From Cleaning Business Owner to Real Estate Agent and Why the Timing Could Not Have Been Better

Mitchell Scott at CrossCountry Mortgage sat down with Traci Malson, realtor with EXP Realty in the southwest Missouri area, for a conversation about what is actually happening in the local market right now, why this moment represents a genuine opportunity for buyers who are paying attention, and what drove a serial entrepreneur who built and sold a cleaning business to finally pursue the real estate career she had wanted since she was young.

Traci built Traci’s Classy Cleaning over nearly five years, then launched an epoxy flooring company alongside her husband, and recently sold the cleaning business. When the sale aligned with the timing of getting her real estate license everything fell into place at once. She was done with physical labor that left her spent by the end of the day and ready to put her brain to work in a way that physical businesses never fully allowed.

The draw to real estate started years earlier. Spending years cleaning different homes gave Traci a unique window into how people live, how they use their spaces, and what makes a house feel like a home. She wanted to be the person who helped families find their next chapter rather than just witnessing the spaces where those chapters played out.

Choose Your Level of Hard

One of the most useful frames Traci brings to the conversation about the current market is her perspective on difficulty. She is not interested in waiting for perfect conditions because she does not believe perfect conditions exist. What she believes in is choosing which level of difficult you are willing to face and then navigating it with the right people.

High rates paired with lower prices presents one kind of difficult. Low rates paired with bidding wars and paying over asking presents a different kind of difficult. Neither is inherently better or worse. The question is which version of difficult makes the most sense for a specific buyer in a specific life situation and whether that buyer has the right team around them to navigate whatever the market is actually doing.

Mitchell echoes this. He has said it consistently to buyers throughout his ten years in the industry. You cannot time the market. Economists, loan officers, and realtors can identify trends and make educated observations but nobody can predict with certainty what rates or prices will do. The more useful question is whether this is a good time for you specifically, whether the payment fits your budget, and whether your life circumstances are pointing you toward buying rather than waiting.

What the Southwest Missouri Market Is Actually Doing Right Now

Traci is seeing significant price reductions on genuinely attractive homes. Not cosmetic reductions on properties that need work. Real ten and fifteen thousand dollar drops on fully remodeled homes where sellers need to move and are willing to negotiate to make it happen. Those kinds of reductions produce a real difference on the loan amount and on the total interest cost over time.

Mitchell frames this for buyers who have been saying they wish they had bought when prices were lower. In many cases the combination of price reductions in today’s market and sellers’ willingness to negotiate on concessions is producing an opportunity that looks a lot like buying at last year’s pricing. You cannot go back and buy a house at a price it no longer is. But in the current southwest Missouri market some buyers are finding properties priced close enough to what they missed that the regret of waiting becomes relevant in a new way.

Inventory is returning to pre-COVID levels. The frantic pace of homes moving within hours of listing has been replaced by a market where buyers can be selective, take time to find the right fit for their family, and still negotiate effectively because sellers are not receiving the volume of competing offers they were seeing two and three years ago.

When rates do come down that dynamic will shift. More buyers will enter the market simultaneously, competition will increase, and offers will start climbing again. The negotiating leverage that exists right now belongs to today’s buyer. It does not follow anyone into the lower-rate market they are waiting for.

An Affordable Housing Project Worth Knowing About

Traci shares something she came across through local networking that Mitchell had not yet heard about. A land developer in the Rockaway Beach and Marion Woods area is purchasing land and partnering with a manufactured home company to provide entry-level homeownership opportunities for first-time buyers who may not qualify for a traditional mortgage on a more expensive property.

The target price point is around one hundred thousand dollars with payments designed to be lower than what many of these buyers are currently paying in apartment rent. The project is also being paired with first-time homebuyer education covering credit, employment history, and what the process of purchasing a home actually requires so the transaction does not feel overwhelming or out of reach for people who have never done it before.

The goal is not just to sell homes. It is to create a pathway for people from lower income backgrounds who want homeownership but have not had someone to show them how to get there.

On Fear and Taking the First Step

Both Mitchell and Traci circle back to fear throughout the conversation in ways that feel genuine rather than scripted. Traci has overcome significant personal challenges in her life and draws directly on those experiences when she talks about helping clients take a step they are afraid to take. Her message is direct. You are not going to think your way out of being afraid. You are only going to do your way out of it. Ask the questions. Find the people who know what they are doing. Take the step. The fear gets smaller every time.

Mitchell tells his own children the same thing when they are scared to try something. The only way to not be afraid of doing something is to go do it. That applies directly to buyers who have been watching the market, worrying about making the wrong call, and finding reasons to wait another month. Having a team of professionals they trust to walk alongside them does not eliminate the uncertainty but it does make the step manageable in a way it is not when someone is trying to figure it out alone.

The EXP Team Environment

Traci describes what working within the EXP community looks like for her practically. When she encounters a scenario she has not seen before she puts it in a group chat and gets responses from agents who have handled similar situations from different angles. The collective experience of the group becomes available to her client even when any individual agent would not have had the answer on their own. She has come in knowing nothing by her own admission and has committed to asking ten people if that is what it takes to get the right answer for whoever she is working with.

Mitchell notes the same dynamic on the lending side at CrossCountry. No single professional knows everything but a team of loan officers, processors, and underwriters working together can figure out nearly any situation given enough time and enough collaboration. The goal in both cases is not showing what the professional knows. It is making sure the individual buyer or seller gets taken care of.

How to Reach Traci Malson

Call or text 916-547-1675. Email [email protected]. Visit tracicox.exprealty.com. Find her on Instagram at instagram.com/realtywithtraci and on Facebook at facebook.com/share/1Ge1AwBy7y. She is active on both platforms and responds quickly.

Mitchell Scott at CrossCountry Mortgage in Springfield Missouri is available to run financing scenarios for any buyers Traci is working with in the southwest Missouri area. Reach out to either of them to start the conversation about what the current market actually means for your specific situation.

Sources

MissouriRealtors.com
NAR.realtor
MortgageNewsDaily.com
ConsumerFinancialProtectionBureau.gov
Investopedia.com