Back To School Again
Before performing any actual real estate duties, new agents with the company were required to complete 4 weeks or so of training (I can’t recall the exact number of weeks, but 4 is close). This is actually a good thing since there is a lot to know about the job and as I mentioned previously, the material that was learned for the licensing exam has very little use in the real world of real estate.
I have heard of small companies that pretty much throw new agents on a desk and tell them to have at it, so I was glad there was some formal training available. I did not have to pay for the training and was a good thing, but there would be other opportunities to open my wallet in the near future.
The training was actually quite good and the primary instructor was a very effective and entertaining fellow. There were also guest instructions brought in to cover subjects like technology, forms (lot’s of paper in this job!) and legal matters. Overall, I would give the training program very high marks and I believe that some type of training program is a must for all new agents.
I felt like a lot of material was coming at me very fast and I was told that was normal. This type of thing is to be expected when taking on a new career, so I did not let it discourage me too much.
There were a pretty good bunch of new agents in the class as well. I’m not a big fan of classroom time, but for the most part, I actually enjoyed much of it. Getting to know some of the other agents a little was also a good experience. I suspect most of them are still working in real estate and did not make the mistake I did (more on that later) by deciding to try my hand at something I should have known was a lousy idea for me.
The only real hassle associated with the class was that it was in a location that was almost 2 hours from my house, so it was a rather long commute for a few weeks. The best thing about the location was that it was just around the corner from this rather off-the-beaten-path little Thai place I found that had some good deals on some very tasty lunch specials. I enjoyed more than one lunch in that establishment during my time in that area.
Another benefit of the training was that it served as a good wake-up call with regard to the realities of the job. I really didn’t have a good understanding of exactly what the job entailed before attending the class, and the more I learned, the more I realized that was not a job that was as easy as it looks.
There was a lot more work involved in being a real estate agent than I had imagined. This in itself was not a problem for me, so it was not like I was going into it looking for a “slacker” job. What attracted me most about the job was the independence. I liked the idea of being more in control of my own destiny and setting my own hours sounded pretty good to me as well!
Although it was a bit of an eye-opener to discover just how many things real estate agents are responsible for during the course of a transaction, it did not dampen my spirits at all at the time. I was still anxious to get out there and get started, despite the fact that I was starting to gain some understanding regarding the enormous amount of hassle that is associated with this job.
When I say “hassle,” I mean it in a way that is very specific to my personality. What I consider hassle might be considered a minor inconvenience by someone else. The fact that there are indeed many real estate agents out there doing this job every day strongly suggests that a lot of people don’t feel the same way I do and think it is a great job.
Although real estate was not something I ended up enjoying, I don’t want to provide a bleak picture to someone who may be considering a career in real estate. Personally, I hated it and found it to be incredibly boring. However, I worked with other agents who often talked about how much they loved the job and could not imagine themselves doing anything else.
I may sound negative regarding my experience with real estate but please realize that it was just my experience, and unless you are a lot like me, you might find that a career in real estate would be something you would enjoy a great deal.
In a future article, I will do my best to come at this whole real estate thing from a personality perspective and talk a little bit about my personality and why it was not a good match for someone who is intending to start a career as a real estate agent.
Coming Next: Excuse me? How Much Was That Again?
