Travis Winfield knows how to use economic weapons that most veterans never fire.
Even though homeownership is one of the most accessible ways to build wealth, only about 13 percent of eligible veterans take advantage of VA mortgage benefits, Winfield said.
Winfield, a 24-year Navy veteran, is the founder of Military Operated Real Estate (MORE), a certification and referral network of agents serving military families. The company opened to the public in December and has since grown to 105 authorized distributors in 35 states, covering 73 percent of the nation’s 215 military installations, Winfield said.
own part of it
For Winfield, the question of homeownership begins with what people actually need to survive.
“There are only a few things you have to have in life,” Winfield says. “We need food, we need shelter, and we need medical care.”
For those who have served, he said, that need comes with a set of tools that are rarely used. Winfield said less than 1 percent of Americans have ever volunteered for military service, but only about 13 percent of eligible veterans have taken advantage of VA home loan benefits, a gap Winfield believes is partly due to the military community’s own benefit literacy crisis.
This gap has real consequences. Mr. Winfield was unaware that California offers free state college tuition to dependents of disabled veterans, and described a prospective listing in which a disabled veteran was prepared to sell his home to help pay for his son’s college tuition. Once Winfield shared that information, the family didn’t have to sell.
That moment, he said, is why MORE trains its agents to serve as benefits experts alongside real estate professionals, not just to close deals but to help clients take advantage of the tools they already have.
“If you serve your country, you have a right to own a piece of it,” Winfield said, attributing the sentiment to words he heard others use.
Active military members also have access to extended capital gains forgiveness, which most buyers don’t take advantage of, Winfield said, but it’s one of many benefits available to military members that most people, like many agents, aren’t aware of.
“What if I told you there was a strategy where you could buy a house in every military post and make a million a night by the time you left the military,” Winfield said.
market gap
Winfield said the idea for MORE took shape about 10 years after he noticed a gap in trusted national brands being offered to military families.
“Name a national brand that you trust as a military member or military family when it comes to real estate,” Winfield said. “It doesn’t actually exist.”
Winfield cited Navy Federal Credit Union and USAA as examples of what that trust looks like in banking and insurance. These agencies own about 92 percent of the market share among military families in these categories because they are professional and speak the language of the community, he said. According to him, there is no equivalent in the real estate industry.
Part of the problem, Winfield said, is that military life involves a set of situations that most civilian personnel have never experienced. Mandated moves every two to three years, hidden overseas purchases, time zone differences that complicate communication, and financial decisions that often have to be made sooner than the market allows.
“You don’t know what a serve is until you actually hit it,” Winfield said.
raise standards
MORE requires proof of military affiliation, such as a DD-214, military ID, or documentation establishing dependent status, before agents can apply for certification. Agents then complete a 35-hour self-paced curriculum and must certify at least three VA loan transactions to earn MORE certification, Winfield said.
Winfield contrasted the criteria with the National Association of Realtors’ Military Relocation Professional certification, which does not require military service or a trading history.
“I’m not really okay with that,” Winfield said. “So we’re raising the bar.”
Winfield said the curriculum goes beyond transactional mechanics. Agents learn how the military pay structure works, how to navigate time zone differences with overseas customers, and how to facilitate invisible purchases, a common reality for families receiving orders overseas.
Built-in accountability
Certification is not a rubber stamp, Winfield said. Agents who violate MORE’s Ethics Policy are not subject to unilateral termination. They face a panel of their peers assembled through the military’s disciplinary process.
“We’re going to establish a committee of your colleagues, just like we do in the military, and they’re going to decide your fate, not me,” Winfield said.
MORE also incorporates a consumer-facing quality control component, Winfield said. After a transaction is completed, the company follows up directly with veterans and military families to ensure their experience meets the standards expected of MORE certified agents. This acts as a check on the network, independent of the transaction itself, he said.
Winfield said the dropout rate for agents who first went through the certification process was 50%. He described this as a feature rather than a flaw.
“This isn’t for everyone,” Winfield said. “We want to set a standard that military personnel will recognize us as the gold standard.”
His measure of success, he said, will be when agents who previously declined certification come back.
“That’s when agents who previously said no come knocking on my door,” Winfield said. “It’s like I had a client who wouldn’t hire me because I didn’t have a MORE certification.”
spouse and military
MORE has also built programs that target two groups that have been largely overlooked by the industry: military spouses and transitioning service members, Winfield said.
The MORE Ambassador Program licenses military spouses as referral agents in a single state and allows them to earn 25 percent of the commission on transactions they broker by connecting relocating family members with a MORE certified agent at their next station, Winfield said.
The program is built around structural issues, he said. That means unemployment rates for military spouses are five to seven times higher than the national average, driven by a relentless cycle of mobility that makes building a sustainable career nearly impossible.
“Who do you rely on for recommendations when you move from one location to another?” Winfield said. “Your spouses.”
The company also sponsors SkillBridge. The Pentagon program allows service members in their final three to six months of active duty to train with a civilian employer rather than serve on a mission. Through sponsorship with MORE, transitioning service members are integrated into real estate teams within the network and can build their businesses before being separated from the service, Winfield said.
Email Jesse Healy
