Successful Financial Future
The reasons our students choose a career in real estate are as numerous as the students themselves. On the very first day of their pre-licensing classes, we often ask them why they made the decision to pursue a career in real estate, and some of the quotes we have heard are:
“I don’t want a nine-to-five job. I need the flexibility of being able to work while still being there for my children.”
“I really love helping people, and I think it would be so fulfilling to help people find their perfect home—or sell the home they are currently in so they can move on.”
“I don’t want to be an hourly wage employee. I wanted a career where my income potential was only limited by my own potential and work ethic.”
“I’ve done very well in three separate jobs—only to be laid off when the companies merged or fell on hard times. I want a job that can’t be outsourced to China.”
“I have always loved watching real estate programs on TV.”
“I wanted a career where I am my own boss.”
Become A Real Estate Superstar!
So what is a real estate career like? Certainly, the reasons our past students gave above can be considered positive reasons to become a real estate professional. You do have complete flexibility in your working hours. You can work mostly from home (except when you are showing properties to buyers or meeting in the homes of your sellers, of course.) But this is no 40-hour-a-week desk job! You do have an unlimited income potential. You could make $1,000 or $100,000 in your first year, depending on your training, work ethic—and some luck thrown in along the way!
Negatives About A Real Estate Career
But you should also know some negatives about this new career you are contemplating:
To get started, it could easily cost you $2,000-$3,000 from the day you sign up for pre-licensing class through your first few months as an actual agent. You will incur fees to be fingerprinted, take the state exam, order business cards and signs, join the Bboard of Realtors, pay errors & omissions insurance, and incur various other costs that are essential for you to operate as a real estate agent
You will be on commission-only. So if you get your license and then choose to join a company that doesn’t offer personalized training, or if you do not take advantage of the training and mentoring that your broker does offer, you may find yourself seeing money going out before money starts coming into your bank account
You are in the customer service business. That means that buyers want to see homes on Saturday when you had planned to go to the beach, you have the dilemma of relaxing on the beach and losing the buyer, or driving clients around while your friends are at the beach!
Even the best real estate agents are used to disappointments. Listings that you spend hours trying to market do not sell. Buyers that you’ve spent months showing homes suddenly go into an open house without you and make an offer through another broker
We point these negatives out not to dissuade you from choosing a real estate career, but to paint an honest picture of the ups and downs of this profession. On the one hand, a significant percentage of newly-licensed real estate agents sell nothing and drop out of the business in a year or so. But those are generally the individuals who made a poor choice of broker with whom to affiliate—or who simply thought they did not need to follow the success plan their broker offered in their training program. The truth is, agents with the right personality, temperament, people-skills, discipline, and marketing ability have joined this profession without even a college degree and are consistently making hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
So everything you’ve just read comes down to one thing: It is up to YOU as to whether or not you become a real estate superstar!