About Kelsey Stommel | Sunrow Group

Our selves and our spaces are intertwined. We are influenced by the spaces in which we exist. Our homes are the most important places in our lives. They are a window into our souls. All you need to do is look around my house to see how I am feeling. The better I’m feeling, the better my space looks. And conversely, the better my space looks, the better I feel. A weight is lifted when I clear up the clutter in the corner. When the world is clean, organized, and beautiful, my soul feels the same. That’s why I love partnering with house buyers and sellers. I get to help them create a space that feels right. I don’t just sell houses, I make homes.

I have always loved houses. I was that dorky kid who asked their parents if we could stop at the open house we drove by on a Sunday afternoon. The kind of 12 year old that designs her dream house on a clunky desktop computer while hanging out with her bestie across the alley. I remember how cool it was to capture my ideas on what was then the new Microsoft paint app.

When my husband, Noah, and I decided we wanted to start a family, we wanted one of us to be able to work from home while parenting the kids. I’d already considered becoming a realtor, so the timing made sense. Plus, I’d been working in commercial real estate for several years already, so I had some general knowledge in the field.

I got my real estate license in October of 2016 while I continued my commercial real estate business. I figured I could start building my independent residential real estate business while I continued my day job and tried to get pregnant.

You know that saying where we make plans and God laughs? Yeah, he laughed. I was pregnant with Leo two weeks after I got my license. The pregnancy was rough and I could barely do my corporate job, much less build a new business in my spare time.  By the time Leo was born, I still hadn’t decided if the timing was right for me to take a chance on building a business with a new baby. The stability of my corporate job was very appealing, plus I loved my coworkers.

When there were only 3 weeks left in my maternity leave, I still hadn’t made a decision. We didn’t have childcare figured out; we’d tried to set up a nanny share, but the other family ended up making other plans. Then we talked to our financial planner, and he reminded us that we had equity in our house. While we were nervous about potentially going into debt, we could take out a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) as a security net and use it to pay bills if we needed to while I built my business. So, Noah and I took a leap of faith and I ended up doing some sort of combination between soaring and falling. Enough soaring, between the two of us, that we’ve been able to pay the bills (WITHOUT tapping into our HELOC), spend time with Leo, and help people with their #housesellinghomemaking.