I have a
little button that says, “I love Realtors” ~ I got it at a convention when I
was a brand new real estate agent. I couldn’t
have dreamed (at the time) the kind of mental tenacity it would take to stay in
this business more than 5 years.
April
21, 2014 will mark my 5th full year in real estate. My love for real
estate however, actually started in 1992 when my spouse and I bid (and lost) on
a HUD home. I loved all of it! The hunt, process, the dreams of renovation and
of course the dreams of building financial gain through equity. The complete freedom of being the owner and
not the renter was a part of the American Dream! I thought about it (being an agent) on and off
as we bought and sold homes through the years and then finally, in 2008, as our
oldest child headed off to college, I decided to make the leap into real estate
and self-employment.
Statistically, I
had a snowballs chance in hell of making this career a go. The worst near-depression my generation had
ever known ~ the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The housing
bubble was at the height of its collapse. The country was experiencing uncertain
times. These words dominated the headlines: Layoffs, hiring freezes, foreclosures,
wage freezes, unemployment, downsizing, under-employment, bankruptcy, short-sales,
vanishing retirement savings, early retirement, company closings, disappearing
middle-class and the working poor.
My first year in real estate earned me
exactly $2000.
I was what I now lovingly
refer to as a licensee. I was poised to
fail out of the industry, just like the statistics predicted. 7 out of 10 fail out of real estate and of the
3 out of 10 who make it, only a small percentage make it work as a real career five
years or longer. The phrase, “I love Realtors” has taken on a whole new meaning
to me now that I have survived this ordeal. I liken the ones who made it through
the great recession to being the Navy Seals of self-employment. There is real
agony and drama that agent’s experience which has nothing to do with the agony
and drama home buyers and sellers go through during the process. I’m talking about waking up every day and
driving yourself to do the uncomfortable work of asking for the business as you
listen to story after story of being upside down on their mortgages, of being
late on their payments, of marriages blown apart by stress and of their
decisions to just walk away.
I was in the trenches when this hurricane of financial
devastation passed over the country like a shadowy plague. I saw the
foreclosures where families left in a hurry leaving heirloom furniture in the
home, or the ones who took a baseball bat to all of the walls to take out their
rage against the banks who just wouldn’t work with them. I saw countless homes
with beautiful little children’s rooms (some pink, some blue) and some with
beautiful murals that were lovingly applied by their parents and the haunting
quiet that a foreclosure creates in a home when the family leaves and all of the
utilities are turned off. There are
traces of evidence that it once was a happy home that held a happy life and as one
walks through, one wonders if the families survived these unstable and shaky
times.
As an agent, I’m talking about investing your last 50 dollars into a
tank of gas hoping that tonight is the night you finally get those buyers under
contract. I’m talking about the beating
your self-esteem takes when you have to look yourself in the mirror and say
today is the day I’m going to turn this all around, but not knowing where to
begin. I’m talking about that 5000 paycheck that you worked tirelessly for (over a 4 month period) that
suddenly disappears (a month before the holidays) because the buyers decided to
open a line of credit while they were waiting for a clear to close.
The highs
and the lows (and trust me, since 2008 there have been many more lows than
highs) of struggling to make this career work.
The truth is statistically the average agent closes approximately one
deal per month. This is the equivalent
of poverty wages, and yet agents are expected to look, talk and walk like the
HGTV success they hope to be. So you continue
to charge new clothes to your department store card so you will own the clothes
that you simply cannot afford. There is certain
insanity to being a 1099 (self-employed) person during hard economic times. The
worst part is, we were all aware of and know a few of those special agents who
seem to be able to make it work and they make it look easy (and they actually
thrive) while the majority suffers. Why? Why do so few have so much and so many
have so little?
I know why. It’s simple
but its not easy.
I was lucky enough to be exposed to a referral lead generation
course that altered my career which caused me to grow my profits year over
year. A 7 week spaced program that did
more for me as a 1099 employee than another single idea ever had. I learned that there was no such thing as ‘special‘
people it’s what these ‘special’ people did that made them special, not who
they were. There really is no magical secret.
It is a program that teaches how to control your time, manage
expectations, grow referral resources, keep a positive attitude all while building
an impressive book of business. Yes, I’m a proud and decorated warrior of the
real estate industry, I’ve beaten the odds and I’m almost a veteran! If you ask
me the secret of my success, I’ll gladly take the time to share! Go ahead! Ask!
Lisa Ekanger Your Preferred Trainer!
The Floyd Wickman Team
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