CWIRED Ep 6 _ Connie Buna - Exploring the Path Less Travelled!

In this episode of CWIRED, the Canadian Women in Real Estate podcast, Jacquie sits down with Vancouver Realtor Connie Buna for a candid conversation about authenticity, representation, and building a real estate career on your own terms.

With nearly two decades in the industry, Connie is known not only as a successful Realtor and associate broker, but also as a leader and advocate for inclusion. As a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, she shares her perspective on navigating the real estate industry as a queer woman and why visibility and representation matter — for both professionals and the clients they serve.

Together, Jacquie and Connie discuss how identity shapes the client experience, the progress the industry has made toward inclusion, and the work that still needs to be done to ensure real estate is a space where everyone feels seen and supported.

And just to keep things interesting — when she’s not helping clients buy and sell homes across Metro Vancouver, Connie is also a musician who performs with the Vancouver funk band Queer As Funk.

This episode is part of our International Women’s Day series, celebrating the women helping shape the future of real estate in Canada.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So I would say that at this stage in my career, my whole brand is built around the fact that I'm a queer realtor. So that is my brand identity. That is, thank you. That is also without a doubt the uh the most um prominent community within my sphere of clients. Um and then I also have other, you know, like in like in most kind of real estate scenarios, I also have a fairly substantial um uh group of clientele that live in a certain area where I live, where I've built a a pretty strong reputation.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to the Canadian Women in Real Estate Foundation podcast. Sea Wired. This is where bold ideas, real talk, and inspiring women in real estate come together. If you're building a business, a legacy, or a life on your own terms, you're in the right place. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Seawire, the Canadian Women in Real Estate podcast that amplifies the voices of women across Canada and celebrates the many ways we lead, build, and shape the industry. I am your host today, Jackie McCarnan, the founder of the Canadian Women in Real Estate Foundation. It's also a super special time of year. We celebrated the uh International Women's Day last week, and it's a reminder of how powerful it is when women come together to share their stories and support each other and create space for more voices to be heard. We're incredibly lucky to have so many inspiring women involved in this community and in the and in the conversations that we're having here on the podcast. Today's guest is Vancouver Realtor and Associate Broker Connie Buna, a longtime industry leader who proves that real estate doesn't have to fit inside a traditional mold. With nearly two decades in the business, Connie has helped buyers and sellers across Metro Vancouver navigate the market with a mix of sharp expertise and genuine care. She's also been a leader behind the scenes in the industry, co-founding Keller Williams Realty Van Central, and helping grow it from a small group of agents into one of the region's largest brokerages. Along the way, she's served on professional standards and educational committees, helping shape the future of the profession. But Connie's impact goes well beyond real estate. She's also a proud advocate of the 2S LGBTQ community, a mom, and just to keep things interesting, a musician who performs with the Vancouver show band Queer as Funk. This part's really hard for me because I have to remember that I'm interviewing Connie about real estate and not about the band, because I am a huge fan of the band. Today we're talking about authenticity in business, representation in real estate, and what happens when you build a career in a way that actually reflects who you are. Connie, welcome to SeaWired. I'm really excited to have you here. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Awesome. Thank you so much, Jackie. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

So I'm gonna kick it right off because I know you are very, very busy. Um so tell me tell me about your journey in real estate or tell the listeners about your journey in real estate and and maybe um how your identity has shaped the way you work in this industry.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Awesome. Yes, thank you. So I started in real estate in 2008, uh into 2009, coming out of a professional career in corporate sales. So I worked for Bell Canada for a number of years in their business-to-business sales environment. And when I got into real estate, I would I I was I was quite naive. I I didn't really understand I didn't really um have a clear business plan. I didn't at that time regard myself as uh an entrepreneur. I I just thought I'm a great salesperson. Um, I've bought and sold real estate personally, um, with the help of a great realtor. And through that experience, I felt, you know, nothing that happened through the course of that experience was something I couldn't do. And so what would it look like if I if I gave this a try and I I ran my own business? And over the last um approaching 18 years, what I've learned is that um a lot of the ways in which I I think I told myself a story that I wasn't good at at something was rooted in um maybe a little bit of um maybe a little bit of fear, uh also maybe in a little bit of just um, you know, I didn't have a formal business background educationally, and so um I felt a little bit like an imposter.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Uh but certainly a lot about imposter syndrome here.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah. So over the last, you know, I would say over the last uh 12 years, um, I have really come into myself uh owning the identity uh of a business person and an entrepreneur. Um I give quite a bit of that credit to the business partners that I've had around me, my business advisors and my closest confidants who have continued to hold me accountable and push me into arenas that um maybe I I wouldn't have gone gone to um on my own. So it's been an awesome journey so far.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

We talk a lot here about mentorship and just how important it is, particularly when you're first starting out, to have somebody who's walked this road before because, like you just said, we are all so naive when we get into the business. We see we see bus ads for people who are just killing it, they're top 1%. I actually did a whole ad campaign saying I'm number two just because everybody says they're number one. But I just really I I mean talk about some of the mentorship you got earlier on in your career, maybe, uh, and how that shaped how you went move forward. Because just quickly, I think that we as particularly female realtors, we have a couple of ways we can go. There's the collaborative, fantastic, like work with everybody way, and then there's the competitive way, which that just never sat well with me. And I think that that that those formative years at the beginning are really what shapes you.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, I mean, at the beginning of my career, I you know, and now that I've had the experience of um owning and managing a brokerage for a decade, one of the things that I think was part of my naivety coming into this experience was the uh the idea that when you're coming into the real estate environment as a new agent, um, you're actually interviewing the brokerages and you're interviewing them to see if they're a nice fit for what you're looking for in terms of you know mentorship or support or training or access to other other things. And so I didn't really understand that. I went into those experiences being interviewed. Um long and short, again, because I was coming from such a structured sales environment, a corporate sales environment, um, I kind of brought that mindset with me. I started with a brokerage, Sutton at the time, um Sutton West Coast was a very, very reputable brand. And one of the things that really captured me, first of all, was the GM, Marilyn Hackett, at the time, who was a very, very um, I found her to be a very inspiring uh female leader and and really very captivating. She was really, really good at her job, which was recruiting. Um and she and she she really captured me on the idea that there was a structured training environment within the brokerage, which is something I poured into very heavily. So I was the kid that was in the office every day. I wore my pantsuit, because that's what I wore in in corporate land, um, and I sat in the bullpen and I attended whatever the training was that was happening that day, and then I would go into the bullpen and I literally would make phone calls from the from the phone book. Um that's super fun. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Cool, cool. So fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

And then I would host any open house that I could could get my hands on. So I would be in the bullpen to kind of be able to meet some of the other realtors in the office. And then if there were open house opportunities, like I was always the first one putting my hand up. And this was certainly well before the days of Slack channels and other group chats that promote these sorts of things. So you kind of had to be around the agents in order for them to see you and then think about you. Um, but I had a couple of agents particularly that really um supported me and uh and you know provided me with opportunities that I I did my very best to try to sort of take through with me in my in my business endeavors. So that was really formative for sure.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Yeah, I I also chose an agency or a brokerage where the managing broker was just amazing. And uh she's just been she's become one of my number one go-to mentors. The other day, she's not my managing broker anymore. I still text her all the time, how do you do this? Yes, right. Um last week we spoke to a woman, Tanya LaRose, who is uh she identifies as an indigenous real indigenous realtor in Saskatchewan. And one of the things she told us is that early in her career she did not use that identity at all in any of her um prospecting. And I'm just wondering, as a queer woman working in real estate, what have you experienced uh that you think people outside the industry or outside that lived experience might not see? Like what what does it mean for you to be honorable to your queer identity in your business?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah, I mean that that has definitely evolved quite a bit. Um so I would say that at this stage in my career, my whole brand is built around the fact that I'm a queer realtor. So that is my brand identity. That is, thank you. Um that is also um without a doubt the uh the most um prominent community within my sphere of clients. Um and then I also have other, you know, like in like in most kind of real estate scenarios, I also have a fairly substantial um uh group of clientele that live in a certain area where I live, where I've built a a pretty strong reputation. So I have a bunch of different ways that I'm building, let's say, um demographics of people or niches. And so that that's been really um wonderful, certainly at this stage. Early on in my career, I did not lead in that manner. Um I presented in a very different way. I would say I was uh, you know, I would definitely be, I have always in my demeanor and disposition been um someone that is not overly feminine presenting, but when I think about my early stages, you know, I had long hair, my first, my first photo shoot, I, you know, had makeup on. Like it is not the way that I would say I comfortably present today. But that's an evolution, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:49

I want to see those pictures.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah, I mean it's an evolution. I'm not, I'm not, I I'm proud of every stage uh uh of my growth and and in every way that I am. But I I I have learned through lived experience and also through expanding my relationships within Queer Community that I I am if if my authentic self is off-putting at this stage in my life, that's a wonderful barometer of like we're probably not gonna be a great fit, and there's lots of other people to choose from.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

I think that is so important, particularly for newer agents, to understand that we as realtors do not have to work with every person that we meet. There's there are often gonna be times when you meet somebody that you're like, I get I just uh like it just doesn't feel right. Um me, for example, I'm some might say sarcastic. I I I don't, but no, I I do. Um and sometimes that's quite off-putting, and I know and I try really hard not to to do that, but also I I recognize that if I'm slightly sarcastic with somebody and they don't understand the sarcasm that it might become an issue later, and then we I you know I so there are lots of lots of reasons why people like choose not to work with uh with us or we choose not to work with them, and I think a lot of times people when they're first new in the industry don't recognize that they can say no thank you. Right? Yeah. How do you how do you think um do you think have you seen we'll try it this way? Have you seen a difference in um acceptance of the LGBTQ plus community in real estate from the time you started to now?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Like is there a difference for you personally or I don't invite debate or discussion around my identity. So it doesn't it doesn't come up for me. Um do I observe and experience direct discrimination because of my identity? Not not that I have made been made aware of. Um, but again, I'm also not somebody that like I'm not looking out in the world for the people that are looking at me longer than normal, right? Like I just don't do that. I make eye contact with everyone, I'm a really friendly person, and if I don't immediately get like a warm feeling back or even just a polite acknowledgement, I literally won't look at you. Like I'm gonna keep walking. So I'm not so in within the real estate space and within my professional experience, um, I haven't experienced like direct discrimination per se. Um do I feel I've tr I am treated differently because I'm a woman? Absolutely, and 100%. I think that we have to work three times harder than average in order to be considered average. Um, and so even when you're excelling at the highest level, um you you're you're always sort of I I my experience is you're always brought down to sort of the base layer. Um and so yes, I have experienced that, I continue to experience that, I continue to observe those dynamics and within our industry, they exist. Um for sure.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, that's I mean, that's why I started this in the first place. I think people from the outside looking in, look at real estate, and don't think that there is any sort of gender gap, but there really is, and uh a big part of it revolves around invisible labor. So, you know, we women generally have a whole other job, oftentimes, that they're doing that their male counterparts maybe aren't doing or have a partner that does. And I'm not saying it's always that way, and I I really don't want anyone to think that I think that there aren't guys who just really step up because there are, I know that for sure. But but we do we do run into uh challenges that our male counterparts don't. That's absolutely for sure. Um one of the one of the things we want to do with this podcast is kind of amplify voices across Canada. And I think that you know, you you are living and working in a big city that has always been known for its acceptance more so than other cities in in Canada of this community, of the queer community. And I wonder if you would have anything to say to somebody, say, in a smaller town, like I don't know, Left Ridge, Alberta. I don't I'm just throwing it down.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, for sure. Um I would I the first thing that comes to mind for me is to um be mindful and and be aware of the ways in which queer identity intersects with the lived experiences of so many other people within a broader community that that can benefit from your experience, right? So when I say that I'm thinking about, for example, accessibility, I'm thinking about um, I'm thinking about sort of the different races of people, different cultural backgrounds. You know, again, I think that there's lots of ways in which uh that intersectionality can, from a business perspective, provide folks with a foundation of here are my ethics, these this is my values, this is what I believe in. You know, no, I don't exclusively work with queer people. Certainly not. I work with all kinds of people, and there's all kinds of people that love working with me. Um and so I think that that and that translates in it in in both the smallest communities in across the country to, you know, large municipalities like like Vancouver and Greater Vancouver.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Um it occurred to me, I don't when did Queerus Funk start?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

We are in our 13th season. So Queer's Funk started in 2013.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

So uh after you got into the real estate business?

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Yeah. Did you find that your, and I'm gonna say celebrity, you may not agree, but did you find that your celebrity um benefits your real estate business?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Only recently has that been sort of have I have I recognized that experience. Um and so that also I think pairs with the fact that my uh one of my business partners is also uh one of the the band leader, trumpet player in the band, and one of my dearest friends. So I think that I think that for many, many years I actually deliberately try to keep a separation between that. I didn't want to um impose that energy upon the band, and nor do I now, and nor do Allison or I. But it's become at this stage, we have some recognition, people are recognizing us, and then there's some overlap, and I think a lot because of it the two of us. Um, but you know, Jackie, I'll be honest with you, my counterpart on the stage is an absolutely gorgeous, very, very vibrant woman who gets a lot of attention. So I feel like often I meet people and they're like, oh my god, yeah, I saw your band. So tell me more about Jocelyn. She is they're like, Are you even in the band? You know, and I don't mind. I'm not mad about that.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I oh yeah, I just uh it's such a riot to be at one of your shows. It's just so like you feel it right in your soul. I just love it so much. Um uh what's coming up for the band?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Got some exciting stuff coming up. We are coming back to the queer at the uh Commodore Ballroom. Yeah, so on the 31st of July. So that will be the Friday of Vancouver Pride. We're kicking off Vancouver Pride at the Commodore Ballroom. Tickets are for sale are are on sale now, so um, you know, Jackie, we always say it's never too soon to plan your pride parties. Um, and this is a really nice, it's always an early show, so there are opportunities to go out and do late night parties if that's what you're into for a Pride party. But we're thrilled to be back on that stage. It feels like a great honor to uh perform where absolute art, our icons and legends uh perform and have performed and continue to perform. You know, Ani DeFranco will literally be playing. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, that's as I saw you. Also, my birthday is in a few days, and my sister is looking for a gift, so now I know what I'm gonna ask for.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

There you go. There you go. Yeah, so we've we've got that lined up, and then we also have a number of other events that we're scheduling, both through the Pride season and beyond. We, you know, we're gonna be doing some. We've been invited by the PE to play their uh community stage a number of times now. So we'll be back at the PE this year. We're gonna be playing a uh gig in North Vancouver. The North Vancouver community does an unbelievable job of their community programming for arts and culture. I live Van, I know. Yeah, so shout out North Van, you're doing a great job with the elevator.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

At the shipyards?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

I don't believe it's the shipyards is our venue.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

I think it's we're doing two, I think.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

We may or may not be at the shipyards, but we will be making a note about that. And then yeah, we've got we've got a number of other small community events, which are things that really warm our hearts. But you know, the small prides where you know these are these community events and this opportunity to gather in safe space is uh rare, few and far between, and I think very, very important. It's foundational, right? We're getting all kinds of ages together, elders, youngins, everyone in in between, uh, to really celebrate um the resilience of the queer communities within all of these places across BC. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

I love that so much, and I think it's also a really good thing for um agents across the country, women across the country to recognize that when you get involved with your community in a significant way or even in a smaller way, as long as you are giving back to your community, they're gonna remember you and they're gonna remember how you made them feel. I mean, that's when I when we were looking around for somebody to have on the podcast to represent the queer community, you're the only name that I came up with because of how you've made me feel over the years. So I just can't thank you enough for taking the time to talk to us today. And um I'm very excited to see the show in July. Yeah, it's gonna be great. Thanks so much, Connie. That's it for us. I'm uh I'm gonna let you get back to work. I know it's Monday, so you have tons of work to do. Um appreciate it, Jackie. Uh I will see you soon, I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

That sounds great. Happy birthday to you, and I look forward to seeing you sooner than July, certainly. Of course, yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Thanks. Thanks, take care.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Bye bye.