Building Central Texas: Megan Kiella finds her calling in home sales
By Janna Zepp | Photo by Justin Borja
Megan Kiella attended Texas A&M University in College Station to become a veterinarian. It never occurred to her that she might do anything else as a career. And then she met Scott Kiella, who was double majoring in finance and accounting.
“(Scott) wisely encouraged me to get a business minor, which I loved! I found it all so logical and tangible, so I shifted my focus and got my real estate license while finishing school,” she says.
They moved to Austin where Scott worked for a private equity firm, and Megan worked for Wells Fargo Bank. They enjoyed it, but ultimately knew they wanted to call Temple home and raise their family here.
“After visiting here while Scott and I were dating in college, I knew this is where I wanted to raise a family. We loved our years in Austin, but this felt like home immediately,” she says.
When they moved to Temple in 2013, Megan started working for the family business, Kiella Homebuilders, as a new home sales consultant. Scott’s parents, John and Suzanne Kiella, started Kiella Homebuilders 35 years ago. It started as a family company but grew rapidly over the years.
“It was my ultimate goal to manage our home building company, but first I needed to learn all aspects of the building business to best understand how to manage and empathize with people in each position,” Megan says. “Over the years I learned the sales processes, purchasing and estimating, design and plan development, and development until a few years ago I was named vice president. Every day brings a new challenge, a new joy and a new appreciation for what the building industry provides.”
Each of the Kiella children — Scott Kiella, Megan’s husband and president of Kiella Real Estate Group; Chris Kiella, chief financial officer; and Brooke Helmig, chief administrative officer — have moved back to Temple and are actively running various aspects of Kiella Real Estate Group.
“It’s fun working all together to grow our community. All of the Kiella siblings and their spouses attended Texas A&M, lived in Houston or Austin after college and then chose to make Temple home,” Megan says.
When asked what she loves most about her job, Megan says it is the people she works with every day, including the team at Kiella Homebuilders who work to build quality homes for the Central Texas community; their trade partners, many of which Kiella Homebuilders have worked with for decades, who actively seek the best labor and materials to build our homes; local lending institutions that help financially support their projects and assist their homebuyers with the mortgage on their new home; Realtors who trust them to provide clients with a beautiful home in a desirable location and continue to show Kiella homes to those interested in new construction.
Megan also lauds Jentry Davis and Marty Janczak of the Temple Area Builders Association who she says work diligently with local municipalities, governmental bodies and the Texas Association of Builders to keep housing affordable for the consumer.
“The biggest battle in our industry right now is just that — keeping housing affordable while we manage supply chain issues, rising material costs and a dwindling labor force,” Megan says. “Not only do these issues effect cost but they lengthen the build time.”
Megan also says that all local builders are facing these same challenges and they are all working together to actively manage the supply chain, support the youth interested in entering into the industry, and modify they way they do business to best serve homebuyers.
When asked what motivates her, she said that building a place for people to call home is what drives her.
“It is much more than a house — it is a place where people build and grow their families, make lasting memories and have that sense of comfort and place,” she says. “I emphasize daily the human aspect of everything we do and to never forget that we are building these homes for a person.”
Megan says that she and the staff think about that person when Kiella designs their floor plans and how that person might live in a space.
They think about that person when they are creating their sales processes to best serve them and make it easy to purchase a new home, and they celebrate that person when we help them to close on their new home.
“People are the most important part of our business, and they mean a lot to us,” she says.
Women in home building are few, according to Megan. She recommends that women interested in pursuing a career in home building find a mentor and ask lots of questions.
“Over the years I have found that the members of our local building industry love to share what they have learned, you just have to be willing to ask,” Megan says.
