Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know how crazy the real estate market is. I got my license 12 years ago, four years after I bought my first house and became obsessed with new listings and what they sold for. I looked at new listings every single day once I closed on my first house. I helped friends find rentals and it was just a natural passion. I never had the intent or desire to go into real estate. The thought of being 100% commission scared the crap out of me. I didn’t believe in myself enough at that point.
What I now believe is, everything happens for a reason and if something is meant to be, the universe will join forces to make it so. I fought the idea of going into real estate tooth and nail even though it was constantly buzzing in the back of my mind. By default, I took the class after being laid off from a job and finding myself on unemployment – a truly humbling experience. While sending out resume after resume to what seemed like black hole after black hole, I attended the classes and passed the real estate exam, again, never with the intent to actually go into real estate. I was simply interested in the subject.
Shortly after I got my license, I was hired by a boutique investment bank that helped entrepreneur owner managers sell their companies for a large capital gain. The level of client service and attention to detail this company implemented was something I had never experienced. To put into perspective, a meeting agenda – a simple client facing document presented at the beginning of a client meeting – went through at least 10 iterations before being finalized just to be perfect for the client eyes.
While I learned an incredible amount during my tenure at this job, something was off. It didn’t feed my soul. No job I had had up to this point, really fed my soul. It always felt like something was missing.
During this time, my grandfather, whom I was incredibly close with, passed away. While he lived an incredible and fulfilled life, which brought me comfort, there was a palpable void and ache in my heart after he passed. I felt like I was just going through the motions, floating through and that nothing really mattered anymore.
Not too long after, I was in the copy room at my office and one of the owners of the company, Pete, approached me and asked how I was doing and mentioned that I didn’t seem like myself. I wasn’t. I looked at him and said, “Something’s missing.” He graciously offered me mentorship if I ever needed it. I marinated on his offer for the rest of the day. The following morning, I emailed him early knowing from experience he was up, taking him up on his proposition and met him for breakfast.
“Pete, I don’t want to do this forever.”
He responded without much surprise or pause and said, “No, you shouldn’t. You need to go work for yourself. You have all the attributes of an entrepreneur.”
“Yeah. Doing what, though?” I was lost.
He looked a little surprised that I even had to ask that question and said incredulously, “Real estate. You talk about it all the time.”
“Yeah, I’m not ready to do that”, I said succinctly.
“Well, you’re never going to be ready.”
“Yeah maybe. Do you mind if we keep this conversation between us?”
He laughed, almost maniacally, and said “Well, you just told me you didn’t want to work at my company anymore.”
The rest of the conversation was a blur because it had dawned on me, I had just inadvertently quit my job. Panic is the only word I can use to describe what I felt in the next 24 hours. All I could think was, “I can’t believe I’m here again”, which was almost two years after that dark period and humbling experience of sending resume after resume to black hole after black hole trying to make ends meet on unemployment.
Thankfully, my bosses, because they are incredibly kind, generous and supportive human beings, offered to pay my salary and benefits for the next couple of months while I got my feet underneath me in real estate. An act I will never not be grateful for.
I have coffee with Pete a few times a year and joke with him, that to do this day, I still don’t know if I quit or got fired. He always laughs and assures me I was not fired. I think?
I’ve had a few people mention to me they’re thinking of getting into real estate because of the flexible work schedule. To those people I say, “talk to me about your definition of flexible.”
What I have learned during my time practicing real estate and what I will tell anyone wanting to go into this profession, is it is both the easiest and hardest job I’ve ever had.
Easy, because I love it. Hard, because no one tells you the psychological toll it takes. The job itself and the shuffling of paperwork is the easy part. Getting close to clients and watching them fall in love, get disappointed, fall in love again, having their offers get denied or accepted and being in the trenches with them emotionally is absolutely grueling. You are on the phone with them at all hours of the day. This is not a 40 hour a week job. You truly have to love what you do to survive in real estate. There is a reason most agents don’t make it past their first year. It is an emotional rollercoaster and not for the faint of heart. Striking a work/life balance in this profession is incredibly difficult. When both dealing with someone’s largest financial asset and paying your bills and your livelihood is at stake, setting boundaries is not as cut and dried as you think it would be.
The surprising thing about this job is how much it feeds my soul. I’m not someone who is primarily motivated by money. I’d be lying if I said money doesn’t motivate me at all. At the end of the day, I have bills to pay, so of course money motivates me from that perspective. However, loving my job and helping my clients achieve homeownership or selling a huge part of their lives and becoming an integral part of that process, that is what drives me. There are clients that have become close friends and while being their realtor was probably a minor aspect in their lives, it was a major one in mine.
Also surprising is the close friendships I’ve grown with other real estate agents from both my company and other companies simply because other real estate agents are the only ones who know the unique dynamic of this career and the toll this job can take on you mentally and physically.
So, to those folks thinking they want to go into real estate – if money and “a flexible work schedule” are your primary motivations, I would look into a different career path. If you have a thick skin, are ok getting texts every 5 minutes while you’re out to dinner with friends or family on a Saturday night or maybe have to miss personal obligations, playing psychiatrist to clients who just lost out on their 5th offer while dealing with your own personal life challenges, then welcome aboard to crazy town.
What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? 