Inspiring Conversations with Carly Zamani of zRE Group

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carly Zamani.

Hi Carly, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Carlsbad and spent many summers in Laguna Beach at my grandparents’ house, so Orange County has always been home base for me. Before real estate, I spent 21 years in restaurants — the last stretch running Las Brisas in Laguna Beach. People assume that’s an unrelated career, but it’s actually the best training I could have had. Restaurants teach you to handle five emergencies at once, read a room, keep your composure when someone’s unhappy, and understand that the whole thing runs on trust and follow-through. That’s real estate. It’s just a bigger check.

I got my license in 2017 and went all in. No slow ramp, no side hustle — I worked like the business depended on it, because it did. I earned the nickname “the hardest working agent in CA” the unglamorous way: answering the phone, showing up, doing the work nobody sees. I still do.

Today I’m the founder and broker/owner of zRE Group. We’re a full-service boutique brokerage with in-house lending, which means my clients don’t get handed off — I’m licensed as a broker in California and as a lender in 34 states, so I can sit on both sides of the transaction and keep it moving. That combination is rare, and it’s saved more than a few deals.

My territory covers most of California — San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Kern, Sacramento, Placer, Contra Costa, El Dorado. Most of my business is residential, but I also list land, commercial, mixed-use, and fixers. I like the hard ones.

The part I’m proudest of is that it’s a family operation. My husband Maxx is my partner in the business — he does loans and just got his real estate license. My sons Landen and Preston have grown up watching this thing get built from nothing. I’ve also built a team of agents I genuinely believe in, and getting to help them build their own businesses has become one of the most rewarding parts of the job.

I don’t think there was one big break. There was a decision, and then about nine years of not quitting.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not even a little bit.

My very first listing — the one you’re supposed to look back on fondly — my client passed away after we got a full-price offer. That was my introduction to this business. Not a closing, not a check. A funeral. I learned in my first few months that this job is not about houses, it’s about people at the most fragile moments of their lives, and that nothing is guaranteed until it’s recorded.

After that it was years of being kicked, rejected, used, and abused. I don’t have a softer way to say it and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. The hardest part wasn’t the clients — it was agents. People I worked alongside for years. I trained them, I shared my systems, my designs, my marketing, my ideas, my time, my leads. I was generous because that’s how I thought this was supposed to work. And then they took all of it and went to work for someone else. That one took me a long time to get over.

Coming from 21 years in restaurants, I already knew how to be treated badly and keep smiling. What I had to learn was how to stop absorbing it — how to build a business with standards and boundaries so that being kind wasn’t the same thing as being available for someone to use. I still give people everything I have. I’m just a lot more deliberate about who gets it.

That’s honestly why zRE Group exists. I didn’t start a brokerage because I wanted to run one. I started it because I wanted a place where clients get told the truth, agents get supported instead of used, and nobody has to earn basic respect. Everything I’ve built is a direct response to how I was treated on the way up.

Would I go back and skip all of it? No. Every one of those experiences is why my clients trust me now. I’ve been on the worst day of someone’s life with them. I know what it looks like. And I’m still here — which, in this business, is most of the answer.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
zRE Group is a full-service brokerage with in-house lending, based in Laguna Niguel and covering most of California — San Diego, LA, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Kern, Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, Contra Costa, El Dorado. The majority of our business is residential, but we also list vacant land, commercial, mixed-use, and fixers. I like the properties other agents pass on.

The thing that actually sets us apart is that I’m dual-licensed. I’m a broker in California and a licensed lender in 38 states. In most transactions the agent and the lender are two different companies who barely talk, and the client is the one who pays for that gap — in delays, in surprises three days before closing, in deals that fall apart over something someone should have caught in week one. When I’m on both sides of it, there is no handoff. I know what my buyer can actually qualify for before we write, and when something goes sideways in underwriting I hear about it the same hour. That combination is rare and it has saved deals that had no business closing.

The second thing is that we don’t outsource the work. zRE stages its own listings with our own inventory. I’m there on the load-in and the load-out, in shoe covers, moving furniture myself. We patch walls, we replace fixtures, we fix what’s tired before a single photo gets taken, and we come back after contingencies are removed and restore the home properly. Every property gets a written inventory, before-and-after photos, and a tracked marketing and activity record. Sellers get told exactly what we recommended, when, and what it cost. That level of documentation isn’t glamorous, but it’s why my files hold up and why my sellers never have to wonder what’s happening.

Brand-wise, what I’m proudest of is the reputation I built on purpose: the hardest working agent in California. That started as a joke about my hours and became the whole standard. I answer the phone. I show up. I do the unglamorous parts myself. Twenty-one years in restaurants taught me that hospitality isn’t a feeling, it’s a set of habits — and I run a brokerage the way I ran a dining room, which means the client’s experience is the product.

What I want readers to know: you don’t have to accept the version of this industry where you’re a transaction. Call me. I’ll tell you the truth about your house, your loan, and your timeline, even when it isn’t what you want to hear.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
Staying up on Christmas Eve to help my single mom wrap presents for my eight brothers and sisters. She was doing it alone. I got to be the one who stayed up with her — and honestly, being the person who’s still up late making sure everything’s handled is pretty much my whole personality now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.zregroup.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zcarly/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carly-zamani-9623781a/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/carly-zamani-laguna-niguel-3
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@hardestworkingagent.

Image Credits
Amy Nikki Photography- first image | Nathan Palmer- second image