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 of the book “Military Money & MORE.”
MORE operates as both a training academy and a national referral network designed specifically for active-duty service members, veterans and military families.
The independent, broker-agnostic program officially launched publicly Dec. 8 after incorporating earlier in 2025.
Since then, the organization has expanded rapidly — reaching nearly 100 certified agents across 32 states and supporting roughly 140 military installations nationwide.
Winfield told HousingWire that MORE was created to address a longstanding issue in the real estate industry; agents marketing themselves as military specialists without having meaningful knowledge of military life or veterans’ benefits.
“You have to have a military affiliation to walk in our front door,” he said. “What does that mean? You have to be a veteran or you have to be a military spouse or dependent who’s lived the military life. So, what’s 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.
“Why did we set that standard? It’s very simple. You don’t know what it’s like to serve unless you’ve served.”
That military-first requirement became one of the core foundations of MORE Academy, the organization’s certification and education division.
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.
Winfield said the curriculum took nearly a year to develop and was intentionally designed to be more rigorous than many traditional industry certifications.
“We have a very robust policy and network policies that all agents are required to sign, and a lot of it’s built on ethics,” he said. “What’s interesting is we tell every one of our agents that if you have a violation, an ethics violation, I’m not going to kick you out of the network. We’re going to create a board of your peers — just like in the military, and they’re going to determine your fate.
“That kind of model of where we’re self-policing has created a culture where everybody just wants to be a part and help each other.”
The organization operates under the slogan, “Expect MORE from your agent,” and is accredited through both the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Beyond traditional real estate training
Winfield said the program goes beyond traditional sales education by training agents to become knowledgeable about military and veterans’ benefits that may directly impact clients’ financial decisions.
He recalled one interaction with a disabled veteran family while still working in real estate production in southern California.
The family planned to sell their home to help cover college expenses for their son after rising interest rates made refinancing less attractive.
“I looked at him and asked, ‘You’re a disabled veteran, right?’ and he said yes,” Winfield said. “I 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’t sell their house and their kid went off to college. [The family] became raving fans.”
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.
“We all know that agents are already like therapists, we’re counselors,” he said. “We’re 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 — but our agents can be that conduit for information.”
Agents drawn to higher standards
Among the first agents to complete the MORE curriculum was Jeff Schnell, a veteran and agent with Dwell Real Estate Group in Wichita, Kansas.
Schnell — who has spent decades working in real estate and VA lending — said he was initially drawn to Winfield’s focus on serious education and military experience rather than marketing alone.
“[Winfield] was online in a support group for agents that cater to military, and he was just asking questions,” said Schnell. “They 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’t there to stir the pot. He was there to ask serious questions to promote and provoke thought within our niche part of the industry.”
Schnell later became part of MORE’s first testing cohort, known internally as Alpha Company, where agents evaluated and refined the curriculum before public launch.
“It wasn’t just a basic type of certification,” he said. “You actually have to pay attention, and you actually have to study. I have my broker’s license, and I have several other certifications that were easily harder than my broker’s license. This is one of the certifications that was harder to get than my broker’s license. It’s real education from a point of view of military first by military people.”
Expanding the MORE ecosystem
Winfield said MORE ultimately aims to build a broader service array that includes advanced certifications for agents, lenders and property managers serving military clients.
He emphasized that the organization sees itself primarily as an educational institution rather than simply another referral platform.
“It’s kind of like going to Harvard,” Winfield said. “If 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 — you go through our certification and once you graduate, you then get access to our network.
“We’re a client-facing brand that’s here to market the agent and tell the consumer, ‘You want to hire a more certified agent because they’ve walked a mile in your shoes.”
As MORE continues expanding nationwide, Winfield said the organization’s mission remains centered on accountability and improving outcomes for military families during some of the most financially significant moments of their lives.
