New Hampshire Real Estate & Consumer Resources

Archive for the ‘Real Estate Career’ Category

There were two customers that were more instrumental than any others in my decision to quit the real estate business.

I was on ‘up time’ duty one morning in the office when one of the veteran agents approached me and asked me if I’d like to take over a customer for her. Apparently, with all the other business this other agent was dealing with at the time, she totally forgot that she had this customer flying in from Texas that day to do some intensive house-hunting. Ooooops!

Appreciating the chance to pick up some business I agreed to take care of this customer for her and I was provided with the customer’s information. I immediately attempted to call her on the phone but was only able to get her answering machine. It was quite possible that she had left for the airport already and I would have to try her on her cell phone later on to let her know about the change in plans.

As leads go, this was a pretty good one. There seemed to be little doubt this customer and her family would be leaving Texas to settle somewhere in our general vicinity. Her husband had a new job lined up and was ready to make the move.

When I was finally able to reach the customer on her cell phone later that day, she had already arrived in Boston and was in her rental car on the way to the hotel.

She was not too happy when she found out that she had been suddenly handed over to a new agent that she had never heard of or talked to. I managed to smooth things over with her and convince her that I would be able to provide her with all the assistance she needed.

By the time she showed up at the office the next morning, she seemed to have forgotten all about the fact that she was ticked off at the other agent for handing her over to me. She seemed like a nice, reasonable woman and I was under the impression that she would be pleasant to work with.

Accompanying her was her friend from New York who also seemed quite pleasant.

I had scoured the MLS listings the night before and lined up a bunch of homes and parcels of land to show her, so with listings in hand, we hit the road. We piled into my car and headed over to a nearby town to check out a few parcels. This particular town is notorious for being very rural and having many dirt road. After a number of miles on dusty dirt roads to check out these isolated parcels of land, she seemed to lose any interest she had in that particular town.

She had also expressed a particular interest in my home town which was a very good thing for me. Being a new agent, I was not terribly familiar with most of the towns we usually did business in. My adopted home town was a little outside our usual territory but it certainly was not unheard of to close a few deals there every year.

Being quite confident in my knowledge of my own area gave me a little extra measure of confidence, which was very welcome since it was a rather nerve-wracking experience at first. I had not been out with many customers and still feeling like I did not know what the hell I was doing contributed a great deal to my anxiety.

It was not long before I started feeling pretty comfortable with my new customer and her friend. They were pretty down-to-earth people and seemed genuinely nice, so it was easy to relax after a little small talk.

We drove around the area for a number of hours looking at homes and talking about the area. Although we were probably out for about five hours or so, it seemed like an eternity to me. Although it was nice to be able to relax a bit and get a better feel for what the job was all about, I can’t say that it was a fun or enjoyable experience for me.

At the end of the day’s searching, there were three homes that she seemed to have a real interest in. One a nicely-kept split-level that was located in the town that bordered the town where the real estate office was located and the other two where right here in my home town. The first was an old, large house located in a historic area of town that was at least 150 years old. Kind of interesting to visit, but I decided that I would never want a house this ‘historic’ of my very own.

The second was an immaculate contemporary style house not 5 minutes from my own home. When I say immaculate, I really mean it. Although this house was about 4 or 5 years old, you would have easily believed that this place was brand-new. The owners kept it absolutely spotless and very nicely furnished. It was also set on a very private lot on a quiet road. Now this was the kind of house I could get serious about if I happened to be in the market for a new place.

I knew that my customer was pretty impressed with this place and she seemed quite anxious to learn all that she could about it. Unfortunately, the listing agent ‘ despite being an old pro who was very well-known in the area ‘ had neglected to leave any information beyond the standard listing sheet at the house.

My customer had a lot of questions about the house I could not answer because the listing agent did not take the time or invest a little effort in creating a nice little packet of information to display on the property. Fortunately, the listing agent’s office was about 2 minutes up the road and I was able to call her on my cell phone and get her to agree to provide me with the information my customer wanted right away.

When we parted company for the day, my customer and I agreed to meet again the next afternoon at the first home we looked at which was the one located closer to the real estate office. Her husband was flying in from Texas the next day and would accompany her to look over the three homes she had selected as her ‘finalists.’

Much to my surprise, they met me right on time at the first house the next afternoon. I expected them to be late since I knew she had to pick her husband up at the airport in Boston and then drive over an hour to meet me at the house. Airline schedules and city traffic are well known for creating significant delays.

Fortunately, the husband seemed like a pretty decent guy and he seemed like he would be an easy person to deal with. All I needed was some real jackass to deal with on one of my first real estate deals, so it was a great relief to discover that I was dealing with a couple that seemed quite reasonable and pleasant to work with.

The first house really didn’t impress the husband very much and the she seemed just as happy as he was to leave it behind and set off for our next destination.

He seemed genuinely interested in the historic place. Being the kind of guy that likes ‘handy man’ projects, his wife expected him to have an interest in a place like this and it appeared to me that she was correct.

We explored pretty much every nook and cranny of the old place and the large attached barn. We even walked a few hundred feet out into the woods behind the place (dodging swampy areas and swatting mosquitoes) to see how far the property extended.

After our historic tour, we set out for the next and final house ‘ the immaculate contemporary that was very near to my own house.

Since we were a little early, we arrived to find that the current residents were still home. The usual procedure is for the listing agent to advise the owners to leave the house during the showing to avoid making the customers uncomfortable.

I went to the door and explained the situation and they told me they would be happy to leave a little early so we could go through the house. They also seemed like very nice people and even ended up meeting my customers and talking with them a little bit. It all seemed to be going too well.

Once the owners had left we gave the house and property a thorough going-over and I became even more convinced that they would be making an offer on the house.

They spent considerable time inside the house talking about which of their kids would get which bedroom and even taking some pictures with a digital camera and talking about knocking out a wall or two. If these were not signs that they were seriously interested in this house, I could not imagine what would be.

In my mind, this was practically a done deal.

There were still a few unanswered questions regarding the other two properties that they seemed to lack interest in, but they still expressed interest in getting those questions answered, so I took the time to make the phone calls and get the answers that they wanted.

I knew they were staying in the area for a few more days and I expected to be sitting in the office with them in a day or two writing up an offer. They told me they would be in touch sometime in the next day or two to let me know where things stood.

After two days, I began to wonder if something had gone wrong. I did not hear from them and wondered if I should make the effort to call them. Being the type of person who does not like to be too pushy (mostly because I hate people being pushy to me), I decided to wait another day or two and see if they get in touch with me.

That weekend, our real estate office was having their annual flea market. At this point I can’t recall which charitable organization it is that benefits from this event, but I’m sure it was a good cause so I agreed to show up and help move stuff around and do whatever else needed to be done for the event.

Some of the other agents who knew I was working with the couple from Texas asked me how it was going. I had expressed my confidence about a deal to some of the other agents, so I guess they were expecting to hear some good news.

A few hours into the flea market festivities, I was told that I had a phone call in the office.

Sure enough, it was my customers from Texas and they had some news for me.

It was the husband and he was on a cell phone. It sounded to me like they were in the car driving around at the time. I suspected they were on their way to the airport for their flight back to Texas.

He thanked me for all the assistance and informed me that they had decided that they wanted to settle in Massachusetts instead of New Hampshire and as a result, would no longer require my services.

He was as nice as someone could be when delivering that kind of message, but still it felt a bit like a slap in the face.

Make no mistake, I knew that was the nature of the business going into it and if I had been enjoying the job, I likely would have stuck with it. This new development, coupled with my growing dislike for the job was all I needed to make up my mind that this was not something I wanted to spend more of my time on.

Fortunately, other business ventures were beginning to show promise for me at the time and that made it even easier to walk away from my fledgling real estate career.

Within a couple of weeks I had made my decision to quit and informed the office manager of my intentions. She said she had never seen anyone so happy about quitting before and she even seemed a little entertained by it.

I left on very good terms and still think highly of the majority of people who work in that office.

Since I left, I have not had a single moment of regret. Thinking back on the experience, I am amazed that I was able to stick with it as long as I did, since it was truly a job I disliked a great deal.

As I have pointed out here in the past, it just wasn’t the right job for me, and I don’t miss it even a little.

[tags]real estate career[/tags]

Even though I did not see a great deal of action during my time spent as a real estate agent, the few customers I had dealt with were just a pain.

It seems like people were either cancelling their appointments, not showing up for appointments or changing their minds about that it was that they really wanted.

From what I observed, these things are all pretty normal in the real estate business. People buying or selling real estate can often be uncertain about what they really want and can change their minds frequently and that is probably quite normal when such big decisions are involved. A few examples from my brief time spent as a real estate agent:

All of the people I mention here didn’t really do anything wrong and I have no reason to think they are not perfectly nice, well-adjusted normal human beings. It isn’t difficult however, to feel somewhat put upon or perhaps even ‘used’ as a real estate agent since that is the nature of the business.

Alas, another area where I would not do so well.

I should also point out that never did I have a harsh word for any customer or potential customer or even any of the agents I worked with during my time as an agent. Sure, there were people I ran into that I did not care for much, and that’s a normal part of any job, or, life in general.

Overall, I was fortunate to have a very good group of agents in the office I worked in. Sure, as you would expect, there were some that I liked more than others and even two or three I really didn’t care for much at all, but I never had any bad experiences with anyone in the office.

My very first dealings with real customers was a bit of a turn-off. As luck would have it, they were interested in finding a rental unit. As you might suspect, an agent does not make much money with a rental deal, but they were my first customers and I was ready to do all I could for them.

The were a young couple ‘ married or engaged, I cannot recall which ‘ and I took them out on a cold winter morning. If I recall correctly, I had three properties to show them.

They were somewhat pressed for time since one of them had to head to work right after we viewed the properties. For whatever reason, they arrived in separate vehicles and insisted on each driving their own vehicle and following me. This wasn’t what I had envisioned but it all worked out reasonably well.

What bothered them about me right away was that they didn’t seem terrible friendly and even seemed a little disinterested in the whole process. They certainly did not strike me as being too enthusiastic about locating their new home. Maybe they had a fight that morning or something, who knows? Whatever the reason, it did not make me terribly comfortable.

I had initially talked to the woman on the phone after being given the lead from another one of the agents in the office after the woman had visited my website. Yeah, I know, go figure. Apparently, when she called the office initially, she did not ask for me by name and became ‘fair game’ for whoever was on duty at the time. Being a rental, the other agent probably did not have much interest and decided to offer the lead to me since the woman had called as a result of visiting my web page.

I had talked to her a few times on the telephone and she had seemed quite friendly and personable. I wondered what had happened to change her attitude between the time we talked on the phone and the time I met her in the office.

Despite my concerns about locating these properties in areas that were not terribly familiar to me, we pulled up in front of the first property without delay. That one turned out to be in pretty rough shape and not at all what they were looking for.

The second property was also easily located but that is where my luck ran out. The high-tech lock-box devices that are used these days usually work pretty well. Each agent has their own electronic keypad and code that is used to open the lock-boxes and obtain the key to the house.

On this particular cold winter day, the lock-box did not appear to be working as intended. After attaching the keypad and entering my code numerous times, the box refused to open. I could hear the little motor inside the unit and it sounded as if it were trying to do something but to no avail. It was either frozen shut from the cold, or not closed properly by the last person who has used it. If you are not careful, it was possible to jam the key in the little drawer as you were closing it and make it almost impossible to open again.

I called our office administrator on my cell phone to see if she, or someone else in the office, could offer any tips on opening the unruly device, but there really wasn’t anything else that I could do. I told the customers we would have to re-schedule since there was just no way to get into the place and being pressed for time, they could not hang around and wait to see if we could get someone from the listing office to come out with a key.

The customers has decided that they had seen enough that day and headed off to work. I was actually happy to see them go. It was good to be done with the stuck lock-box incident and since I was not all that fond of dealing with people who were so cheery, I rather hoped I did not see them again.

I heard from her a week or so later and she told me she had located a place and she thanked me for my help. Frankly, I was glad to be rid of her. Not a good sign.

Coming Next: Part 2??

From what I could gather during my short career, a real estate agents job is all about dealing with hassles. That, of course, may depend on what your definition of hassle is, and I am sure there are some real estate agents who would disagree with my statement.

Here’s what I am trying to say: The likelihood of something going wrong during the course of a real estate transaction is quite high. The very nature of the real estate business and the number of people that must be involved in a transaction create a great many opportunities for things to go wrong.

I heard a few horror stories from fellow agents during my time in the business and was present on more than one occasion when a nervous agent was bustling around the office in the midst of preparing for a closing or some other event related to a transaction.

There are always deadlines that have to be dealt with and a certain number of tasks that must be completed on schedule if you want things to go reasonably well. There is much juggling of schedules involving different people like home inspectors, attorneys, local government employees and contractors.

And here is where I ran into another big problem with a career as a real estate agent. You were so totally dependent on so many other people that had to do their jobs during the course of a transaction.

In other words, all it took was one unreasonable jackass in the mix to create major problems and disrupt the whole carefully-orchestrated chain of events that must be completed in order to keep everyone happy and be certain of a successful transaction.

It is the real estate agent’s job to keep in touch with all these involved parties, make sure everyone knows what they needs to know and make sure that whatever needs to get done actually gets done. Like almost anything in life, difficult or incompetent people will be encountered and they will do their very best to make everyone they deal with miserable.

I must admit to some amount of hesitation when I began to learn about all of these little details of the job while in the company-sponsored training, and in retrospect, I probably should have walked out and called it quits then and there.

However, when one has so successfully deluded oneself to the point of taking a real estate class, getting licensed and being hired to work in a real estate office, it takes a while to return from that particular ‘trip’ and root oneself firmly in reality once again.

Or to put it another way: What in the Hell was I thinking?

A job so fraught with hassle as this one was certainly not for me. Being a pretty independent-minded person, I really hated the idea of being so dependent on others in order for me to do my job.

The idea of spending time on the phone begging this one or that one to change their schedule or do me a special favor was not an appealing one. The little bit of this I actually had to do while working as an agent was not something I wanted to do again.

I was fortunate that I never had occasion to deal with any real morons, and I don’t think the outcome would have been very pleasant if I had, if you know what I mean.

I’m very much the ‘do it myself’ type of person and have difficulty putting myself in a position where I am dependent on someone else ‘ particularly some stranger I don’t know and have never met. This is not a good characteristic for a real estate agent.

It definitely pays to have good negotiation skills if you are planning a career in real estate. That’s pretty obvious when you think about working out deals for your customers, but also realize you have a lot of negotiation to do with other people you must work with as well. I was not blessed with these skills and that was just another nail in the coffin of my real estate career.

Coming Next: Thanks To The People Who Helped Me Decide To Quit

One of the duties of real estate agents in our office that I most dreaded was ‘Up Time,’ also known as ‘Floor Time.’ The enthusiastic instructor in my company-provided training even referred to it once as ‘Opportunity Time,’ and that can actually be true if the timing is right.

Up Time, to sum it up briefly, basically involved playing receptionist at the office. Blocks of time were assigned to each agent every month that involved sitting at the office front desk and dealing with potential customers who simply walk into the office or call on the telephone.

These blocks of time were usually three of four hours depending on the shift that was assigned.

Our office ‘ not being what you would call one of the busiest real estate offices in the world ‘ was often pretty quiet. As you might suspect, this can result in some extraordinarily boring shifts on the front desk. Thankfully, there was PC available at the front desk that probably saved my sanity by allowing me to access the Internet and learn more about marketing my web site while I passed the Up Time hours.

I usually ended up with 5 or 6 Up Time assignments each month and that was the norm for all the agents in the office. There was always much trading of Up Time slots as agents had to re-schedule their Up Time because of appointments with clients or family commitments.

Beyond the boredom, I found Up Time unpleasant because I discovered that I did not at all enjoy talking to customers who were calling the office. The vast majority of the time the calls were for other agents in the office which had to be forwarded to the agents extension or to their voicemail. I didn’t enjoy playing receptionist at all. To me it was just a pain in the ass.

I also discovered that I really didn’t even want to talk to the potential customers who called and did not ask to speak with a specific agent. This was the coveted ‘Up Call’ that meant the agent on duty was free to treat the caller as a potential customer and try to get them to set up an appointment or at least give you their phone number.

As with any dealings with the public, some of them were polite and courteous, some of them sounded a bit rude and others sounded just plain annoying or a bit clueless. I was finding out that I did not want to talk to these people. I wanted to pick up that phone and talk to these random voices on the other end of the line about as much as I wanted to slam my fingers in a car door.

Remember, I’m not much of a ‘people person’ and I was starkly reminded of this when I started talking to these people. What I really wanted to do was to tell them to call someone who actually wants to talk to them about whatever real estate needs they happen to have ‘ real or imagined. Yes, some of them did make me wonder.

It was becoming clear to me that my only passion I had for the real estate business was getting as far away from it as I could. I was beginning to realize what a huge mistake I had made and it was more and more obvious to me that this was a job I could never love.

Perhaps more accurately, never tolerate.

I was beginning to wonder how the heck I was going to extract myself from this mess. I kept telling myself it would get better. Much of the anxiety I was experiencing was due to the fact that I felt like I did not have the know-how or experience to do the job when a real live lead presented itself.

I was trying to convince myself that once I got the hang of this job, I would feel a lot better about it and maybe even enjoy it. As I gained a little experience and spent some time working with a few customers, I did become more relaxed and confident but I was also finding out that my tolerance for the job was not trending upward.

The more I learned about the job, the more one glaring fact became evident. This job was just one massive hassle wrapped in a pleasant-sounding name like ‘Real Estate Agent.’

As far as I could tell, that is what a real estate agent’s job is all about: hassle! Having a rather low tolerance for almost any and all hassles that come along in life as a rule, this was another glaring incompatibility between real estate and myself.

Think about it. Have you ever heard of any real estate transaction that ever went completely smoothly with no problems popping up during the course of rhe transaction?

I didn’t think so.

Next: Real Estate Agent or Hassle Hunter?

In general, the fact that I am not much of a ‘people person’ was a major contributor to my decision to give up on real estate as a career choice. I was foolish to think I could transform myself into someone who would be happy out working with all types of people, buying and selling real estate.

I did, however, enter into it with my own plan and thought I could do things ‘my way’ and eliminate, or perhaps simply minimize some portions of the job that did not particularly appeal to me.

My company-provided real estate training was very pro-Internet, and that was all well and good since I did have a background working with computers and the Internet. I did not have much experience actually designing and building web sites but I was confident I could pick that up pretty quickly and come up with a reasonably decent real estate site.

I had heard so many positive things about real estate and the Internet from my training and other information I was researching on the Internet that I had become convinced that all I needed to do was put together a decent web site and the business would come to me like magic. You know, ‘build it and they will come.’

Perhaps that would have been the case if I had stuck with it, but at the time I did not realize that it would take a considerable amount of time for my web site to become established and attract any meaningful number of visitors. I had never tried promoting anything on the Internet, so I was completely unfamiliar with side of things.

There were a few visitors to my site each day and I even had an inquiry now and then, although nothing that turned into a bona fide lead. I buried myself in working on my site and kept hoping that I could stick to my plan and avoid the more traditional methods of attracting business like hanging around the office to pick up on walk-ins or some business one of the more experienced agents did not have the time or inclination to deal with.

My intense dislike for office environments kept me away most of the time and I spent time in the office only when I had to. For meetings and my scheduled ‘up time,’ and that was about it. That probably had my manager wondering why she bothered to assign a desk and a phone for me.

As I have mentioned earlier, one of the aspects of a real estate career that attracted me to it was the independence, and a big part of that independence was the option to spend most of my time working at home. After all, with cell phones, pagers, faxes and e-mail, why would one need to spend lots of time in the office? That was my mindset at the time.

I guess I’ll never know if any real success was possible as an ‘Internet Real Estate Agent,’ but I suspect with time, it may have worked out. It isn’t anything that keeps me awake at night since it eventually became clear to me that working as a real estate agent in any capacity was not something I would be happy doing.

Coming Next: Up Time ‘ It Always Got Me Down

The reason I decided to end my real estate career was because it turned out to be a job that I hated. There were many things I hated about it once I got a good feel for what the job was really all about, and having come out of 20+ years of another job I didn’t care for very much, I surely wasn’t too crazy about the idea of becoming trapped in another job that I did not care for.

Initially, it seemed like it would be a pretty “cool” job. You know, get out of bed at 9:00, go show a few houses to some customers, maybe attend a closing and collect a check and be home by 3:00 p.m.

I admit I exaggerate a bit here, but it did seem to me at the time like it could be a fun job, and for many people I suspect it is. Alas, that was not the case for me.

First and foremost, it really helps to be a “people person” in a career like real estate. That’s probably pretty obvious since you must go out and deal with people in order to make any money at all.

As you might have suspected by now, I do not consider myself a “people person.” I should probably try try to expand on that a bit since some of you may be picturing some grouchy old character that should be out in the middle of nowhere living in a run-down shack with no electricity or running water.

That’s not quite the case. However, I am not a person who requires a lot of social interaction. I can be as pleasant and approachable as the next guy, but in most cases I’d just rather be at home doing the things I like to do. That’s a statement a lot of people can probably relate to on the surface, so further explanation is in order.

When I was still working in the high-tech industry there were certain jobs that the company was allowing employees to do from home. It involved providing customer support over the telephone. I had wanted to work from home for as long as I could remember, but not only was the job a bit outside my experience, the idea of doing telephone support all day sounded like a nightmare to me. I had occasions to do phone support during my years on the job and absolutely hated it. I found it very frustrating to be unable to put my hands on something and just fix it and providing instructions over the phone — often to people who did not seem qualified to even sit in front of a computer — was not something I enjoyed doing at all.

There was one fellow I knew who went ahead and decided to go try out the new work-at-home program and was accepted. I was talking one day with one of the other guys that worked in the same department with the fellow that had taken the work-at-home job and we started talking about the program.

I was astonished to hear him say that he would never want a work-at-home job like that because he could not stand being at home all day and that he would feel like he was always at work since his workplace was his home.

To me this was like telling me that you would not want to win the lottery because you could not put up with all that money laying around. His feelings about working at home were the complete opposite of mine. I would have been overjoyed to be given the opportunity to do my job from home and give up that tedious commute every weekday. I thought he was crazy, but in reality he just enjoyed getting away from home and interacting with other people. He is the type of person that needs to get out of his house and feel like he is doing something — a “real” job I suppose you might say.

My feelings could not be any more different. I dreamed of starting my own business and working at home and hoped to make it a reality some day. As I have said, I hate reporting to an office every day, attending meetings and working to put another Mercedes in some CEO’s garage. Been there. Done that. Hated it.
Fortunately for me, circumstances allowed me to leave real estate once I got a good dose of it. Spending so much time working on my real estate web page, I had discovered some opportunities that involved Internet-based businesses that I had known about for a long time but never paid much attention to. That quickly changed and I went to work on something new.
Since the only aspect of my real estate career I was actually enjoying (and wanting to spend all my time on!) was working on my web site, an Internet-based business seemed like a natural fit for me. Around the time I had decided to quit real estate the new business was actually bringing in a fairly steady income and because of that, I felt comfortable walking away from real estate and focusing full-time on my new career — one that I actually loved doing.

These days I work from home 100% of the time and I absolutely love it. I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t think about how fortunate I feel to be able to do this. The idea of spending time in some cubicle or office anytime again makes me cringe. Sure, I spend an awful lot of time here in my home office, but for me it’s a completely different situation. In fact, I devote more of my time to work now than I did when I was in the high tech industry but I still enjoy it.

Coming Next: What Exactly, I Disliked About The Job

One of the things that most surprised me about my new career was how much money I was expected to shell out just to stay in the business. It’s wasn’t a situation where I was kept in the dark and then ambushed with demands for money. I was well informed about the various expenses involved, but I guess it really hit me when I saw the actual amounts involved and started to write checks.

We are not talking a fortune here, but it surely was more than I expect to be laying out to get my career off the ground.

Here are the expenses I had to cover to get my career started (and this comes after the $500 or so I laid out for the pre-exam class, study material and exam fee):

Real Estate Application Fee (State of New Hampshire): $70
Errors and Omissions Insurance (company required): $270
National Association of Realtors Membership (company required): $374
Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Access: $25
Board of Realtors Fees: $55.00

As you can see, I had to spend almost $1300 just to be able to call myself a real estate agent. If it is a career you are planning to start, make sure you have enough money in the bank to cover these costs. Also, you’ll need to cover all your normal living expenses until you start earning money from real estate, and that can take a while. If you are not involved in any transactions for a while, things can get a bit rough.

All the expenditures listed above (except those to do with licensing) are required on a yearly or quarterly basis, so it is a continuing process of writing checks for one membership or another. Eventually I was almost afraid to look in my mailbox each time I visited the office for fear of finding out that I had to shell out another few hundred dollars for some other membership or insurance I was required to have.

For agents that enjoy the work and earning a good income, these expenses are probably not much of a consideration and are well worth the associated costs. And since real estate agents are considered independent contractors in most cases, it is not terribly outside-the-norm to expect some start-up costs when one is esentially starting up a business.

There weren’t exactly mobs of people beating my door down or ringing my phone wanting to buy or sell a house, so seeing money that seemed to be traveling in the wrong direction in relation to my wallet was a little unsettling. That is probably not an uncommon experience for a new agent.

Having attended my first real estate licensing class in May and passed my exam in July. There were options available that could have made it all happen even faster, but I wanted to be able to really absorb the material and not feel rushed. I am not a “cram at the last minute” type of person at all.

I finished the company-provided real estate training in September and started to ease into the actual business of real estate when that was completed, so for me it took about 5 months to go from guy looking for a job to guy who could actually call himself a real estate agent.

There is some debate about whether more training should be required for real estate agents, and now that I am far removed from the situation, I would have to say more training should be required.

I did not feel ready to go out and start helping people buy or sell a home even after completing the company training program. I had excellent support from our office manager and the other agents could not have been better when it came to helping out a new agent, but even so, there seemed to be so much to know that I did not yet know, and I felt totally incapable of actually doing the job.

These feelings stayed with me for a long time — right up until I decided it was time for me to quit the business.

Coming Next: Why A Career In Real Estate Was Not For Me

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?

I had heard many things with regard to the New Hampshire real estate exam. Some people told me it was difficult and others suggested it would be no problem at all. I did not know what to expect but I felt that I had a good understanding of the study material going in.

I had my wife quiz me on the study material and had taken the sample tests that were part of study material and was getting a pretty consistent 80-90% each time, so I felt pretty good about my chances.

Going into the test I was still quite nervous. In need of a job and knowing I would have to shell out another $100 to take the test if I failed, and wait who-knows-how-long to get it scheduled had be more nervous than anything in recent memory. A lot more than I thought I was going to be.

The test center was a little back room at an H&R Block tax office in this little strip mall type plaza in South Manchester. Inside the room were 4 or 5 computers and a couple of other people that were taking the test at the same time I was. One of them, in fact, had been in the same real estate class I had been in a month or so earlier. We wished each other luck and began the exam.

Although the ‘rules’ for actually taking the test sound like something that might have come out of Nazi Germany as opposed to the New Hampshire real estate commission, the H&R Block people that administered the test were actually pretty cool about the whole thing.

The exam was the standard computer-based multiple choice format and I really didn’t struggle too much with any of the questions. I only recall one instance where the answer to one of the questions came to me as a result of one of the many stories the instructor in my real estate class had related, so in addition to being entertaining, one of his tales actually helped me boost my score a couple of points.

When I had completed the test, I left the small room and walked back out into the main room where I noticed that a printer had just started to produce some output. As it turned out, this was my exam score that was sent to the printer automatically when I completed the exam.

The H&R Block employee picked up the paper when the printer had finished, glanced at it, then smiled and handed it to me. It was an enormous relief to see I had passed with a score of 90%. It appeared that the sample tests I had been taking as part of the study material were right on the money.

My best advice to someone who is planning to take the real estate exam is to simply study the material and take the sample tests until you are achieving a consistently high score. Although the stuff you study really is almost completely useless when it comes to actually being a real estate agent, get to know it well and you should have no trouble with the exam. When you pass the exam you can pretty much forget most of it like I have.

I was extremely happy to put that experience behind me. Now I felt I was finally ready to get out there and make my fortune selling real estate! But first I would have to go back to school and, oh yeah, warm up my check-writing hand as well.

Coming Next: Back To School Again??

The meeting with the manager of the local real estate office that had contacted me went very well. She was a very nice person and I liked her immediately. She was easy to talk to and I could tell we would get along just fine. I had decided before the end of the meeting that I wanted to work in that office.

At this point all I had to do was get my license and then begin working in the office. I was excited to get started with my new career and I left the office feeling quite good about it.

My decision to start a career in real estate was ill-timed in the sense that the geniuses who write real estate laws in New Hampshire decided just a few months earlier that all real estate agents had to attend 40 hours of classroom training before being eligible to take the real estate licensing exam.

Before that, all a person had to do was obtain the proper study materials and spend some time studying it and then take the test. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the new law was in response to people who were taking the test and then starting their real estate career and getting themselves into all kinds of legal trouble. It’s the same old story, the idiots of the world who do nothing better than screw things up for everyone else.

I did not like the idea of sitting in some classroom listening to someone drone on about real estate law and all the other irrelevant crap that makes up to real estate licensing exam. I had already been told a few times by people with industry experience that virtually nothing on the exam would relate to what a real estate agent actually does.

It was quite inspirational to learn that the material I had to study for the exam would serve me so well in my new career! I was, however, determined to become a real estate agent and forged ahead.

I checked out the local real estate schools on the Internet and settled on the one that had classes in the most convenient location for me. I forked over the $299 for the class and the $82.50 for the accompanying study materials and it was off to real estate class I went.

This was my induction into the real estate club — a major component of which is writing checks to this one and that. If you are considering a career in real estate, be warned that you will be required to join any number of professional organizations, which of course, require you to pay dues. Then there are things like “Errors & Omissions” coverage to protect you from any mistakes you might make that causes someone to want to sue you.

Calling it a “class” is probably too flattering for what actually transpired each week. It consisted of myself and the other students sitting in rented conference room in an office building with our instructor who basically sat and read through the various study materials with us and would quiz us from time to time to see if we were picking up on the material.

If that had been the extent of it, I’m not sure I would have managed to get through all 20 hours with my sanity intact. The saving grace was that this instructor was a genuine character. He had been involved in various flavors of real estate over the years and had a lot of entertaining stories of his experiences in the business.

I’d have to estimate that he spent nearly a third of our class time telling stories which was a wonderful way to pass time that would have otherwise been spent going over a bunch of very dry and uninteresting real estate material.

I knew all along that all I needed to do was take the study material home and spend some time actually studying it. Although it was entertaining to hear the instructor’s stories, I probably would have done almost as well on the exam by studying on my own and would not have had to put up with the hassle of going to class every week.
Anyone who thought they could just sit through the classes and then pass the exam was probably fooling themselves. For me at least, it was necessary to spend a good deal of time studying the material. And for someone who has absolutely hated studying almost anything as far back as I can recall, it was a bit of a challenge for me to stick with it.

I finished the class a few hours short of the required 20, but that is something else I will give credit to the instructor for. He pretty much saw things they way they really were and despite the fact that he was our instructor, I think we all could tell what he really thought of the whole system and how “necessary” he thought this class was.

I’ve always had an appreciation for people who can see through the various walls of crap that are constructed in front of people who are trying to accomplish something. The fact that government bureaucrats need to make themselves appear useful by spewing out various rules and regulations of questionable value was not lost on our instructor, and for me that made the class more fun and less of a pain than it could have easily been.

Coming Next: The Exam