flow Mindset Beats Commission Breath

One of the most quotable moments of the episode is Rachel's commentary on **commission breath**. She describes it as the desperate energy agents give off when they need a deal to close more than the client needs to buy. Clients feel it instantly, and it pushes them away.

The antidote is a **cash flow mindset**. When an agent is also an investor, every month produces income whether a deal closes or not. That financial stability changes the conversation. Suddenly the agent can give honest advice, walk away from bad deals, and recommend the right strategy even when it costs them a commission.

Rachel has built her business on that posture. She does not chase. She educates, serves, and lets the right clients come to her. The result is a business that feels less like sales and more like consulting, with a referral engine that runs on respect rather than pressure.

## Mom Guilt, Boundaries, and Client Expectations

Erica brings the conversation into deeply personal territory when she asks Rachel about **mom guilt**. Rachel does not dodge it. She talks openly about the tension of running a high-performing real estate business while raising her family, and the ways the modeling lifestyle, with its travel and unpredictability, prepared her for it but also amplified it.

Her answer is a masterclass in **boundaries**. Rather than trying to be available every second, she **batches communication**, sets clear expectations with clients, and uses triage to decide what is truly urgent. The result is a client experience that feels white-glove without trapping her in her phone.

She also leans heavily on **horseback riding** and time on her property as her nervous system reset. Real estate, like modeling, is mentally demanding work. Without intentional decompression, the wheels eventually come off. Riding gives her a daily reminder that her business serves her life, not the other way around.

## Building Systems: Assistants, CRM, and Transaction Coordination

Rachel and Mattias trade tactical notes on the systems that make a high-performing solo business possible. **Hiring an assistant**, overhauling the CRM, and using a strong transaction coordinator are the three moves she points to as the difference between drowning and scaling.

She is direct about a truth many agents resist. **If you can pay someone less than your hourly rate to do a task, you should.** Every email, every document, every administrative task you handle yourself is time you could have spent on relationships, listings, or rest. The math is unforgiving.

For agents listening, the action item is clear. Audit your week. Identify the bottom-tier tasks. Hand them to someone who is great at them. Then reinvest the time you bought into the work that only you can do.

## Three Golden Nuggets for Agents

Rachel offers three pieces of advice for agents who want to build careers that last:

First, **niche down**. The riches really are in the niches. A specialty like triple net leases, equestrian properties, or new construction creates an instant referral story and an expertise moat.

Second, **build cash flow before you need it**. Even one or two small rentals can change your energy on every showing and listing appointment. The goal is not to escape the business. The goal is to be free inside of it.

Third, **protect your time fiercely**. Set communication rules. Build a calendar that includes your family, your faith, and your health. Then defend that calendar like a fiduciary, because that is exactly what you are to your own life.

## Book Spotlight and Life Calendar

Rachel recommends *The Last Lecture* by Randy Pausch and shares the **life calendar** concept, the practice of visualizing the limited number of weeks in a human life. The point is not morbid. It is clarifying. **When you can see the weeks, you stop wasting them.**

This is the kind of frame that turns a real estate business from a hamster wheel into a vehicle. Every deal, every dollar, every Sunday evening matters because there is only one of each.

## Final Takeaway

Rachel Grunn's episode is a reminder that **wealth without intention is just noise**. She traded runways for real estate, but she did not trade her values along the way. She built triple net cash flow, she set boundaries with clients, she invested in horses and family time, and she chose a niche that scales.

If you are an agent or investor who wants a business that funds the life you actually want, study this episode closely. The strategies are replicable. The mindset is the harder part, and the more important part.

For more powerful conversations like this, visit [reiagent.com](https://reiagent.com). And if success is starting to feel like it is destroying your peace, download **The Investor's Life Balance Sheet: A Holistic Wealth Audit** at [sendfox.com/lp/m4jrl](https://sendfox.com/lp/m4jrl) to find out whether you are building a legacy or quietly heading for burnout.

## Connect With Rachel Grunn

- Website: [RachelGrunn.com](https://RachelGrunn.com)

## Related Episode

This post is based on Episode 96 of the WELLthy Investor Podcast.
- [Listen to Episode 96](https://reiagent.com/episodes/)

## Links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TugBnChFimo)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thereiagent/episodes/Triple-Net-Trailblazing-and-Riding-from-Runways-to-Real-Estate-Riches-with-Rachel-Grunn-e33nk41)
- [Full HTML version](https://reiagent.com/blog/rachel-grunn-triple-net-runways-real-estate-riches/)