Getting a real estate license is a big deal. And becoming a real estate agent changed my life. Will it change yours? I don’t know and I will ask you to pause, just for a moment, to consider.
When you go to real estate school they’ll teach you all about riparian rights and appurtenances and what a metes-and-bounds description is. What they don’t tell you is that if you are like most agents you’ll work mostly in suburban or urban settings and never have to worry about navigable waterways or that the land goes north from the stone pillar.
What really needs to be taught is that you are opening your own business. Your success will depend wholly on you. Not your broker and not your team lead if you are joining a real estate team. You. The man (or woman) in the mirror. You’ll have to learn people skills and negotiations and budgets and working with contractors. The gap between what a real estate agent does and what the general public thinks we do is vast.
I can tell you that after you graduate real estate school and go to work as a real estate agent you will be in total control of your financial future. And for many of us, that is a great thing.
Quick Story
In February of 2014 I got to take my wife to Mexico for the first time. We had finally gotten to the point where we had worked our way out of all the silly financial decisions we had made as a younger couple and were well on our way to our current debt-free (except for the mortgages on the two homes we own) life.
On the last night of our stay we sat on the dock of our resort in Cozumel and watched the sun go down. And mostly, well, we just giggled. “How did we get here?” we would ask and smile.
The answer: Real estate changed our lives. Yes it takes hard work and faith and failure. And yes, I had owned a couple businesses previously that also took hard work and faith and failure. And yes, real estate was different, at least for me.
Why Real Estate Is Different
What other business can you make whatever you choose (Yes, up to seven figures…possibly more) with an investment of about $2,000 to get started? What other business can your competition (the agent in the next cube) give you a few pointers about this or that? What other business has billions of dollars of inventory at your finger tips and you don’t have to be liable for it?
If you are pondering signing up for real estate school take a moment to think through your motivations, work ethic and fear of failure. For most, all of these are learned skills.
Yes. Real estate did change my life. I hope getting your real estate license will allow you to change yours.
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Author
Chris Lengquist
Chris obtained his real estate license in the Spring of 2002. He has worked for Scott Douglas Realty in Tulsa, OK and Keller Williams Realty, Diamond Partners, Inc in Olathe, Kansas. Today his is the owner/broker of Ad Astra Realty, Inc, a property management business for Kansas and Missouri as well an associate broker and Team Leader of Keller Williams Realty, Diamond Partners, Inc.