Kristen Lueck of Compass and the Andy Bovender Team joins the podcast to share how a decade-long career in content marketing and PR — including negotiating celebrity endorsement deals for brands like Diageo, Tabasco, and Post Cereals — became the unlikely foundation for a thriving real estate business in Wilmington, North Carolina. After renovating a beach home and building a personal property, Kristen earned her license just two weeks before being laid off from a healthcare tech company, giving her the runway to dive headfirst into real estate. She breaks down why Wilmington remains one of the country's best-kept secrets, despite being among the fastest-growing metros in North Carolina, and walks through the distinct personalities of the area's beach communities — from the luxury exclusivity of Figure 8 Island to the car-free simplicity of Bald Head Island to the approachable price points in Brunswick County.
The conversation also dives into the realities of investing in coastal real estate, where Kristen helps clients reverse-engineer the right property based on whether they want short-term vacation rentals, midterm rentals for travel nurses and Camp Lejeune military families, or downtown Wilmington ADUs. She shares why rental investing is never truly passive, how she builds long-term advisory relationships with clients, and why her most powerful marketing strategy isn't a shiny new channel — it's the un-sexy fundamentals: one-to-one agent outreach, authentic content, and showing up as a human first. Kristen and Jeff also unpack the compounding value of networking with agents across the country, both for referrals and for the cross-market education that makes you sharper in your own backyard.
Kristen Lueck | Wilmington NC Realtor
https://bovenderteam.com/agent/kristen-lueck
https://www.instagram.com/kristensellsthecoast/
Epic Agents Podcast
https://epicagentspodcast.com/
Produced by:
Jeff Hamm - SEO & Digital PR for Realtors
https://aidawerks.com/