Wednesday, August 1, 2007

The Real Estate Dilemma: Feast or Famine

Feast or famine is the name of the game for anyone involved with the real estate business. Whether or not you are a loan officer, real estate agent, investor, appraiser, title officer, well, you get the picture. Here are some things I’ve learned over my 5 years in the real estate business.

During the droughts you have to believe you will have another transaction. Or you won’t.

During the good times you have to believe you will have a drought. Or you will be unprepared.

Save your money!!! Save your money but reward yourself. This business can be extremely draining both physically and emotionally. It can’t be all nose to the grindstone.

Never mail your bills till the check is in hand. Just trust me on this. For you loan guys, it can be until 3 days after the check is in hand.

Don’t forget the family. Or you won’t have one when you remember. Same goes with friends.

Remember why you chose this business. Yes, it has great income. But I’m not sure it’s worth it based solely on the money.
And isn’t it a funny thing? The market is supposedly down nationwide. Yet here in Olathe, Kansas our Keller Williams office has had a fantastic summer. For me? My business is up. Not astronomically. But up. Now if you think I’m bragging you need to know that when others are saying their business is great and yours isn’t, well, that’s just about the worst feeling on earth. I’ve been there, too.
Your thoughts on this are more than welcome.

3 comments:

Paul Shao said...

you write very well!! great advice!

Paul said...

How true!! I have been a realtor off and on for years here in GA. but my license is on hold right now.. every time I leave the business or take a break from it I miss it. Even though it was mostly a money loser, at least it felt like you had done something with your life...plus the tax write offs were good… and at least it was not so harsh being a security guard, telemarketer, or waiter with a college degree when one had real estate to be involved in...it sounds brutal, but I imagine that there are many, many realtors out there who are not quite making it, would leave it all if they could find a "real job", but there are not many out there in the post modern economy.. This is probably why there are so many realtors, so many overeducated people who can't find jobs...is that necessarily wrong??

Caleb Hart said...

I love this post because it is so true. I have a friend who has an MBA and he lost his job. He decided to try real estate out and see if he was good at it. He made really good money some months, and did poorly others, but he liked it. I've thought about doing real estate or life insurance as well, just to see if I could make some money. Thanks again for the post.
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