Turning Real Estate Into a Paradise Lifestyle Game the “Mrs. Wrighthouse Way”

In this episode of Local Legends with Jess – Arizona Edition, Jessica Benevento sits down with Morgan Hawes, also known as Mrs. Wrighthouse, a dynamic force in Arizona real estate whose journey started at just 18.

What began as curiosity quickly turned into a passion. Morgan shares how real estate felt less like work and more like a game—one where she could create, transform, and design spaces that evolve with every phase of life. From living through her own remodels to constantly refining her home to match her growth, she brings a unique perspective on how real estate can truly shape your lifestyle.

Originally on a pre-med track at ASU, Morgan quickly realized that path wasn’t aligned. Instead of following a traditional route, she pivoted into real estate development and entrepreneurship—diving into hands-on projects, pitching investment ideas, and learning the business from the ground up.

This conversation is all about trusting your instincts, pivoting with purpose, and building a life and career that actually fits who you are.

These are the local legends shaping our communities.
Real stories, real talk, and powerful conversations.
Local Legends with Jess — where Arizona’s stories connect.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Local Legends with Jess, the Arizona Edition. I'm Jessica Benevento, your mortgage matchmaker, opening doors with ease and bringing you the stories behind Arizona's most inspiring people. From best-selling authors and elite athletes to business badasses making moves across the valley. These are the local legends shaping our communities. Get the inside scoop, real talk, and powerful conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Local Legends with Jess, where Arizona's stories connect. Welcome to Local Legends with Jess, and I am here with an amazing guest, Miss Morgan. Hi, I'm so excited. Thank you so much for saying yes. I know we only met once, but I really we met how long ago was that? Two months ago? I think so, yeah. Women who win. Maybe three now. Yeah. Women who win event, and we were looking for um a couple real estate badass women to go on a panel. And who who I think it was Maggie? Oh my gosh, yeah. Maggie was like, oh, my girl Morgan. So I was like, oh, cool. And then I started stalking you on social media. And I'm like, oh, she's she's a badass. And you walked in, and I'm a big energy person. You have so much great energy. I just I need to spotlight you. So thank you. I don't know. Usually, like I I listen to Harold Cern every once in a while. My husband busts my chat. He's like, if you want to be a really good podcaster, you need to know their background. I don't want to research. I want you to tell me your story. Like, how did you end up where you are and where are you right now in your career?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah. I'm 10, almost 11 years in. I got my license at 18 while I was going to ASU. I didn't think I was going to be doing real estate. I didn't even know a realtor was a job. I my parents and grandparents invested in real estate. They always hold held it and they did remodels. We always remodeled our own homes. So I was just always immersed in real estate, but didn't know it was a career path.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Um, my my parents and grandparents always bought like from the seller. So there never was a middle person.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

And it was very interesting to me. It felt like a game. It felt fun. Yeah. Um, and I really feel the energy of spaces that I'm in. Yeah. And so every house that I've personally bought and remodeled, I get to live a different life in each one of them. And it gets to fit whatever lifestyle or phase that I'm in. Even the current one that we're I bought four years ago, did a huge addition that took forever. COVID was in the middle of that. So that skewed all of it. Right. But we're still fine-tuning it and switching things now to fit the next phase that we're in, that the house still fits, but we can tweak a few things to just fit this next phase of growth. Right. Um, so real estate became so important to me. I went pre-med to Arizona State, got two months in, and I was like, fuck this. Right. I don't know if I can cuss up. Absolutely. I was like, fuck this. Like, I'm not interested in this at all. I remember going into my advisor's office, whatever they're called. Yeah. And two months in, they're like, how's everything going? And I'm like, I don't know. Like it's just the general classes. But I'm like, I'm just not fulfilling it, but I'm bored. Yeah. And then they're like, well, we need to start thinking about where you're going to go after this, where you're going to go to graduate school and what you're going to do for residency. And I was like, I just got here. Right. I still don't know. I just got through all the applications and all the things. Yeah. That's not what I'm looking forward to. And they're like, nope, we got to do this whole plan. We need to think about where you want to go for residency because that's going to be the whole game plan of what we're going to do to get you to graduate school. And I was like, hmm. I'm, I don't know about that. We'll think. I started ditching classes to go to real estate seminars. And that same year, Arizona state came out with their real estate development program. And I was like, hmm, that sounds interesting. So I switched to that in business entrepreneurship. And it was the best move I could have made. I was thrown into classes that you actually worked on case studies, some of them that we would go around the city and we'd actually find either lots or abandoned buildings or something. And we had to create an entire game plan and almost present it as a mock pitch to investors on why someone would invest in a property like that, how you would make it like the best best in-case property, pitch it out, talk about the different phases that it would have to grow in, how it would affect the economy. Um, and so you went through with your peers and they actually brought investors in and they would give real feedback on your ideas. And so I did that for four years. Um, but 18, that's when their real estate development programs, some of their classes also count for the real estate license. So I was like, oh, I'll get my real estate license. Got that, was living in the dorm, hated it. I had the worst experience ever. Really? Moved out pretty quickly. Was it a bad roommate or just the whole awful, awful, awful. I had it, I was in like the Sonoran dorms. They're so far away from everything anyway. And it looks like a prison. Right. I'm honest, they were kind of cool in a way. They had the huge courtyard. There were some interesting elements to it. But my freshman year was the year that they let way too many freshmen in. And so everything got overpiled. So we had um a room for four of us, and we were the only dorms that had like a good living room, which was kind of cool. But because it was overstuffed, they put two girls, they just wheeled in beds and put two girls in the living room. So there were six girls sharing one bathroom. They were all sorority girls. I'm not a sorority girl at all. Yep. And I was like, can't do it. I can't, I can't even see the countertop that used to be white. It's brown with makeup. And I'm like, I can't do this. So I ended up moving into a fraternity house. I mean, one of those, like, well, ASU doesn't have their fraternity houses anymore. But one of they just got a big house together, ended up moving there because I had friends and they let me have my own room. And I was like, I don't know how I talked them into doing that. And I would just leave. I wasn't really into the party scene until later in college. So I would just leave when things happened. I at least had my own room. They cooked, which was great. So I didn't have to do any of that. Um, but after that experience, I was like, the door and dorms are expensive. They're so it's they're shitty. They're so bad. Yeah. So at that, I was like, I'm I'm gonna buy my own place. I have a license. I'm going to partner with a real estate agent that I like, did a ton of research. They were the team that I joined and worked with for almost seven years.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Um, they also did infill development. So I was like, oh, this is perfect. I will do my transaction, I'll buy my first condo with you, learn it, and then I'll shadow you while I'm in school because I can't be full-time working with clients, but I want to learn the back end, and then I'm gonna do all of your free marketing for all of your infill development projects. And they did all the a huge amount of projects uh across Camelback Mountain, Paradise Valley was their main, and then Arcadia. And that's exactly where I wanted to be. So I was like, I will just let me show up. Let me show up to the investor meetings, let me do the marketing for you. I just want to soak it all up. Yeah. And so I did that. And when I graduated at 21, I felt so prepared to go full time. That's when I went full time, joined that team, stayed with them, um, became one of their like site advisors for projects. And that's when I took on my own client base. And I've been doing that full time ever since. Have jumped a few brokerages. Um, my now fiance and I opened our own brokerage last year. We're hiring on a few people. And then about four years ago, I also co-founded with four other women from the East Coast a company called Powerhouse Women. And that's a national real estate network where we all actually share advice and real world experiences. Um, all of these women run their business as a business, not just an agent. And so we can pool massive resources together to fit a different demographic. And so now I'm 10, almost 11 years in, and things have evolved and grown since. But it started from just putting myself into things and being like, please, yeah, let me let me market this. Let me sit on a meeting, let me be a fly in the wall and just doing it.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Just doing it. You said four years and you came out and worked right for you went right to that company. You were prepared. That was that you probably are the only person I've ever heard say that after four years of a degree, that you actually came out prepared. Because it's usually you come out and have no clue. I am an example. I literally came out with a psych degree and I'm like, wait a second, now I need a master's or a doctorate to actually even do anything that I wanted to do in this field that I was not prepared whatsoever. And that's like, unless it's specific, like, okay, I specifically want to be a teacher or, you know, but that's amazing to know that you experience that.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

It's super, especially for real estate. Yeah. You don't even, I mean, you don't even know. You don't know. Right. You don't need to go at all. I I think you should. I think it's a great social experiment, especially. I got a full ride, so I wasn't paying for anything. So I think that's even better. I I have a little bit of a different opinion if you're going to school and you're paying a lot of money for just a random degree.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I have different feelings about that. But I felt the real estate development program at ASU was amazing. They still have it? Yeah. Yeah. It's one of their best programs. It's grown. I I even go speak there sometimes. Like I really, really enjoyed it. It was very fun. And it was very, it was very case study ish. Like you kind of made it your own. Um, so at that time I was, I was kind of interested in like the work-live-play aspect of real estate. That's what I toyed with, where other people worked on like commercial ideas. And then when we're listening to everybody pitch it, you're like, oh, you you just wrap your brain in different ways. And you're like, wow, people can look at the same site and think of completely different things. Yeah. You can approach real estate and you can do it in very different ways. Like there is room for all of us to niche in our own unique way. And I think it's really cool to find out what that natural niche is for you. And so that's kind of what we started with our brokerage and with Powerhouse Women. It's more about who are you and what are your natural talents? What do you like and why are you in real estate? And let's figure out how to apply all of those things. Because if you can voice that and communicate to that to the right people, you're gonna have a nonstop flow of pipeline.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

You're going to be in your flow and you're going to enjoy everything that you're doing as well. Yeah. And you're going to attract the people that you want to attract. Yes. And you're going to weed away the people that don't want to, which is probably more important.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Totally. Now, how did you meet your fiance?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

We met on Bumble. Get out. Yeah. Okay. But we had weird, this is the invisible string theory. We could have met 10 years prior before us meeting. He was born and raised here. We both were in New York State. Yeah. Okay. Uh oh no, I wasn't born and raised. I've been here for over a decade. Um, born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, grew up in Washington, D.C. Okay. Moved to high school in Sedona, and then I'm here.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Um, he's born and raised like right up the road.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Um, but he's bun done a bunch of stuff, but we both were in real estate. Um, in fact, one of our lender, my very first lender when I bought my first condo at 19, I remember talking to him at like 17, and I was like, I know I'm not like I can't buy anything yet, but I eventually want to. What are the steps to make? Yeah. So he's he's my go one of my go-to lenders. Right. Um, and he knew DeAndre years before we ever met, and then he had known me for a decade. We met on Bumble. I was out of town the majority of the time. I got off of Bumble, but we had exchanged numbers. Then he was traveling, so we never could meet up. Finally, met up a week before I was leaving for a month-long trip to Bali. It was gonna be like my eat pray love kind of trip. I had gone through a really long divorce. I was very excited to just be on my own. And that was gonna be my stamp of like, I just get to go be free. I kind of was taking off a little bit of time for work. I was gonna come back and then just like hit the ground running. So we meet for that week, and then we never spent time apart. We were both in this fun, just like I love that. We're playful, like we we are children together. Yeah, we're we're adults together, but we are children together too.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Um, and we met, and literally all we did was like play sports, play games, watch movies, do all of the things. So awesome. And he dropped me off at the airport and I had to stop in Texas to meet a few clients for like a day, go to New York for the big like 36-hour trip to Bali.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Um, and as I'm like waiting in line, getting my ticket, I text him, I'm like, This is sad. Like we had stayed up all night talking. I was like, no sleep. Right. I was like, oh, this is sad. Like, we're both in this like fun phase of life where we're like, nah, we're not looking for anything serious. We were telling each other we're not looking for anything serious. We're like, a month is gonna go by. We're like, this is not anything. Like, this is sad. He makes a joke of like, should I just go home and like grab my diabetes bag? He's type one diabetic. He's like, should I just go grab that and like join you? And I was like, do it. Um, and he's like, Well, what like what flight are you on? And I send him my New York flight. There's one ticket left, and it's the exact seat next to me. Up he so he gets a ticket. By the time I land in Texas, he's like, I think I figured it out. He didn't have a vaccination cart, like, he didn't have anything to like in Bali. You need to figure things out with his doctors and his friends to make all of this work. He had to figure out how to push meetings and get everything because he's joining me for a month and he made that decision immediately. Um then so like 12 hours later, meets me in New York, and we go to Bali together. And that's basically that's kind of like a long first date just extended all the way through. My gosh. And we had the best time in the world. We will definitely be going, that's where we're gonna go get married, is amazing. We're gonna go back there. The first place we told each other we loved each other was there, it's gonna come full circle. Um isn't that insane? It's insane. But on that trip, our lender messaged us and was like, How are you two in Bali together? And I was like, How do you know him? And he's like, I've known him for years. Like, how do you know Morgan? He's like, I've known her for decades. I've helped her buy like four houses. It's like that is and we had a lot of friends that were like, we lived down the same street, like five minutes the straight shot. Like there were so many weird occurrences that were like, Yeah, and if I had seen him, like he is like my type to a T. If I had seen him like it, I would have known it. Right. I'm I wish we had like a little Apple tracker map to see for like 10 years, where were we that we were probably near each other and just never knew our worlds never collapsed.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, isn't that so wild? So, how long is that period of time from meeting to Bali? Um, a week.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

One week. Wait, really? One full week. And we spent the entire week together. Isn't that crazy? But it was just one week, and then like, let's do a month. And I was like, you know what? I've been planning this trip. If you are ruining my trip, you can go to the other side of the island because it's cheap enough. Exactly. We can have our trip and then we can take the flight back. That's fine. Yeah. Um, but every literally everything that could have gone wrong didn't, which was so cool. Maybe a sign. I don't know. I think we were just such in a phase of life that we were so almost brutally honest with each other that it made us closer. And I think that's helped our relationship a lot. We can have really we're willing and able to have really hard conversations. Awesome. And they actually get to resolve, even if it's over something really small.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

And it's been, I think it literally started from that first week of us just being brutally honest and then deciding, hey, let's take a trip and let's just like, well, we're living to it together for a month. We're dealing with all of the things. Get to know the person really, really well. And then we came back, he his lease was almost up, and he's like, Well, let's let's move in together. We combined businesses immediately, and we just ran with I love it. Yeah. Now, how long were you married? I was how long was your last relationship? I was with him for seven years. Okay. I met him when I was 19. Yep. Um, so met him in college. Um, our divorce took two years, so that took a while. Yeah. Um, but I was with him for seven. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I was with so it reminds me of like how my husband and I met, because I was with someone for like 14 years. Oh god. And we lived together and then broke up, and then I met my husband. He was visiting from Arizona to New Jersey, but same kind of thing made me think we lived in neighboring towns. We literally probably like if we had that apple, like probably past each other, probably were in the same grocery store at a bar, like crazy that forever never met.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

And same kind, like totally my type. And then when we met, that was it. I moved four months later. We did long distance for four months. Jersey and Arizona, I moved in with them. Everyone's like, You're nuts. I said, Well, I was with someone for 14 years and it didn't work out. Yeah. I might as well find out. You know what I mean? Totally.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

And it just that's it. I'm I'm definitely the type of person that I no matter what it is, business, whatever, relationships. I want, I'm I'm not the person that works in this like weird, I don't know, gray area where it's like, oh, I don't fully know how they feel about me. Right. I'll just keep going around along my life. Like, no, let's like, if you're gonna be part of my life, you're gonna be part of my life. Exactly. If I'm doing something with business, I'm not just like kind of doing something over here and kind of do it. No, I'm fully either all in. Right. And I think, especially with relationships, that's at least how I've always approached it. And and he matched that energy so much that I was like, oh my gosh, like this is amazing. And we have been able to go in a short amount of time so much further together.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

So cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Because we can align in that way, and it's so freaking powerful.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Yeah, that's awesome. So are you still in that phase? Like, are are you ready for a new phase?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

We are transitioning into a new phase for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

What's it feeling?

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Um we're transitioning into a really big growth phase.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

I think the majority of that is honestly stripping some things away.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

I think in our 20s, we uh were working really hard to throw everything, throwing spaghetti at the wall. What sticks? Let's start running with that more and just doing a lot of output, which I think is super important. Right. But now we're stripping away some of those things that we're like, those don't fully feel like us. These just don't quite make sense to where we want to go anymore. So maybe we put them on the back burner. Let's focus on like two or three main things and let's go really hard together at them and let's just focus on those. And we're this transition phase for like two ADHD people who love to live life to the max, do business to the max, hiring on agents, doing all the things, um, is definitely a transition phase of being like, okay, our our time management, our schedule is even more important.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

My biggest issue.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

But then I also hate routine and structure and schedule. So I'm with you. So that's the transition that we are in right now. Let me know how that goes. And we are feeling it. There are moments that I'm like, oh, I totally see how structure is good for you. And then there's others that I'm like, this sucks.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

I know. Why would anybody want this? Well, I feel like structure for people like us, because I I think it's that creative person, right? And we're creative people. That structure is I I to me that that feels like that's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, like I'm in school and I'm sitting there and I have to sit there and I listen and okay, yes. I have to raise my hand to you know what I mean, answer a question. That their almost like it's their term. Yeah, their terms, their schedule. Yes, yeah. It's really hard. And it's funny because I chat GBT the other day. I'm like, all right, I need I need somewhat of a schedule. I I need some of the same thing. Okay, and it and I read it to my husband. I said, I think I'm gonna print this out. This might be it. This might put down the phone at a certain time, be engaged with your family. Sure enough, even last night I had the phone out.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Fuck, I can't do it. Oh, yeah. Trying. We're we're working on it as well. Last night, we both one of our things is we always go to bed really late. Right. And and we don't need a ton of sleep, but honestly, we probably should get more sleep. And that's something that we want to work on. But we are we do not have a set bedtime, we do not have a set wake-up time. It totally depends on what we're doing or how that week looks or what our client base is. We we work with a lot of out-of-state clients, which means we work on our schedule a lot of the time, which is great. Um but it's just sometimes simple things like going to bed at a reasonable hour, right? Is for some reason the hardest thing in the world. Last night we were just like watching shows, we're talking, we're having a good time, and we're just like, we're like little kids, like sitting cross-legged, being like, What are you doing today? Like, what happened? Even though we spent the majority of the day, like let's just chat, which is awesome. Yeah, but then it's to the point that we're like, it's 1:30 in the morning. What are we doing? Yeah, we don't, we don't need this anymore. Like, let's go to sleep. And of course we wake up and we're like, we know better. Right. Why can't we do it all the time?

SPEAKER_01 20:57

I know.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Let me know how it works out. Print out your chat GBT thing. Maybe if it's a to me, I'm like, I read it, but then I already forgot it. So I feel like if we print it out, and it could give us a little guidance. We don't have to follow it completely, but maybe a little guidance. Yes, a little framework.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Framework. That's actually the something that I've been switching from just December, where I was like, okay, we're working on structure. And now I'm like, okay, we're having frameworks. Like that. Because you can flow and manipulate, and it felt less icky to me, I guess. Because when I was like, oh, we got to change the schedule around, I was like kicking myself to be like, oh, it's only been a month and I'm still I'm already changing the schedule and not like fully living to the plan. And now I'm like, that's not who I am. I know. That's not how our business is, that's not how our industry is.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

So there needs to be an element of structure, but there has to be flexibility in there too. And when I started kind of reframing that to me, I stopped making myself feel guilty, which was great. Yeah. But I don't have a solution for you either. So we'll we'll search. If I find one, I'll know. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

I appreciate you. Well, thank you for being on here. Tell me again, just before we wrap up, okay, you have a brokerage. Are you you're taking on we are taking on clients?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Your brokerage is called It's called the Order Real Estate Collection. Great. I love it. We're uh we're known for our little shield. Yes. Um, people call us Culty. That's exactly what we're going for. I love that. That's uh our bread and butter is Paradise Valley Arcadia, and it's more about we work, live, play, and invest in our area. That's what we're looking for with our agents as well. Okay. So we're not just selling houses, we're living that we're living in the houses, we're living the lifestyle. So we can speak to it in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Um, yeah. So we don't we don't want to get big, but we want to be small and mighty.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Okay. So you are looking for agents, though. We are looking for they have to be in that.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yes. Okay. They they can be in different areas, but the mindset has to be the same. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

And then the other your My National Network, that's Powerhouse Women, that's H A U S. Okay. Um, and that's real estate specific.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

And that's all female exclusive partners, and that's all across the nation. We have 55 partners now.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Um, so anybody in different states, if you they don't have their market, you can join us too.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

So cool. Well, thank you. Thank you for being on here. You're all see, you just you have an energy that is so just magnetic. So I appreciate you. But so do you.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

And that's why you can facilitate these conversations or like do the panel and you can make up questions on the whim, too.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I can't yeah, I can't plan anything. Clearly.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I'll try to framework it next week.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Well, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

And it's a wrap. Thanks, guys.