Rockstar Real Estate agent and recent House Hunters episode host Leland Ryea III sits in the Essex Town Rockstar Real Estate office.
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Rockstar Real Estate agent and recent House Hunters episode host Leland Ryea III sits in the Essex Town Rockstar Real Estate office.
MILTON — When real estate agent Leland Ryea III received an email asking if he wanted to host HGTV’s next “House Hunters” episode, he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it.
“It’s a lot of work, I was very busy at the time and I just didn’t know if I really wanted to be on TV,” Ryea told the Reporter.
After shooting the scenes throughout November for the April 13 episode, Ryea said he’s glad he agreed to be a host. He has since been invited to do more than one show, which Ryea is looking forward to.
“Once you start getting the feedback for how it went in comparison to maybe other episodes or to how other agents have done, and it went so well, there’s this level of motivation to continue,” Ryea said.
Ryea is relatively new to the real estate industry, starting in 2020, but his list of accolades caught the attention of Pie Town Productions when they were looking to shoot a new House Hunters episode in Vermont.
In his first year of real estate Ryea was named New England’s Rookie of the Year. Since then he’s continually performed in the top 5% of agents in the United States and was invited to be an international ambassador for the world’s largest real estate company.
Before his start to real estate Ryea was a U.S. Marine stationed in Japan, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and throughout Southeast Asia for the first five years of his adult life. There he served as an operator for a small team and as an instructor in close-quarters battle.
After his time with the Marines Ryea worked as a private investigator and started various businesses before joining Rockstar Real Estate as a partner with his sister Danielle Butler and owner Joe Villemaire.
Ryea is a born and raised Vermonter who now lives in Milton, which is also where his buyers featured in the House Hunters episode are from.
“When I first met them it was through Zillow,” he said. “As soon as we saw the first home we realized we lived near each other so we instantly had this connection. They have driven by my house many times, I have driven by their neighborhood many times.”
In the episode, titled “Vermont Vacation or Renovation,” Ryea and the two buyers Kaitlynn and Ian Donahue are looking for a second home to invest in on Lake Champlain.
The places they looked through aren’t as flashy as a Stowe mansion, which was the point of this episode.
“The show [points] out that owning a second home on the lake is obtainable for normal people, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it is,” Ryea said. “If you work hard enough you can do it.”
The Donahues are both very “normal people,” a big contrast to typical buyers who might collect butterflies and have a budget of $3 million, which Ryea said is another appealing piece of the episode.
“Working for South Burlington High school and an engineer,” Ryea said. “Young couple, normal life, kind of the American Dream.”
Written By
Kate Vanni | she/her/hers | Reporter | Contributor to Franklin County coverage of municipal meetings, schools, and local businesses through written and visual storytelling. Recent graduate of the University of Vermont. To reach me call (802)-448-0253 or email kvanni@orourkemediagroup.com
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