How a Single Mom Built a Real Estate Empire Through Consistency

But I also think that could sometimes be a hindrance. Like, okay, even in real estate for 30 years,

“like, times have changed a lot. So I think it also can be a great positive that you're like”

fresh in the industry, right? And you're coming in with all this technology and AI and like, there's so much to look forward to. And Harriet Morton is an experienced, strategic and client-focused real estate professional team lead and top producer with Blair Realty Group specializing in the Cyprus and Houston markets with 16 years of experience in real estate. How do you kind of make yourself stand out in a crowd of market? I say, our number one is consistency. We're in the neighborhood

every single weekend. People are seeing our signs every Saturday, every Sunday. We put out market updates, showcasing the latest businesses on social media, we're in the community, we're out of the events. Like, we've honed in on our specialist market area and that is... The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Oh man, check how far was the lead, Houston. Oh, it's the bottom of the planet. You can live

your dream. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast and I'm your host again, Jay Slang. And yeah, we get the privilege to talk to some of the best entrepreneurs from around the country, the disruptors and the experts from all kinds of industries. And today, we have a special guest from our mom per nurse show and she's in the real estate game and yeah, let's get to know her. So, hi, what's your name and where you coming from and kind of introduce your

business? Yeah, it's sure. Happy to be here. Thanks so much. My name is Hati Morton. I am the founder of the Hati Morton team in Houston. We specifically in Cyprus, Texas. Okay, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the real estate game, how is the real estate game in Houston? Real estate is good. I only talk about my market, right? It's very market driven. Okay. But where I live, I'm an master plan community called Bridgetland. It's one of the fastest growing master plan communities in the

whole of the US. Wow. So, yeah, real estate is really good for us. We deal in residential real estate helping people buy and sell. And at least, and we do property management. So, yeah, it's good. Yeah, how's the weather around Houston? It's hot. It's hot. Yeah, it's hot. It's hot. It's hot, it's hot. Yeah. So, we used to have a, the accent you're from London, right? Yes, originally from London. Do you know our Saturday night live as I know? Yes. You've been here long enough, right? Yeah. So,

“there used to be a skit with Eddie Murphy, right? And he did too hot for the hot term, right?”

Yeah. Yeah. So, we always, when, when we say, hey, how's the weather? It's like it's too hot for the hot

term. Too hot for the hot term. Yeah. That was cool. He was doing James Brown. It's so funny. But yeah, I mean, I understand that dry heat. It's not like the weather down here, Miami. You got that humidity, right? But it seems like you've kind of tamed the humidity. The hair came, you know, it wasn't all puffy like some people, but yeah, that dry heat's kind of nice on the hair, though. You know, keeps it all flat, right? I did Vegas for a bit. So, I kind of understand that.

Yeah. You got a bit of volume yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I can't control it. So, yeah. Real estate, America. So, what's, how long, how old were you when you moved to America? I was 27. So, I've been here for 10 years now. Hey. In 2016, at the end, I moved right before Harvey. So, I was like, what is happening? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. We don't really have any extreme weather in London. So, yeah, it was pretty eye-opening.

Yeah. I mean, the London winters are pretty extreme. You know, but it's like cold and wet,

“but there's no snow. That's what it's like. Yes. It's just cold. It's wet. You wake up and it's dark.”

You go to sleep and it's dark. Yeah. Yeah. I lived in London for a while and I was like, oh, man, this is intense, right? So, yeah. Did you look into any of the real estate here at Comparative Real Estate at home? Because the Miami South Beach Real Estate or any Miami Real Estate is just like insane.

Yeah. It's so cool. I love whenever I go anywhere. I'm always driving by the real estate shops and

looking in very, very different. Yeah. The market, like the apartments and the houses,

Pricing is off the chain. It's off the charts. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, how's the market down there? Like it's it's reasonably priced. You got a lot of first-time home buyers over there. Yeah. So, my neighborhood, I mean, you can get into the neighborhood at $400,000 for a nice three-bed-to-bass town-home kind of situation. Sounds fantastic. Yeah. We go all the way up to, we have

gated communities with the pools, boat access, boat slips. Nice. So, yeah, multi-million dollar homes.

That's a real broad range. And so, master plan stuff, do you love living in the master plan areas or is it to plan and there's like too much H.O.A. stuff? Yeah. So, I moved from the heights, Houston Heights. Fresh is very, you can walk to bars and restaurants, there's bike trails. It's super fun. But, there was reasons why I moved to suburbs. I had a little girl and they have brand new schools in this master plan community. We have pools, lazy river, a couple of courts, dinner, you know, like,

everything. That's obviously one-premaster plan. Lazy river. Oh, yeah, seriously. Yeah. It feels like resort style living,

and I felt like that was going to be really good for my daughter. Yeah. That sounds childhood.

That sounds phenomenal. Yeah. And let's talk about that. Let's talk about your daughter. This is my entrepreneur's, right? Yeah. So, you're a single mother, right? But you also grew up in a single mother household in London, right? Again. But, you know, from your stories and from your success, you're like the super mom, right? And so, I mean, tell us kind of the journey of being a single mother. So, yeah, I run multiple businesses raising my daughter by myself. We, it's just her and I at the house.

Yeah. And she's not super helpful as far as, like, doing chores. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, she's seven.

“All right. Yeah. She's seven, seven. So, how is it to juggle a business and be a single mother?”

Have to be very organized. Yeah. So, we have a structure. I, I'm big on time-blocking time management.

I have to protect my piece as soon as I get home and I switch off or I try. Like, I have to be very mindful to spend time with my daughter and not take calls. You know, because my, my business is 24/7 around the clock. Gotcha. And I have not necessarily set those boundaries with clients where I'm, like, not available. So, I'll go in little stints. Like, I'll play with her. Because it's difficult because someone looking for a home, they get home from work and then they're available,

right? Yeah. And that's right. It's like the calling you had around dinner time or VPN. Yeah. And you're kind of like, well, it's not my work day anymore. Yeah. So, it must be really hard to kind of had, how do you balance that? Yeah. Sometimes it's difficult and it's been better since I now have my team, you know, to help. Nice. People want to go house shopping at the weekends. So, that is what I need to be available. And sometimes my daughter will need to come with me.

So, she's, she's learning a lot. Okay. My clients are very understanding of the fact that I'm a single mom and I wouldn't take her unless someone was okay with it. Yeah. Now, is she getting involved

“in handing out some pamphlets to the people or she kind of locked into the iPad?”

I said a bit of both. A bit of both. Maybe more of the iPad. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There's a lot of bribery. You know, we need to do one of mom's appointments and then I'll take you anywhere you want to go. Gotcha. Yeah. That's awesome. That's cool bribery. I scream after it. Yeah. Exactly. We need rewards. Yeah. I do too. So, I get it. Absolutely. And how do you reward yourself? Because you got to make time for yourself, right? You got to give yourself time, take yourself on dates,

probably. So, what's that look like? So, for a long time, I only did business business business. And I was neglecting, going to the gym, or going out with friends, or going on dates. So, now, I just really am very intentional with every hour of the day. So, I do, like I said, I time block and I get everything in that needs to. So, time blocking is not just business, but it's also your personal time. Yes. Yes. Mine, buddy, spirit. So, but you said you got to be organized. Like,

you are organized. Your calendar is like, bam, bam. Yes. My calendar. Yeah. I'm, yes. All right. Yes.

“And so, yeah, once again, when they're calling you at night, how do you not pick up that phone?”

I just feel like every phone can be a new sale, or you kind of know, do you let people know

I do pick up the phone. You know, I really do, like, if I happen to miss it, I'll call them back.

And I'll just, you know, I'll tell my daughter, I've always got one call to make. And then,

with the client unmanaging their expectation, I'm like texting them like, hey, I will call you back, but I'll only have, you know, 20 minutes to talk. And I think, as long as you're setting those expectations in, you know, road mapping, as you go, then I think it works. Yeah. So, some clients want to talk more than 20 minutes. It's like, hey, come look at the house on Saturday. I'll answer all your questions, but they just want to chat and chat. They, yes, absolutely. Of course.

“Yeah, yeah. People do some people. But yeah, you have to get very assertive. Make sure you're”

getting to the point, learn to be concise with the words and learn to kind of guide the conversation.

Uh, because I guess, like, for them, it's like the most important, you know, purchase that they'll make,

right, is their home. For sure. And so they want to, I guess, get to know the agent in the ins and outs. So, yeah, what you have in the house on Saturdays. Right. Yeah, I'm pretty schedule ahead of time. Right. So, I try not to have these calls where they're going to want to be on the phone for longer, come in when I'm not expecting it. So, I'm like, hey, I really want to give this the time. And, you know, this is really important to me. So, I want to make sure that we have enough time. Like,

what is better for you Monday afternoon or, you know, yeah, we're skidging out and advanced. So, no one's getting caught. And, because I'm not my best self when I'm answering the phone when I'm trying to feed my daughter and get the dog and, you know, and do a house thing. So, that you, you just have to figure that out. Uh, and so, kind of, what's the most, not, now you have a team, right? Uh, and it's different than being that solo real estate person, right? Yes, very.

So, uh, I guess what are the difficulties of now being in charge of a team? Managing people always

comes with challenges, there's different elements added into the mix. Everybody has their own stuff they're going through personally and then we've got all the different personalities. So, managing that, um, but I just think it's really important to like be very careful with who you hire and and kind of get to know them as much as you can, make sure the dynamic is going to fit your team. Yeah. So, if you do it over again, right? Uh, what would be the first hire? Uh,

would it be another agent or a back-end person? Um, and who did you hire for? I hired a transaction who would need to first because it's really important like the, the paperwork side of things

“compliance wise need to get a higher out the stuff you don't want to do, right?”

For sure. I'm a salesperson. So, I'm not into the contract. I'm, that's not where I want to spend any time. Yeah. You've had to figure out what you're good at and what you're bad at. And so, kind of delegate that those parts, yeah. Awesome. And then, what were the, the second two hours? The second two hires. Yeah. Agents definitely you want more revenue. You need sales. That's kind of the business grows. And then you're going to need, when you get to a certain point,

you're going to probably need a team assistant. So, that team assistant is going to know the ends and outs of all the deals, help tie everything together, make sure everybody's got everything they need when they're out on the road, fidgeting appointments, yeah. And again, just taking time, you know, the mundane tasks that someone who doesn't have a real estate license can do, taking those off of the salespeople is very, helps with efficiency. And so, how do you kind of

make yourself stand out in a crowd of markets? So, there's like, you know, all these residential compounds, right? And I'm sure there's a lot of real estate, it's kind of battling over the same style houses, right? And you've got to stand out somehow and you've got to reach your market somehow, right? How do you do that? I say our number one is consistency. So, we're in the neighborhood every single weekend. People are seeing our signs every Saturday, every

Sunday. Yeah. We put out market updates, we are in showcasing the latest businesses on social media, we're in the community, we're at the events, like, and we really, we've honed in on our specialist market area, and that is where, you know, we are working. Yeah. We live there, we work there.

“consistency. Exactly. Putting yourself out there. Yes. Do not be a secret agent.”

Yeah, no. That's a different, unless you're from London in 007, I mean, you guys are all about the supersede range. That's a different thing. So, yeah, you're also coaching, right? Coaching. Yeah. Tell us about that. Yeah. So, when I was going through a difficult time in my life, I found a coaching institute that really helped me, helped me to flip my mindset. And so, I got very

coaching certification. Okay. Got my license. Wow. That's very nice. On the mindset coach,

I can help people to, yeah, figure out what the goals are, get real clear on that, and help them kind of make their way to achieving their dreams. Absolutely. And a lot of single mothers, they need that kind of, that that's spark, right? It can be really sad being a single mother, because maybe a lot of single moms, they don't have that career, and they just need to change their mindset, right? So, what are the kind of things that moms or single moms or just business,

women that want to enter entrepreneurship? What can they do to kind of switch their mindset?

“So, first of all, you want to think about what it is that you want to do, right? You need to know”

where you're steering the ship? Yeah, manifest. But not just manifest, a lot of money, right?

Yeah. Well, you can, right? But if you have a direction and money, right? Yeah. And those manifest stations will be kind of more focused. Right. Like, when you're in a difficult situation, it's easy to, you know, or pour me kind of go into that victim mentality. Easy to play the victim. Easy to play the victim. You just need to flip that, let's get into the, you know, the survivor, the thriving mentality, flip the script, and I guess, you know, less judgment.

Let's not, you know, nothing's good or bad. It just is what it is and how do we, you know, get on to the next chapter? Yeah. I mean, single moms, they're dealing with a lot, right? Maybe they don't have that career. They're like, oh my god, am I going to love again? Now, I have a son or a daughter also. So no one's going to love me. And I had to find a career and maybe they're playing the victim. And it's all negative, negative, negative, negative, right? And so,

but if, if they set goals, right, kind of, they have to change their mindset. But it doesn't come

“easy. And that's when that's why they need coaches, right? Correct. Yeah. It's not easy. That's why”

people have trainers, right? Yes, exactly. And I would, for those people who are kind of spiraling and, and, you know, dwelling on their negativity, just take time to sit in the quiet. Like meditation is very key. Quite often you have all the answers within you. It's just unlocking that. So yeah, quiet time. And sitting in the quiet doesn't mean that you're a scrolling on you. No. No. No. No. No. Do I'm scrolling on you? That's not sitting in the quiet. That's also

take out your phone and kind of just like look internally and just kind of figure things out, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Reflecting and getting going within exactly. So I always ask everyone in the show,

like, what are you most excited about? Or maybe in your industry, or what are you got some projects cooking? What's going on? So we are most excited about the development in our neighborhood. I'm excited to grow my team, to take on more junior agents and help them to do well in the industry. I think there's help them as sale. I'll come to sell. There's a lot of people who have, you know, done things for a really long time. And that's great. But I also think they can sometimes be

a hindrance. Like, okay, even in real estate for 30 years, like times, times have changed a lot. So I think it also can be a great positive that you're like fresh in the industry, right? And you're coming in with all this technology and AI. And like, yeah, there's so much to look forward to.

“And I think adapting with the times is very important and utilizing systems and making your”

business as efficient as possible. And are you utilizing AI at all? I am. Yeah, very much. How are you using it? We use it for like listing descriptions, writing, marketing campaigns, social media, things like that. Yeah, it's very helpful. Any specialised real estate AI software that you're using or just the chat box? Not necessarily, yeah, I think mostly the the more well-known things, but I'm sure there's tons out there. Do you have any kind of prompting kind of advice or

ways that you kind of craft your prompt into the system? I think you just have to be very specific and make sure it understands what you're asking. So you're not getting generic information. You know, we need time specific. We need, you know, dollars specific. What kind of market we talking about? What kind of buyers are we talking about? We'll sell it. You know, it's just really

you? So people can find me on our website, which is www.hmteamcypress.com.

“All right, hmteamcypress.com. Cypress is CYPR-ESS. That's right. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, we got”

big Cypress down here in the Everglades, but that's a different one. That's different. Yeah, with

Cypress Texas. It's amazing. Check us out hmteamcypress.com. All right, perfect. Well, it's been a pleasure

“to have you here in the studios and on the podcast. And thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for”

having me. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah. And if you guys want to check out more information about

her story and her journey from London to the States. And yeah, just more about being a single

“mom, mom for Nora and hustling and winning the real estate game. Then yeah, please check out”

her episode when it is. But thank you for joining us, too. And we'll see you next time. Cheers, everyone.