Spend five minutes with Yolanda Floyd and you’ll likely be sold. Not necessarily on a house she is showing you or her vision for staging a home you’re trying to sell, but you’ll be sold that the team lead for The Flourish Group at PWH Realty has what it takes to make any deal happen and work through any adversity you might encounter.

A proud Mexican-American and Bartow High graduate, Floyd is a mother to five children who leans on her firm faith in God and her own testimony of overcoming to see each client as a person with a story, not just a means to a transaction.    

“Just watching my parents work for us as hard as they did…we used to pick fruits and would travel from Michigan to Florida as migrants,” she recalls. “So I just feel like I adapt well in any situation for sure.”

Her journey to real estate started in early 2020 primarily out of necessity. She and her husband, Frankie, had just resigned from the church they planted, the pandemic lockdown had just started, she was pregnant with the couple’s daughter—and suddenly they were trying to figure out how to live on one part-time income.

Yolanda was selling health and beauty products as a consultant, and Frankie—who had past experience in the mortgage industry more than a decade earlier—said: “You sell hundreds of lipsticks, why can’t you sell a house?”

Yolanda didn’t have the confidence she would be able to make the jump, but with the help of her husband’s support, her kids cheering her on and the dear friendships they developed at a new church home, Grace City, she earned her real estate license at the end of 2020. In 2021, as a first year agent, she closed 24 deals, more than five times the national average for a rookie.

“As we were in the process of healing, Frankie and I wrote down on a marker board the number we want to make and this is what we want to give to the church, and God exceeded the number…and it’s a reminder to other people and can inspire them that God sees them.”

When it comes to seeing people who are ready to buy or sell a home, flexibility is one thing Yolanda is very intentional about. As a mother to four sons and a daughter she is always managing a calendar chalked full with sports, school activities and church functions.

“I think if you’re not flexible in real estate, you’re not gonna be a good agent,” she says. “People need to know that if they can be available at 7 o’clock, then you have to find a way for someone to be there.”

Yolanda considers herself a specialist of sorts for Bartow real estate, but she buys and sells across Central Florida, including commercial properties.

She credits her team at The Flourish Group—including her transaction coordinator, and sister, Joanna Angeles—for being an amazing group of collaborators whose sole focus is intently listening to clients to help make their dreams come true.

“I always want to find a way for them to get what they want as much as possible, while being honest and realistic throughout the process,” she says.

Yolanda’s Top Tips for Buyers in Today’s Market

1 – Have faith.

Know that God is ultimately in control of the entire process. There will be challenges along the way, but there is nothing that He cannot overcome.

2 – Seek wisdom.

Choose an experienced and insightful team who will lead you not only into what to do, but how to do it, and most importantly, why to do it.

3 – Find someone you trust.

Find an agent you can trust wholeheartedly. I would never advise a client to make a decision that I wouldn’t advise my own mother or sister to make. I have turned away deals that I could tell clients might one day regret.

What’s the difference between what being a real estate agent is really like and what you thought it was going to be like?

I would say it is a lot like ministry. I know I give God the credit a lot, but it’s because He deserves it; my story is that even though we lost everything and thought I would never be able to do ministry, this is a lot like ministry, taking care of my clients. I think that’s what really surprised me is I’m not just selling houses, I actually am making a difference in someone’s life.