Caroline Pinal: Real Estate That Changes Lives

Guests: Caroline Pinal, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: September 24, 2019

Excerpt

Fueled by a passion for social entrepreneurship, Caroline helped create Giveback Homes to empower real estate agents to turn their everyday business into an opportunity for social change. Caroline and the team deliver innovation and impact to their network of like-minded agents, which are the driving force behind the movement to provide safe homes for families worldwide.

Watch this exceptional webinar now, where Caroline shares her experience as the Co-Founder & CEO of Giveback Homes, where she has worked to realize a vision of social change by helping build homes for deserving families around the globe.

Before Giveback Homes, Caroline worked at TOMS, which pioneered the one-for-one model by giving shoes to children in need. During her time at TOMS, she worked alongside Giveback Homes Founder Blake Andrews. After a Giving Trip in Central America, Blake shared his goals to bring a sustainable giving model to the world of real estate. Caroline was inspired to apply her insights and experiences from TOMS to help realize Blake’s vision of Giveback Homes.

Born and raised in the Mojave Desert, Caroline studied Journalism at Cal State Long Beach, worked at Fox News and The Walt Disney Company. The path was paved early on for Caroline as she always felt the desire to give back and apply her experiences in story-telling and creativity towards something bigger.

Transcript

00:00:08:13 – 00:00:34:03
Daniel Ramsey
Hey, everybody. Daniel Ramsey here. I’ve got the dancing Caroline out here, and she’s entertaining you and me at the same time, so I’m super excited. But Caroline’s an interesting story. We actually are a charity in the real estate space, and. And I’m impressed not only with what they do, but how they serve our industry. So I’m super excited to have you here today.

00:00:34:03 – 00:00:35:18
Daniel Ramsey
Thanks for joining us.

00:00:35:18 – 00:00:38:24
Caroline Pinal
Thank you for having me, Daniel. I’m excited for our conversation.

00:00:39:07 – 00:01:00:03
Daniel Ramsey
And if you’re just joining us right now, let’s give Caroline some props for all the dancing that she was doing in the movie. But in the chat, just tell us where you’re from and what the temperature is like right now. I’m in Sacramento, California, and it’s like 98 degrees out, so it’s hot. Caroline, where you at?

00:01:00:23 – 00:01:02:23
Caroline Pinal
I’m in Manhattan Beach, California.

00:01:03:08 – 00:01:05:06
Daniel Ramsey
Okay. So it’s nice there, right?

00:01:05:18 – 00:01:07:11
Caroline Pinal
It is beautiful. I can’t complain.

00:01:07:23 – 00:01:20:11
Daniel Ramsey
It’s good stuff. Okay, so let’s get started. So you are the co-founder of Give Back Home, so talk to us a little bit about what you guys do and kind of what you do in this in this crazy industry. You know.

00:01:21:17 – 00:01:41:05
Caroline Pinal
It is a crazy industry. I give back home started about six years ago, both my partner and I. His name is Blake Andrews. We started it because we saw an opportunity to connect the real estate industry with people who were in need of safe, affordable homes. So what that looks like when we first started is we partnered with one agent.

00:01:41:14 – 00:01:59:09
Caroline Pinal
His name was Nick is Nick Schneider here in the South Bay to help build one home for a family in need in Central America. Nick was looking for a way to give back. He was telling us and explain to us that he writes checks all the time to different charities left and right, but he never really saw where his money was going.

00:01:59:09 – 00:02:17:08
Caroline Pinal
He never felt the impact. So he wanted to find a way to give back with real meaning and real impact and see where his donated dollars were going. Right. So Blake and I had the idea of what if every time an agent bought or sold a home here in the U.S., we can help provide a home for a family in need.

00:02:17:18 – 00:02:43:14
Caroline Pinal
And Nick did that. And then we brought we actually brought him to Nicaragua, and he got to physically help build the homes. He got to meet the families that he was supporting. And then when he came back, we created kind of a whole marketing campaign out of it, and you kind of used him as our test subject and we positioned him as a social good agent, and people loved it, and people were reaching out to him and they wanted to work with him because of that.

00:02:43:14 – 00:03:04:17
Caroline Pinal
And they were like, What you’re doing is amazing. So since then we’ve just continued to grow and expand and evolve. And luckily there’s now lots of Nick’s in the world who want to give back in that same way. And we’re actually working with entire brokerages, real estate brokerages, entire real estate companies, and now we’re developing entire social impact programs as well.

00:03:04:17 – 00:03:25:11
Caroline Pinal
So we’ve come a long way. And in six years we’re also now supporting affordable housing in the US, in the United States, as well as continuing to build homes in Central America. We also started a partnership with Waves for Water. So we are providing water filters to help provide clean water to communities who don’t have safe drinking water.

00:03:26:13 – 00:03:49:01
Caroline Pinal
And then most recently, we also started helping after natural disasters, which is happening more and more, it feels like, yeah, so we’ve been able to help agents and families kind of get back on their feet after losing all or using almost everything to do a natural disaster. So yeah, that’s a lot. That’s kind of where we are right now though.

00:03:49:01 – 00:03:49:23
Caroline Pinal
We’re so excited.

00:03:50:04 – 00:03:59:10
Daniel Ramsey
Why you said something and I kind of want to ask you, you said a social good agent, so break that down. What is it? What is that in your world?

00:04:00:11 – 00:04:14:16
Caroline Pinal
What is a social good agent? A social good agent? And, you know, in our world is somebody who is there’s like a triple bottom line, you know what I mean? Like you’re not just focused on your profitability. You also want to have a positive impact in your community or on the other side of the world, whatever it may be.

00:04:15:00 – 00:04:20:04
Caroline Pinal
It’s it’s having a strategic giving plan that aligns with your business plan as well.

00:04:20:18 – 00:04:39:11
Daniel Ramsey
So I love it. And how do you help agents? Like, I guess I’m just driving into it like how do you help people create impact? Like that individual agent who’s selling 50 homes who says, you know, I’d like to add this to my business? What does that even look like?

00:04:40:05 – 00:04:57:17
Caroline Pinal
Yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of what we heard when we were first starting get back homes and kind of doing our research and everything is every people want to give back. They want to donate more or volunteer more. They just a lot of times don’t know where or how to get started or they don’t haven’t taken the time to really figure it out yet.

00:04:58:11 – 00:05:25:21
Caroline Pinal
So what we do is we make it really easy to make it really streamlined and we essentially serve it on a silver platter. Like, do you what would you like to give back? Here are a lot of really great programs you can donate to here, a lot of great opportunities you can come out and volunteer. Here are a suite of marketing tools and resources that will help you share these stories with your clients and your network and your sphere so they know exactly what you’re doing and how you can get them to get involved with you as well.

00:05:25:21 – 00:05:31:18
Caroline Pinal
So we provide all of those marketing tools and resources and opportunities to our Giveback Homes members.

00:05:32:04 – 00:05:40:20
Daniel Ramsey
So it’s interesting. Are you guys like part charity, part help them develop the marketing piece of all the good work that you guys would do together? Is that right?

00:05:41:07 – 00:05:42:00
Caroline Pinal
Exactly.

00:05:42:22 – 00:05:57:03
Daniel Ramsey
The kind of I mean, like, how does an agent or a broker or brokerage even like get involved and like make this a good thing for his business or her business as well as making a positive impact? What does it look like for them?

00:05:57:21 – 00:06:13:23
Caroline Pinal
So for an agent in terms of getting involved, you just go to give back homes dot com and you sign up and it’s pretty simple in terms of that. But then once you sign up, you have access to our our team that we help you with creating a listing page. We help you with social media graphics, we help you with a client.

00:06:13:23 – 00:06:35:18
Caroline Pinal
Thank you letter. So when you close on a transaction and you want to donate, you get to choose the project you want to donate to. And then once you donate, we say, Hey, would you like to send a letter to your client saying, Thank you for working with Daniel? Because of that, you’ve helped build a home for a local family in need or a you’ve helped build a home for a family in Central America, or you’ve helped provide clean water to this community.

00:06:35:22 – 00:06:57:01
Caroline Pinal
Whichever you donate it to will be will determine what that messaging is. So we do that. We also help our members organize fundraising events if they want, and then we also help them organize their own team, build days where they they get to come out, actually help build homes locally, and then they get to invite their clients, their friends who have anybody that they want.

00:06:57:01 – 00:07:18:05
Caroline Pinal
So we we help with all of that. So that’s what we mean by incorporating into your, your everyday business, right? Like making it part of your system like you close our transaction, here’s the donation, here’s the letter. Bang, bang, boom, here’s the announcement like they love it. So so that’s kind of what that’s exactly what we what we’re doing and what we’re helping our members do.

00:07:18:12 – 00:07:22:09
Daniel Ramsey
It seems like you guys are really busy then we are.

00:07:22:09 – 00:07:27:06
Caroline Pinal
I could probably use a couple of virtual assistants or ten. Yeah.

00:07:28:01 – 00:07:47:19
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. Okay. So, you know, it’s interesting because my artist, we we have a charity, we have a nonprofit that we built and to make impact in the world, too, because I believe and I believe if you’re going to make money, you should spend it wisely. I want my kids and I want my legacy to be more than Daniel made some money.

00:07:47:19 – 00:07:48:24
Daniel Ramsey
So we do this for our.

00:07:48:24 – 00:07:49:17
Caroline Pinal
I love that.

00:07:50:01 – 00:08:09:00
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, we do that for our clients and we think it’s an important part of being in business today. What what results have you seen for the agents who serve? Like what do they tell you this does for their business or having this social impact kind of piece? What does it do for them?

00:08:10:02 – 00:08:31:22
Caroline Pinal
I mean, there’s so many examples, but one of the first that comes to mind is Jessica Northrup. She’s in Denver, Colorado. She first traveled with us to Nicaragua to help build a home for a family in 2016 and then came back as do as do every agent. I mean, we’ve taken over 20 different groups of agents to go physically build homes there.

00:08:31:22 – 00:08:51:24
Caroline Pinal
And that experience in itself is so life changing. Everyone always comes back and just inspired and wanting to do more and give back. So for Jessica, you know, she came back and she made it a personal goal for herself that every year she wants to if she can’t make it out to Central America every year, even though she actually is on the mission to do that, too.

00:08:52:08 – 00:09:17:13
Caroline Pinal
But she wants to fund a complete home for her family in Central America and fund a building, a team building in Denver, Colorado, for her clients. And so far, she’s done three of those three homes she’s on working on her fourth. She wants to organize a whole build trip for her brokerage. But she has also gotten so much press and locally and she’s taken out ads in her in her magazines.

00:09:17:13 – 00:09:37:21
Caroline Pinal
And, you know, she’s every time she goes into a listening appointment, she has like the stories and shows the families and shares those with her with her clients. And it’s so important for her. And it has gotten her a lot of business. And there are so many more stories like that as well, too. I mean, like I said, Nick Schneider, the very first agent that we did it with, he got like his phone is ringing off the hook like crazy.

00:09:37:21 – 00:09:56:23
Caroline Pinal
And he got five listings directly from the ad that he placed in that paper that very first time. So there’s a lot of stories like that, but I think the most impactful is when people come back from those build trips and they just inspired to do more and and they’re even more committed than they were before.

00:09:57:08 – 00:10:07:12
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, it’s amazing. Why did you guys choose to do this in the real estate space? Like, why is that a passion for you? For your organization to kind of have this social impact in the real estate?

00:10:08:22 – 00:10:30:09
Caroline Pinal
It wasn’t we we had no we didn’t have a passion for real estate. We had no experience in real estate. Both Blake and I, you know, we’re not real estate agents. We didn’t have experience in real estate. But, you know, before starting to back homes, we used to work for Toms Shoes, which is a company that for every pair of shoes they sell, they get compared to a child in need.

00:10:30:19 – 00:10:50:05
Caroline Pinal
So we kind of came from that social good world. And then Blake, my partner, was going through the process of buying the home himself for his family. And in working with a real estate agent, Nick Schneider is kind of where that whole idea came together. Nick was talking to us about like how he can incorporate giving into his business.

00:10:50:05 – 00:11:10:01
Caroline Pinal
And obviously real estate is in the business of homes. And Blake and I had just traveled to Central America delivering shoes, but we also saw the living conditions of families there. So that’s kind of how it all came together. We had no we had no idea what we were getting into with real estate. And it was a lot of learning.

00:11:10:01 – 00:11:12:09
Caroline Pinal
But we’re we’re happy that we did it.

00:11:13:07 – 00:11:16:15
Daniel Ramsey
For a bunch of crazy guys in the real estate space, you know?

00:11:17:13 – 00:11:38:10
Caroline Pinal
So to me, I mean, that’s what’s the best thing about working in the real estate industry is the real estate agents that we get to work with. I mean, we are very fortunate and lucky that because we have a socially driven company, we are attracting some of the best agents with the biggest hearts. Right. And I love that every agent is their own entrepreneur.

00:11:38:11 – 00:11:47:01
Caroline Pinal
They hustle, they get shit done. I love watching their business grow. They are so driven personally and that’s really cool.

00:11:47:15 – 00:12:06:08
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, I love it too. What? What is what’s the financial model like? If I’m sitting in a listing and I’m telling the sellers, Hey, we have this charitable kind of impact thing that we’re doing and you’ll be a part of that when you list with me. What do I what’s the model? What’s the financial model?

00:12:06:22 – 00:12:25:09
Caroline Pinal
Well, the really cool thing about Giveback Back Homes is that every agent can create that model for themselves, so it’s whatever they feel comfortable with. Some agents do a percentage of each closed transaction. Some will do one set amount of each closed transaction, some wait until the end of the year and make one large donation on behalf of all of their clients.

00:12:25:09 – 00:12:42:11
Caroline Pinal
So some of our members will build a complete home for a family in Central America on behalf of all their clients for that year, for example. So it really just varies. It depends. And so it’s totally up to each that comes member to decide what model works best for them.

00:12:43:02 – 00:12:50:16
Daniel Ramsey
You’ve set up, you’ve said Central America a couple of times. Is there a particular country or group of countries that you guys focus on or.

00:12:51:07 – 00:13:18:07
Caroline Pinal
Yeah, we first started in Nicaragua and now we’re focusing on El Salvador, especially throughout. So we have a really great partnership with a company called Concierge Auctions, which is a luxury real estate auction company. And every time they sell a home at auction, they build a complete home for a family in Central America. We have transformed a community in Nicaragua, and we’ve transformed two communities in El Salvador through the program, which is called Key four Key.

00:13:19:03 – 00:13:45:01
Caroline Pinal
So that’s the social impact program that we developed with them and we created it. We manage it. And what’s really cool is they send us not only are they funding these homes, which is now over 200 homes, but now they’re sending their employees to go physically help build the homes. So I take groups of their employees and their staff down there and they get to experience giving and see the impact that they’re making through their work.

00:13:45:01 – 00:13:46:17
Caroline Pinal
And that’s really beautiful.

00:13:47:18 – 00:13:53:01
Daniel Ramsey
I bet. What is what does it cost to build a home in in Central America right now.

00:13:53:14 – 00:13:58:17
Caroline Pinal
Anywhere between 4300 or 3300 to $5000 for a complete house.

00:13:58:18 – 00:14:07:12
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, that’s cool. We had a Todd had a question. Who owns the home? Is it given to the people or do you guys sit back or how does it work?

00:14:08:16 – 00:14:12:02
Caroline Pinal
The families own the home so they own the land that the homes are being built on.

00:14:14:10 – 00:14:19:19
Daniel Ramsey
So you’re providing labor and the and the materials, the land that the people already own.

00:14:20:05 – 00:14:42:04
Caroline Pinal
Exactly. Exactly. And then when we when we’re supporting affordable housing projects here in the US, we work with like Habitat for Humanity, for example. So those families also own the home. They have to put in sweat equity. They do pay a mortgage. They just make sure that it’s affordable. It’s known that it’s not beyond 30% of their income to 0% mortgage.

00:14:42:22 – 00:15:07:13
Caroline Pinal
So that’s all through programs like Habitat for Humanity, which is really great. And then we also work with organizations like Rebuilding Together. We’ve worked with them often, especially after Hurricane Harvey in Houston and those kinds of situations. And in those times, we’re helping them rebuild the homes that they still that they currently own or have so they can stay in them.

00:15:07:13 – 00:15:12:24
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, it’s amazing what has been I mean, you’ve been around for around six years, is that right?

00:15:13:17 – 00:15:14:21
Caroline Pinal
Yeah, we think.

00:15:15:11 – 00:15:25:03
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. You just turned 60. The challenge of doing this kind of work, what have you learned through the six years of like being in this charitable impact space?

00:15:26:03 – 00:15:34:17
Caroline Pinal
What’s a good question? I mean, we’ve learned a lot. I would say. You said what did you say? What have we learned? What’s our biggest challenge? What was the question?

00:15:34:22 – 00:15:38:03
Daniel Ramsey
Well, I’ve got questions.

00:15:38:03 – 00:16:08:02
Caroline Pinal
I guess I got I mean, I guess one of the biggest things that we continue to strive for that we learn is to just keep things as simple as possible and as tangible as possible. And by doing that, you’re going to give people a sense of what they’re donating to. You know, we always just want to make sure we always want to be completely transparent about what they’re donating dollars are going to, where that project, where those dollars are going to and what that project is going to do and what the impact on the family will be.

00:16:09:03 – 00:16:19:19
Caroline Pinal
So I think that’s definitely one of the things that we’ve learned is just to continue trying to simplify messaging and all that sort of stuff. And then, you know.

00:16:19:23 – 00:16:27:05
Daniel Ramsey
The old KISS model like keep it simple, stupid, like, yeah, it works in this world as any any other business.

00:16:27:15 – 00:16:29:12
Caroline Pinal
Exactly. I think so.

00:16:30:14 – 00:16:36:08
Daniel Ramsey
What’s your biggest challenge then. That was the other question.

00:16:36:08 – 00:17:03:06
Caroline Pinal
I think the biggest challenge for us lately, or just in general, I guess is just been trying to or trying to inspire people to think bigger when it comes to giving not just people, but companies. Right. It’s like, you know, you talk to a lot of head of companies or h.R. Or the head of philanthropy or whoever, and they’re like, oh, well, we already do this, you know, and it’s like, that’s awesome.

00:17:03:06 – 00:17:26:02
Caroline Pinal
Like, everyone should already have a giving program or some sort of donating or volunteer one day a year kind of a thing. Right? But how do you get better? How do you improve on that? Why don’t you make up why don’t you think bigger about like how to make that grow and how to make it more impactful. So I think the challenge is, like a lot of people think of giving as just like a checkbox, you know, like, oh, well, we already do it, we’re fine.

00:17:26:14 – 00:17:38:07
Caroline Pinal
But I think one of the challenges is like the how do you do it? Like let us help you do it better. Let us help you do it in a way that inspires others to do to do more and to give back and to get more involved. So, yeah.

00:17:39:07 – 00:17:55:05
Daniel Ramsey
One of the one of the challenging things, the reason that we started our own charity is that because most charities take a percentage in like overhead and we wanted to give 100% of our charitable donations to the people who actually need it and make an impact.

00:17:55:14 – 00:17:56:00
Caroline Pinal
Right.

00:17:56:04 – 00:18:09:00
Daniel Ramsey
We we measure it by lives impacted, dollars donated and time invested. And I don’t know if that’s right or not, but Caroline, what’s your how do you feel about that measurement? I’m just kind of curious.

00:18:09:14 – 00:18:35:19
Caroline Pinal
I think that’s really smart. I mean, I think I think it’s really great that you have modeled it in a way so that you can give 100% of all of your donations. That’s what we do give back homes as well, too. We have two different channels so that we’re completely transparent about all of that. And so that’s part of a sustainable giving model, is that you don’t have to rely on donations and taking more than 40% of a donation to pay for your operating costs.

00:18:35:19 – 00:18:36:23
Caroline Pinal
So I think it’s brilliant.

00:18:38:10 – 00:18:58:17
Daniel Ramsey
And there we go. Yeah, I love it. Okay. So how would a person like what’s the first step to getting involved in this? And should a should a real estate person like test it on a client? Or how do you how do you get started in this process if if somebody wanted to move forward and do an impact model.

00:18:59:19 – 00:19:25:00
Caroline Pinal
Yeah. So you would sign up, give back homes dot com and then we would essentially send you Cory, who is our marketing manager. She will work with you directly to help you with your plan. So in terms of like making it announcement either in E last or social media Friday, the copy for all that explaining to your clients that you have joined this social good movement and what that means and how you’re going to incorporate it.

00:19:25:00 – 00:19:45:15
Caroline Pinal
So again, going back to like creating that model, like we will either help you or unless you already know, like what do you want to do? Like after each close transaction, do you want to just donate monthly? Do you want to do anything? You’re like, How do we structure that for you? And then once you have that, then we can even help with like writing a press release announcement.

00:19:45:15 – 00:20:04:17
Caroline Pinal
Or if your goal is to do like a team build there, then we help you with that as well. And that’s part of your announcement. And then that’s kind of how you start to get the traction and the attention and get the awareness out there. And then after you close a deal or even when you go into a listing appointment, you start putting it into that process as well too.

00:20:06:00 – 00:20:12:17
Daniel Ramsey
How about the the the dollar? I mean, is that a write off for a real estate broker when they give or you guys. Yeah, yeah.

00:20:13:02 – 00:20:40:00
Caroline Pinal
100% tax deductible donations. Okay. And if you go to our website, there’s a tab that says projects and you can see all the different projects and where we’ve partnered with over in over 20 different cities across the US. So there should be one close to you kind of not every not that we can reach out and see if it’s something that we an area that we want to start a new project in.

00:20:40:09 – 00:21:03:24
Daniel Ramsey
Caroline says There’s no excuses, guys. If you’re not only doing a give back program, she’s she’s saying, let’s go. I had a couple more questions like what’s normal for is it a percentage of of and this was a question from Todd Wilson. He said, what’s the average dollar amount per transaction that an agent gives and what’s the average percentage?

00:21:05:06 – 00:21:35:09
Caroline Pinal
I would say anywhere from $50 to a firm or close transaction to $300 to sometimes, like I said, people will build a complete home. So that’s up to $5,000 or do a complete team build day, which is also on average between 5 to 7, sometimes ten, depending on the market. So it’s all across the board. It’s interesting because that’s people that’s such a frequently asked question and I’ve been trying to get to the root of that question.

00:21:35:19 – 00:21:56:16
Caroline Pinal
People want to know what other people are, what the average donation from other people are. But I think the answer is just whatever you feel comfortable with or if you are already in a place where you donate an X amount of dollars after each close transaction, push yourself maybe to go a little bit higher than that. Maybe this year.

00:21:56:24 – 00:22:09:11
Caroline Pinal
I think the more you give before you are in a place to, I just think that it’ll end up coming back to you for sure. Just see to push yourself in that sense as well to well.

00:22:09:19 – 00:22:31:22
Daniel Ramsey
I’ll just answer Todd for our from our perspective, we try to give 1 to 3% of our net profit per year. And I don’t know if that’s a good number or not, but it just feels like that’s the amount that we can kind of input and make impact. And then we also include our clients in that giving. So many of our clients are also kind of contributing to our charity.

00:22:31:22 – 00:22:55:01
Daniel Ramsey
So, so that number gets just a little bit. Caroline, what in your experience, like, you know, there’s millions of real estate people like. Well, there’s a lots of us, right? How how unique is it for an to have a program like this? Is it a very unique thing or is it becoming more normal? Like give us an idea of what the market looks like.

00:22:55:01 – 00:22:59:18
Daniel Ramsey
Am I going to go on a listing appointment and everybody is giving back in their presentation or.

00:22:59:18 – 00:23:00:19
Caroline Pinal
I hope so.

00:23:01:19 – 00:23:02:11
Daniel Ramsey
You’re like, yes.

00:23:03:24 – 00:23:26:20
Caroline Pinal
I mean, I think it’s I think as real estate agents, you know, they’ve always been kind of community leaders. Right. They always have to be like very much involved in their community, which oftentimes means like donating to every single community event or charity or cause that they have going on. They sponsor Little League teams or like do all that sort of stuff.

00:23:26:20 – 00:23:54:14
Caroline Pinal
So I think that has that is and has been very popular because that’s how they network and become a member of the community. But from a strategic bigger picture kind of standpoint, especially with the need for affordable housing just becoming more and more of a crisis and more and more of like this is a this is a big deal and the real estate industry should be involved in the solution now more than ever.

00:23:54:14 – 00:24:03:11
Caroline Pinal
Right. So I think from that standpoint, it’s still not very common. So that’s why there’s a huge opportunity there as well to.

00:24:03:24 – 00:24:19:00
Daniel Ramsey
Get you can lead your community and your network and the people that you know by doing something positive in the world probably feels really good too. Right. What’s it like to to lead these people internationally and build a home for you? What is what does that feel like?

00:24:19:12 – 00:24:43:02
Caroline Pinal
Oh, my God. It’s so amazing. I hope you get to come one day because it really is like that. My favorite part of of what we get to do day after day is taking people and taking people to a country they probably never considered really going or never really imagined themself visiting to help a family they’ve never met before who will never be able to really repay them or anything like that.

00:24:43:02 – 00:25:14:06
Caroline Pinal
You know, to me, like, it really is something that I wish more companies would would embrace. Yeah. You know, like I mentioned, this company concierge who is paying for these employees to go experience this. And if I think back to the root root of when Blake and I first started or even before get back homes, the whole reason that we were sparked and inspired to do something like this is because our company at the time, Tom’s, paid for us to go on a trip like that, you know what I mean?

00:25:14:06 – 00:25:22:08
Caroline Pinal
So it’s very cool that we can now provide that to so many people who are willing to come. And I highly recommend it.

00:25:22:23 – 00:25:33:09
Daniel Ramsey
I bet you those companies that have these kind of involved social kind of impact kind of campaigns, and then I bet you they have better retention and more engaged.

00:25:33:13 – 00:25:33:24
Caroline Pinal
Oh, yeah.

00:25:34:15 – 00:25:36:05
Daniel Ramsey
Like what have you seen in that space?

00:25:37:05 – 00:25:57:15
Caroline Pinal
I mean, people are like I said, people come back and they’re they’re just completely change. And it allows you to have it gives you a little bit more purpose in your everyday work. You know, you’re dealing with a lot of as real estate agents deal with a lot of characters sounds crazier than others, some more demanding than others.

00:25:57:15 – 00:26:04:05
Caroline Pinal
So it kind of helps you stay grounded and stay in and add purpose into into the work that you’re doing every day.

00:26:04:15 – 00:26:11:07
Daniel Ramsey
And you actually, like physically build these houses yourself. Like, are you out there with a block and you’re putting it on and all that.

00:26:11:22 – 00:26:14:24
Caroline Pinal
We like physically are building these homes. Yes.

00:26:15:06 – 00:26:16:15
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah.

00:26:16:15 – 00:26:35:19
Caroline Pinal
I mean, it’s hard work. I mean, it is it’s hot and humid and the people are like digging holes for like hours at a time. But you really get you get connected with humanity again and, you know, and you’re and you get to make connections with the families that you’re you’re building alongside the families right there. They’re helping you as well, too.

00:26:35:21 – 00:26:51:19
Caroline Pinal
So that’s really cool to watch and witness, even without knowing the same language they’re communicating with and being so generous and and welcoming of us into their future homes is just it’s a really beautiful experience.

00:26:52:12 – 00:26:57:20
Daniel Ramsey
Anybody ever take their kids or like spouses on these trips? And what is that like for them?

00:26:59:02 – 00:27:16:19
Caroline Pinal
We haven’t had anything like that. Yeah. I mean, we our trips get filled up pretty quickly. Like when we when we announced we have a trip coming up. Our next one’s in November. So so far it’s just been all real estate professionals or somebody in the real estate space. We haven’t had anybody bring kids or spouses as of yet.

00:27:16:19 – 00:27:36:03
Caroline Pinal
But yeah, I mean, I’m trying to think one of the first trips we had was like Madison Hildebrand came with us to Nicaragua and built a home on one of our first trips. Like I said, Jessica Northrop, who’s in Denver now, Laura Brady and Chad Rogers. They’re like the president and chairman of that of the concierge auctions company.

00:27:36:03 – 00:27:40:21
Caroline Pinal
They came with us. So, yeah, I think I think you just got to come.

00:27:42:12 – 00:28:01:03
Daniel Ramsey
I love it all right. Well, Caroline, this has been awesome. Again, it’s give back home XCOM, if you’d like to kind of go deeper and find out more information about putting this. But what would you leave our audience with today? Like brass tacks, what’s your sum of all this stuff?

00:28:01:03 – 00:28:02:23
Caroline Pinal
What would.

00:28:03:22 – 00:28:04:01
Daniel Ramsey
I?

00:28:04:03 – 00:28:24:24
Caroline Pinal
So I would say that I am extremely proud and happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish with Giveback Homes. And it’s all thanks to our real estate agent members and our real estate partners. And so I’m very grateful for all of them and I look forward to welcoming more into the Get Back Homes movement after after this conversation.

00:28:25:13 – 00:28:43:20
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. Well, Caroline, thanks for your time today. Really appreciate you love what you guys are doing. And I think we should work together. My out. Thank you and have a great day guys. Thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate your time. We know how important it is and valuable it is, but I guess she’s going to dance on the road.

00:28:43:22 – 00:28:53:21
Daniel Ramsey
She’s going to she’s going to do a little bit of dance. This is.