“The year before I started in real estate was in the middle of the financial crisis, and the income filed on our tax returns was a little over $11k,” recalls Christa Proctor of Christa Proctor & Associates (powered by eXp). “My husband and I were Co-Senior Pastors of Impact Church in Roseville, and our salaries were dependent on donations from the congregation.” Christa and her husband knew something had to give if they were to continue feeding their family of six. With four daughters under the age of 13 and their two eldest daughters requiring special needs assistance, Don was working two jobs and the couple had one working vehicle to transport the children to three different schools. “I would taxi everyone around each day and work real estate between that and co-leading the church with Don,” Christa remembers. “I shared in all aspects of church leadership including preaching, teaching, and leadership development.”

 

Christa loved her time as a church leader and is grateful for the opportunity to follow in her parents’ footsteps. “Before we renamed it, my parents were Senior Pastors at Living Water Community Church, where I was dedicated as a baby and baptized at seven years old,” she says. “The church was 75 years old when we passed the baton (now The Father’s House Roseville), and we grew a diverse congregation.” She is grateful that many of the congregation under their leadership were from countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Iran, and Afghanistan. “We witnessed the first female from Iran in her ordination as a Senior Pastor,” she reflects quietly. “There’s actually a price on her head in Iran to this day.”

 

While Christa has maintained her strong faith, she’s quick to point out that she doesn’t use her business as a platform to convert people to Christianity. “I use my faith to help people succeed, whatever that looks like for them,” she explains. “When I am full of peace and trust, my clients experience less stress and more peace.” She continues that she doesn’t mention her faith in real estate conversations, but isn’t opposed to discussing it should a client bring it up. She remembers being a new real estate agent and leaning on her faith to give her the trust that she would succeed. “Because of my past career as a pastor I couldn’t prospect my friends and family ethically because I was their spiritual leader,” she says. “I had to get out and meet a lot of new people and approach them with the goal of discovering how I could best serve them.”

 

Christa admits her faith was tested when she first started out but at the same time, it was her saving grace in the form of her mentor, Brent Gove. “When I was a new agent I desperately needed finances and didn’t have the money to buy leads, but I got the best of the best coaching and training from Brent Gove,” she says gratefully. “God gave him to me, and he taught me everything I know about real estate.” She jokes that her success isn’t due to her being that good at what she did, but her desperation and drive to make it work. “Something had to change and I always remembered learning from Brent that you can’t have ‘commission breath’,” she laughs. “I had to consider my faith - literally what would Jesus do as my anchor.” Christa buckled down and got to work, hosting open houses week in and week out, rain or shine. She recalls the pep talks she’d have with herself when she was tired, “Even if it’s raining it’s a great day for an open house!”

 

Christa remembers a real estate class she took, where a couple of students questioned her decision to join a team with a mentor, thereby giving up part of her commission. “I told them I’d rather get 50% of something than 100% of nothing,” she says. “Still, I often felt like an imposter as a new agent at 40 years old.” By the end of her first year, she had sold 15 properties and capped in all opportunities, while the agents who caused her to doubt herself had each sold two properties. With a career volume of over $84 million and closing out last year at over $17.5 million, Christa has proven her mettle time and again, earning accolades like ICON Agent, Masters Club, and a feature right here in Real Producers. The accolades are a bonus because the real reward for Christa lies in helping people and providing for her family, and she says, “Helping others achieve their goals and employing others who can help me do that as well has allowed me to expand my business while remaining a constant presence for my family.”

 

Christa eventually became a coach for Brent’s team, and while she started her own team in 2020, she still values him as a dear friend and respected mentor. She has modeled her business after his, with the goal of helping her agents build their businesses rather than relying on them to build hers. “I want to help them create a life they deserve,” she explains. “Some people just want camaraderie, not everyone has the same motivation and that’s fine.” She says that at the end of the day she loves helping people gain freedom in their finances by providing a repeatable system that works for them. “If I’m on one side of a deal I still want to serve the agent on the other side to bring our clients a win-win,” she says thoughtfully. “We are in this for the same reason so why not enjoy the process?” Christa is grateful for the path that God has shown to her, saying, “The REALTOR® community here in Sacramento has been such a wonderful group of people to work with through the years, and I’m in awe at the caliber of people that we get to associate with in this region.”