{"id":50541,"date":"2026-05-20T19:19:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T16:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/how-a-navy-veteran-is-building-a-harvard-style-network-for-military-buyers-and-agents\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T19:19:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T16:19:28","slug":"how-a-navy-veteran-is-building-a-harvard-style-network-for-military-buyers-and-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/how-a-navy-veteran-is-building-a-harvard-style-network-for-military-buyers-and-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Navy veteran is building a \u2018Harvard-style\u2019 network for military buyers and agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Military families navigating permanent change-of-station moves and veterans pursuing homeownership through VA<\/strong>-backed loans are increasingly turning to a new real estate network founded by a longtime Navy leader.<\/p>\n

Military Operated Real Estate (MORE)<\/strong> was started by Travis Winfield, a 24-year U.S. Navy<\/strong> leadership veteran, founder of California-based The Winfield Group Real Estate Team<\/strong> and author of the book \u201cMilitary Money & MORE.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE operates as both a training academy and a national referral network designed specifically for active-duty service members, veterans<\/a> and military families.<\/p>\n

The independent, broker-agnostic program officially launched publicly Dec. 8 after incorporating earlier in 2025.<\/p>\n

Since then, the organization has expanded rapidly \u2014 reaching nearly 100 certified agents<\/a> across 32 states and supporting roughly 140 military installations nationwide.<\/p>\n

Winfield told HousingWire<\/strong> that MORE was created to address a longstanding issue in the real estate industry; agents marketing themselves as military<\/a> specialists without having meaningful knowledge of military life or veterans\u2019 benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to have a military affiliation to walk in our front door,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat does that mean? You have to be a veteran or you have to be a military spouse or dependent who\u2019s lived the military life. So, what\u2019s the litmus test? You need to have been born while your parents were serving the military or be married to a service member while on active duty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did we set that standard? It\u2019s very simple. You don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to serve unless you\u2019ve served.\u201d<\/p>\n

That military-first requirement became one of the core foundations of MORE Academy, the organization\u2019s certification and education division.<\/p>\n

Agents seeking certification must complete an extensive curriculum, demonstrate military affiliation and provide documented experience working with veteran clients before gaining access to the MORE network.<\/p>\n

Winfield said the curriculum took nearly a year to develop and was intentionally designed to be more rigorous than many traditional industry certifications.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a very robust policy and network policies that all agents are required to sign, and a lot of it\u2019s built on ethics,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat\u2019s interesting is we tell every one of our agents that if you have a violation, an ethics violation, I\u2019m not going to kick you out of the network. We\u2019re going to create a board of your peers \u2014 just like in the military, and they\u2019re going to determine your fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat kind of model of where we\u2019re self-policing has created a culture where everybody just wants to be a part and help each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization operates under the slogan, \u201cExpect MORE from your agent,\u201d and is accredited through both the U.S. Department of Defense<\/strong> and the Department of Veterans Affairs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Beyond traditional real estate training<\/h2>\n

Winfield said the program goes beyond traditional sales education by training agents to become knowledgeable about military and veterans\u2019 benefits that may directly impact clients\u2019 financial decisions.<\/p>\n

He recalled one interaction with a disabled veteran family while still working in real estate production in southern California<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The family planned to sell their home to help cover college expenses for their son after rising interest rates made refinancing less attractive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at him and asked, \u2018You\u2019re a disabled veteran, right?\u2019 and he said yes,\u201d Winfield said. \u201cI told him that in California, your kids [can] go to any California state school for free. I kid you not, they literally started crying right in front of me and it gives me goosebumps to this day talking about this. Of course, they didn\u2019t sell their house and their kid went off to college. [The family] became raving fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winfield said moments like that reinforced his belief that military-focused agents should also serve as trusted resource guides for veterans and active-duty families.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that agents are already like therapists, we\u2019re counselors,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re all kinds of different people and wear different hats. Why can we not also be benefits experts? This is a piece of public information that they just were not aware of \u2014 but our agents can be that conduit for information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agents drawn to higher standards<\/h2>\n

Among the first agents to complete the MORE curriculum was Jeff Schnell, a veteran and agent with Dwell Real Estate Group<\/strong> in Wichita, Kansas.<\/p>\n

Schnell \u2014 who has spent decades working in real estate and VA lending \u2014 said he was initially drawn to Winfield\u2019s focus on serious education and military experience rather than marketing alone.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Winfield] was online in a support group for agents that cater to military, and he was just asking questions,\u201d said Schnell. \u201cThey were general education questions and I commented, then we went back and forth in several comments. It was very clear right away that he wasn\u2019t there to stir the pot. He was there to ask serious questions to promote and provoke thought within our niche part of the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schnell later became part of MORE\u2019s first testing cohort, known internally as Alpha Company, where agents evaluated and refined the curriculum before public launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just a basic type of certification,\u201d he said. \u201cYou actually have to pay attention, and you actually have to study. I have my broker\u2019s license, and I have several other certifications that were easily harder than my broker\u2019s license. This is one of the certifications that was harder to get than my broker\u2019s license. It\u2019s real education from a point of view of military first by military people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expanding the MORE ecosystem<\/h2>\n

Winfield said MORE ultimately aims to build a broader service array that includes advanced certifications for agents, lenders and property managers serving military clients.<\/p>\n

He emphasized that the organization sees itself primarily as an educational institution rather than simply another referral platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like going to Harvard,\u201d Winfield said. \u201cIf you graduate Harvard, you now become an alumni and you get access to this network and this alumni of people and all their benefits and resources. Same concept here \u2014 you go through our certification and once you graduate, you then get access to our network.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a client-facing brand that\u2019s here to market the agent and tell the consumer, \u2018You want to hire a more certified agent because they\u2019ve walked a mile in your shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

As MORE continues expanding nationwide, Winfield said the organization\u2019s mission remains centered on accountability and improving outcomes for military families during some of the most financially significant moments of their lives.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Military families navigating permanent change-of-station moves and veterans pursuing homeownership through VA-backed loans are increasingly turning to a new real estate network founded by a longtime Navy leader. Military Operated Real Estate (MORE) was started by Travis Winfield, a 24-year U.S. Navy leadership veteran, founder of California-based The Winfield Group Real Estate Team and author…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}