On this podcast, Loves Park-area REALTOR® Natalie Mulhall discusses how her willingness to respond to an ask by Local Association Executive Conor Brown and Government Affairs Director Neeley Erickson led to her being elected to the Belvidere City Council. Mulhall shares her experience and her advice for REALTORS® who want to pursue public office.

Full Transcript:

Jeremy Goeckner: Hello, and welcome to the IR weekly podcast, keeping you up to date with all the latest news in the REALTOR® world. I’m Jeremy Goeckner, and on today’s episode, we have an absolutely fantastic guest for you, Natalie Mulhall.

But before we get to our conversation with her, there is a little bit of news to give you. Illinois REALTOR® Sandy Hamilton of RE/MAX Professionals in Springfield received a very unexpected Christmas gift. She was selected by the Sangamon County Republican Central Committee to complete the term of the recently resigned state representative, Mike Murphy, who stepped down from his 99th district seat in the Illinois House early last month to become the president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce. Hamilton begins her term this week when the Illinois General Assembly returns to Springfield for its Spring legislative session. She will be representing the southwest half of Springfield and most of Western Sangamon County until the November, 2022, elections. Hamilton’s real estate career spans 24 years. She specializes in commercial leasing, in sales, residential, and new construction. And, of course, she is a major investor in the REALTORS® Political Action Committee, or RPAC. When asked about this exciting new moment in her life, Sandy said, “I’m looking forward to this endeavor. It will enable me to work on addressing matters that I’m passionate about, which includes everything from property taxes to property management, to homelessness, to education. I think I’m pretty prepared for it.” Sandy, we, of course, are very, very proud of you as you enter into the public arena here. If you want to know any more about this story or a full writeup of it, you can find that on the Illinois REALTORS® blog at staging.illinoisrealtors.org.

But, of course, that is not the only political talk we are going to be engaging in today as we are so excited to welcome Natalie Mulhall to the podcast. Natalie is an Illinois REALTORS® member and a broker associate at Maurer Real Estate Group located in Loves Park, Illinois. Natalie and her husband, Tim, have lived in Belvidere, Illinois, for 23 years with their five sons. In 2021, Natalie was elected to represent Ward 2 as alderman on the Belvidere City Council. Natalie, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning.

Natalie Mulhall: Thank you so much for having me, Jeremy, I appreciate it. This is super cool to do. This is my first time doing this, so I’m excited.

Jeremy Goeckner: Nice. Well, hopefully not the last. We’re going to have some fun today so we can get you back, all right?

Natalie Mulhall: Right. Sounds good.

Jeremy Goeckner: All right, so we’re going to get to a lot here, but I want to start right at the beginning here. So please, tell me and our listeners, how did you actually get involved in real estate?

Natalie Mulhall: Well, I was a stay-at-home mom for 22 years, as you said, I have five sons, and it was always my goal when the boys were maybe in middle school or so that I should maybe go out and get a part-time job. So my youngest one was in middle school and I was thinking about what I could do, and I kind of thought of everything from even just going and working at Walmart, or did I want to do something more career related or part-time? And my husband said, “Why don’t you try real estate?” And I think I really just looked at him. I’m like, “Are you crazy? I don’t know anything about real estate.” I don’t know the slightest thing, other than we’ve bought one home in our life, and that’s it. But it kind of got my wheels turning, so I thought about it. And then the more I looked into it, the more I realized that it would probably be a really good fit for where I was at in my life. Which, real estate has allowed me to still have the freedom, because I still have boys in high school, so I don’t miss any of their games or their events or things like that, so it’s worked out really good. I wish I would’ve done it sooner.

Jeremy Goeckner: Absolutely. Well, that’s always a good message for our REALTOR® members there, get it sooner, people. So you do, though, you serve as this dual role, as you’ve now been elected to the Belvidere City Council as well. So what initially led to your interest in getting involved in local government?

Natalie Mulhall: Well, I’ve always been involved since I’ve moved to Belvidere back in, I think it was, 1998. The first committee that I joined in Belvidere was the Historical Preservation Committee. Tim and I lived in a house that was built in 1910, so I was a little interested in finding more out about it, and that’s how I kind of got hooked up with the historical commission here in Belvidere. So since then, I’ve just been a part of different committees and things within my own community, volunteering a lot, volunteers in Police Service, a bunch of different things. And actually, I have to give credit to my GAD, Neeley Erickson, and my CEO Conor Brown, who, in 2019, pulled me aside into Neeley’s office and said, “Hey, Natalie, we want to talk to you about something.” They said, “We want you to consider running for alderman in two years,” and they kind of explained to me why, and they said, “We think you’d be great at it.” I was not convinced at all, but I said, “I’ll think about it, and I’ll talk with Tim.” So, it was an ask, and I’m finding a reoccurring theme throughout my journey here of the past four years of being a REALTOR®; and it’s, when people ask, I’m listening, and I normally end up doing what is asked.

Jeremy Goeckner: That’s fantastic. And you just answered my next question of what led you to run. Obviously, the GADs. Let’s go Illinois REALTOR® GADs.

Natalie Mulhall: Absolutely, absolutely, yep.

Jeremy Goeckner: Yeah. Well, so you have been now through the primary and the election process, which, I’m sure anybody will say, is not a picnic, but it’s pretty great that you won here. So what would you say to someone who is mulling getting into that political process?

Natalie Mulhall: I would say, “Don’t be scared of it.” I don’t live in a huge city, but it’s 25,000 people. We have 10 alderman, we meet every single Monday night. To be honest, when they first asked me, I didn’t think that I would be smart enough to sit up there with those nine other people. But as I did my research and started the process, the more I talked to people and door knocked, I realized they need someone just like the rest of us to sit on there to carry the opinions of the people in your own community, so I kind of got over that really quickly. Of course, after they kept saying, “You can do this, you can do this. You are a fast learner. You study. You can do this.” So, I would just say, don’t be afraid and just try it. Go for it. You really don’t have anything to lose. The experience in itself, even if I hadn’t won, was so worth it. I would not give that up for anything.

Jeremy Goeckner: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I’m very interested here with the two paths that you provide here as the broker and as the alderman, to see if there’s any kind of insight one way or the other that helps from those two roles. So does being a broker associate help in your role in government, or does your role in government also advise you better in being your broker associate as well?

Natalie Mulhall: It helps both ways, back and forth. So certainly, when we have issues like impact fees, things like that, or ordinances regarding building, or anything like that, or even commercial industrial development, that’s all super important to our community, the growth. And being a REALTOR®, we probably understand smart growth better than the average person, so it really can play a huge part in it; and it’s really great to be able to educate the other councilmen and the mayor, if need be, on things that they may not be privy to when it comes to those issues. It’s really important that they have an idea of how housing affects the community, but to hear about it from a REALTOR® standpoint is even more beneficial. And I’d say, in reverse, being on the city council and learning about the ordinances and the things that a city requires in order for smart growth to happen, also can help you as a businessperson in your own real estate practice. So they really go hand in hand, they really do.

Jeremy Goeckner: Yeah, absolutely, and I can totally see that. That’s why, of course, we have GADs that encourage brokers and agents to run for office like that, because there’s such a fall over there. So, your involvement, though, with the local, state, national REALTOR® associations, has this helped you see the connection between REALTORS® and their communities even more starkly? I mean, you kind of said it right there, but just wanted to ask it directly that way.

Natalie Mulhall: Yeah, 100 percent. I don’t know that I was convinced of that before I started the process of even just running for alderman, and I’ve had a lot of meetings. Once I decided to run, I was constantly texting, calling, emailing, popping into Rockford Area REALTORS®, which the local association, and talking to Conor and Neeley and asking them endless questions. Everything about our tax bills to ordinances, to, hey, I hear this is coming up, what do you think about this? It really is so important, and they definitely go hand in hand, and I really hope that more REALTORS® will consider delving into that field because it can be an absolute, huge benefit, not just to the REALTOR® industry, but, honestly, to the community. We’re their property rights, and what better place to do that than within your own municipality?

Jeremy Goeckner: Yeah, absolutely. So, obviously, you’ve won one election here. Do you have any future aspirations you want to tell us about when it comes to elections?

Natalie Mulhall: Well, so this is a four-year term, so it’s pretty long. So it is a little bit hard to think that far down the road, but I would say, certainly, I’d be interested in running again. Beyond that, I don’t really know.

Jeremy Goeckner: That’s a good answer, that’s a good answer.

Natalie Mulhall: Yeah, I don’t know, but I’d be interested. We’ll see what happens as time goes by. I did earn some pretty thick skin through the course of the election. It was not easy, certainly, but it bothered me way less than I thought it did. So it doesn’t scare me to run, it doesn’t scare me to lose, it doesn’t scare me to, maybe, be on the end of some not-so-pleasant comments and things like that. It really doesn’t bother me at all. I won’t lose sleep over that, so I think as long as I am still being a benefit to my community and also doing a great job at being a REALTOR® and serving my association, I’d like to continue.

Jeremy Goeckner: That is, ooh, chef’s kiss answer there. And that’s what it’s all about, you’re right. It is about being of service and feeling that higher calling, isn’t it?

Natalie Mulhall: Oh, yes.

Jeremy Goeckner: Yeah, absolutely. Well, last question here I got for you. Obviously, at Illinois REALTORS®, RPAC is such a big part of what we do, and I just want to ask you a question here of, why do you think it is important to support RPAC?

Natalie Mulhall: Well, I have to say, I was not always a member of our RPAC committee. I was not always a major investor. And actually, to be honest, I became a major investor, again, because of an ask. Sue Miller asked me, and I said, “Sue, I don’t know if I can swing that.”

Jeremy Goeckner: Oh, yes, Sue Miller.

Natalie Mulhall: She said, “So what if you fail? So what?” So actually, to be honest, my first attempt, I did fail. I was just short of it, but it was a little bit harder year for me, but I’m proud to say now, I’m a major investor. I’ve met my goal. And being the beneficiary of those dollars that my REALTOR® colleagues give to support all the ventures that RPAC helps pay for, including getting local candidates elected, I can’t even express how thankful I am that the people I work with, my friends and my colleagues, contribute to that, because they really helped me during my election. Illinois REALTORS® was a force behind me sending out mailings that I was not even aware of. And I know who paid for those, it was my colleagues and my friends and the people that I work with every day, and others across the state that I don’t even know. That’s where that money directly comes from. If we can contribute in small ways, and every single penny counts, it’s going to help get REALTOR® party candidates in office, and that’s our goal. So I’m a huge supporter of that, I will always be a major investor. I’m happy to share my money with other REALTOR® party candidates so we can get more REALTORS® in any office. I think it’s a huge benefit.

Jeremy Goeckner: Natalie, this has just been so much fun talking here with you today. This has been an amazing conversation. I know all of our members are going to love it when they actually hear it. And I just, again, want to thank you for your time and for all that you do to advance the REALTOR® cause and the REALTOR® name out there. You are a great example for all of us.

Natalie Mulhall: Thank you, I appreciate it. It was a pleasure talking with you.

Jeremy Goeckner: That’s it for this week’s IR weekly podcast. Thank you all for listening, and, as always, give us a rating and a review on your podcast app of choice. And if you want any more content, simply search for Illinois REALTORS® on your favorite social media app. We will see you next week.