If you had asked me what my life would be like as an agent when I started a little over four years ago, I would have never anticipated where I would be and how I have grown.
Lured to the world of commercial real estate by the big commissions and prestigue of doing the big mega million dollar deals. I thought with my outgoing personality and pedigree background in commercial real estate, that the sky was the limit for me - not exactly.
Admittedly, I have seen some great success in the business. One deal was $8,370,000+ and was my intro to Investment Sales. What an intro! Later, I would continue to close deals, but I would learn how 'choppy' my earnings stream became because I was 100% commission based. You can budget well and live at home, but commercial deals take a long time. After all the splits, even with minor expenses, you can end up underwater depending on how long of a dryspell your in. Another thing that I learned about commercial real estate is that you can be a smart, hardworking guy with great sales skills, but a lot of it depends on the property you are selling. If it is not priced property and you can't manage your sellers expectations down, you get the donut, $0, for all of your efforts. Now as a 'seasoned agent' I really understand when I look at the closing statements of the big payouts to the brokerage's how hard it is to earn that money and how much of it I actually get. After splits with the house and my senior, there isn't too much left on the table. Still, I press on convinced that with my background and work ethic that things will eventually come together. And it will, just need to keep my thoughts on doing the right things and away from worrying about how I am going to pay my bills. Its amazing... something as simple as weathering the storm... seems to be a herculean feat at the moment.
As tough as things are financially for everyone, I realized that finances aside, I am extremely happy. I'm healthy, have my mom and good friends and for the most part, I can still read and exercise. Being tight on cash has made it challenging to date =) to say the least, but I welcome the challenge knowing that when the market turns things can only get better.
