A listing agent once picked Gloria's buyer over a higher all-cash offer, because her paperwork made the deal safe to trust. Twenty years of contracts will do that.
Gloria has spent more than 20 years in real estate. REOs, short sales, investors, flips, traditional resales: every deal type, every scenario, most of them many times over.
She built that career as a single mom, which meant her schedule had to hold space for her daughter and her clients on the same day. Real estate gave her that flexibility, along with the independence to build something on her own terms.
When she found Power a year ago, she recognized what she had been looking for: systems, structure, accountability. And above all of it, a team.
“You’re never by yourself,” Gloria says. “You’re never alone. We are a team no matter what office you’re a part of.”
She works the way she talks. In her first year at Power she closed 10 transactions in the LA market. And underneath the number sits the deeper asset: 20 years learning every form, every contract, every scenario this business can produce, and an obsession with teaching all of it.
Because she remembers being lost in the paperwork herself. Most new agents who wash out still wanted the career; what sank them was a stack of forms they signed without understanding.
Twenty Years, Every Form, Every Market
For the Mentor Program, we wanted teachers who had walked the whole road, through booms, crashes, and every deal type in between. Gloria has, and she kept the lessons from each one.
Her sharpest edge is the paperwork most agents memorize and move past. The RPA. The RIPA. The contingencies. What belongs in an offer for each type of financing and each type of purchase. Gloria understands those documents down to the why, and she explains them in plain language a brand-new agent can hold onto.
“I see how much new agents struggle,” Gloria says. “I want to make sure they know the process and understand the forms.”
New agents usually arrive with plenty of motivation. What Gloria adds is comprehension: knowing exactly what each clause commits your client to, and what it protects them from.
Her clients describe the result in their own words: “Great communication. Always over-explains. Knows the RPA and listing agreements. Always looking out for my best interest. Not just about making commission, it’s about doing what’s right.”
Heart plus technical depth is a rare combination. Gloria carries both.
She’s bilingual, English and Spanish, which lets her mentor agents across more of LA’s communities and help them serve a wider range of clients. And as a single mom, she built her career on consistency over heroics, which is exactly the career she teaches: flexible, forgiving, sustainable.
Her Honest Math on Rejection
Ask Gloria what agents need to understand about this business and she hands you the hard part first:
“Real estate is hard. You have to power through the rejections and failures in order to have the success.”
She means it literally. Sellers will pass on your offer. Buyers will choose another agent. Clients will get cold feet, escrows will crack, deals will die on the last day. Gloria has watched all of it happen across 20 years and kept prospecting the next morning. She’s clear about what separates the agents who last: they keep going after the rejection, and they treat each no as the price of the next yes.
The second half of her method is respect.
“Respect and communication is what is key to our relationship,” she says. “It costs nothing to be nice and respectful.”
Simple to say, harder to live. Being nice runs alongside being firm: Gloria stays direct, addresses mistakes immediately, and has the hard conversations, all of it delivered with respect. That professionalism is what other agents and clients remember about her, and it builds the kind of trust a 20-year career stands on.
How Does a Buyer Beat an All-Cash Offer?
Three skills carry Gloria’s business: writing offers, decoding contracts, and building relationships through genuine professionalism.
On offers, she treats the RPA as a tool. She knows the contingencies, what belongs in the contract for each financing and purchase type, and how to write terms that protect the buyer while giving the seller confidence the deal will close. That confidence is how her buyer won against a higher all-cash bid: the listing agent read her file and trusted her to close.
On contracts, she reads past the words to the consequences: what protects you, what protects the client, what happens when a deadline slips. Then she translates it so a new agent understands exactly what their signature commits them to.
On relationships, she builds genuine rapport with clients and with the agents across the table. Real estate stays a people business: you’re guiding someone through one of the biggest decisions of their life, and Gloria treats every file that way. The trust follows from consistency, respect, and putting the client’s interest ahead of her commission check.
Hard Conversations Happen by Phone
Mentoring with Gloria runs on directness, in both directions. She wants your honest read spoken to her directly: what’s working, what feels off, where you disagree. Hard conversations included, because the hard conversation is where the problem gets solved.
Mistakes get handled the same day, by phone. The live conversation, including the uncomfortable version, is the one that changes behavior, so that’s the one she has.
She’s also reachable: call, text, Google Meet, Slack, Huddle, whatever works for you. If she’s mid-appointment when you reach out, a text comes back fast.
And she asks for the same honesty she gives. Bring her feedback, good and bad; she takes it and uses it. Twenty years in, she’s still updating how she works.
Her energy is professional and grounded. Steady, real, there when you need her.
Your First Three Deals, With the Forms Decoded
Every new agent at Power starts with a mentor; it’s the foundation of the whole model. With Gloria, your first three deals look like this:
Field activities, twice a week minimum. Showings, open houses, negotiations, closings. You learn this business in the field: you watch Gloria build rapport with clients and with the agent on the other side, then you run the same play with her present, then on your own.
The 3-2-1 day. The daily rhythm that compounds:
- 3 hours of prospecting
- 2 hours of follow-through (following up with past leads, past clients, SOI)
- 1 hour of roleplay (practicing pitches, handling objections, running scripts)
Ninety days of that and it becomes automatic. By deal two it’s muscle memory.
Forms and contracts, her signature subject. Gloria walks you through what every document means: the RPA, the RIPA, the contingencies, what to include for each scenario, what protects the buyer, what gets an offer accepted. You’ll understand every page that carries your name.
The tools, used the way producers use them. How Gloria runs Follow Up Boss as a producing agent. RealScout for spotting deals before they hit the MLS. Shilo for reading what your own numbers are telling you.
Offers and negotiation, live. You watch her construct an offer: what goes in, what stays out, how she talks with the other agent, how she lands the yes. Then you write one with her beside you. Then you write your own.
Escrow and the hard conversations. Inspections surface problems. Appraisals come in low. Buyers wobble. Gloria shows you how a professional handles each one: calmly, by phone, with the next step already framed.
After three closed deals you graduate to full independence and standard splits, carrying the forms knowledge, the negotiation reps, the professionalism, and proof that the system works in your hands.
The Curve She Shortens
Gloria has been a leader her whole career, by choice long before it was a title.
“I see how much new agents struggle,” she says. “I want to make sure they know the process and understand the forms. I love seeing new agents grow and succeed.”
She remembers her own version: the confusion, paperwork that read like a foreign language, the rejections, the failed deals, the slow climb. Mentoring is how she hands the next agent a shorter, gentler version of that curve.
“I have years of experience,” Gloria says. “I understand the forms and process. I’m available for questions. If I don’t have an answer, I won’t guess, I’ll find out the correct answer. I’m always learning as well. I’m willing to take feedback, good and bad. Communication is key in this relationship.”
That’s her commitment: available, honest, and relentless about tracking down the correct answer every single time.
Year One Through Year Twenty
Gloria’s map of this career goes like this: year one is rejections, year two is learning, year three is the first real results, year five is understanding the game, year twenty is knowing it inside and out.
She’s at year twenty and still moving: still learning, still growing, still teaching. That’s the career she builds with her mentees. Real, sustainable, twenty-year success.
The nos will come, and some deals will fall apart on the way. Gloria has survived every version of both, and her job as your mentor is making sure each one leaves you sharper than it found you.
Learn the Paperwork Before It Costs You a Deal
Gloria built flexibility for her family, mastery of the contracts, and a 20-year career, and now she teaches all three. Join Power and you’re paired with a mentor who has already seen your exact scenario and knows the form for it.
The first step is a call to see how Power would work for your business, day by day, and get matched with the mentor who fits how you work. It is free.
Gloria Zelaya is a Power Mentor at our LA office. 20+ years in real estate, 1 year at Power, 10+ transactions closed in LA. Bilingual: English and Spanish. She mentors new agents through their first three deals, from prospect to close.
Want to learn more about the Power Mentor Program? Meet all our mentors.