Why I Chose Real Estate! - Marc Montgomery
I'm proud to reblog this entry that my brother/best friend/manager wrote about why he chose real estate as his career. This is a great example of the heart that drives Team Realty Force. We don't do this job to just pay the bills, we do it because we love it. Please read.
Why I Chose Real Estate?
Ever since I was a child I was influenced by my father in real estate. He built houses in California and after being born in San Francisco in 1970, I saw my father literally build our 2nd home from scratch by himself. I was 6 at the time and this home we lived in for 5 years went on to become worth over 2 million dollars.
Well that’s California for you. My father loved designing homes and watching the labor and birth of a home from the beginning of the blue print to the pleasure of completion so much so that he quit his engineering job to become an owner of a construction company where he built homes throughout the Bay Area. I remember the rolls of blue prints throughout the home consuming his workspace and overflowing into the living room.
Well, as I grew up I didn’t really like that image of real estate then, the grime and the grunge and the dirt, the dedication it took, and I didn’t understand nor did I recognize the fruit in that labor . So when I went to college, I decided that I would forgo real estate and simply get my accounting degree, then go through the masters program and onto some PhD thing or another or go to law school. That was the plan anyway, flimsy as it may have been, because I realized I didn’t like studying either.
So I settled on a BA in accounting and decided to move to South Korea to become a teacher for a year. The intention was to enjoy a different culture after college and then come back and get busy with it, get real with some kind of higher level education. But alas, I ended up living in Korea for 6 years getting married, developing English curriculum, and implementing English educational programs in new schools, while traveling the world and beginning a family with Carey Han, my lovely wife.
It was a fantastic life there and while in Korea we were able to invest some into real estate in Arizona. I only did that because my father said it was the smart thing to do. “Yeah, whatever Dad,” I thought, and I would just send the money (today I am thankful for his advice).
Then life changed. Brandon, my firstborn child, came to being and we decided to move back to the US because we wanted our new son to know his grandparents and have a more westernized education. When I arrived in Arizona, I looked at my father and knew what career path I needed to follow: Real Estate. I knew that, “OK, this is the safe way to go since it was kind of in my blood.” That was in 2005 when I was unaware of some so-called bubble and the eminent market collapsing snowball that was inching towards the edge of the mountain of economic doom. Avalanche!
But I survived. I won’t go into the how’s and why’s other than to say, I scratched, kicked and worked my butt off to learn the way of real estate in this new market world we are now in.
The thing is: I love teaching. I love articulating. I love inspiring minds to grow, to help others find strength, courage and confidence in one’s own abilities. I love seeing that gleam in the eye that says,“I can do it,” when at first there was fear of failure. I love looking into those eyes. And that’s why I stayed in Korea so long.
But then I moved back home and started doing real estate agent work in 2005 and I learned along the way to desperately apply this same love that I have for teaching students and other teachers into this purpose I have now in leading clients through the escrow process and into home ownership.
This thirst I have in leading and teaching others is quenched by the importance of the agency relationship found in real estate. In that very relationship I find myself doing as I had done before in teaching students. I love to help the young first time buyer step forward and learn what it takes to gain home ownership and see them realize their dream. I love to lead the investor in setting up and bench marking a profit margin goal and then hitting it. I love to teach the seller of a home how to stage their home properly and to help them to depend on the reality of the numbers, the numbers of what homes similar to theirs are actually selling for.
And now I love leading a small team of individual agents with my wife and guiding these new realtors (which includes one of my favorite ladies in the world, my sister Karen) and to help them to care for and protect their respective clients and to help my team mates grow their own individual businesses as well with the knowledge I can share. I am new in this role, but I love it too. I thank Top 5 Real Estate for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to work under their guidance and their system and I thank Team Realty Force for believing in me as well and giving me the opportunity to guide them in kind. Thanks be to Dan and Scot!
There are other great influences in my real estate career that must not be overlooked. I appreciate James Sanson, Chris Dunham, and Michael Sanson. James taught me how to fight the battle and learn to win in a down and deathly market. Michael brought clarity and is still a great sounding board to me to this day. And Chris taught me how to have fun and be human again. I wish the three of them great success in this continuing journey we call life.
I will have to say that while at first I ran away from the grime and the grunge and the game that is involved in real estate, I now embrace it.
The question of this essay is why did I choose real estate? My answer is: I did not choose real estate. I think real estate may have chosen me.
My Life
Thank you for your time!
If you would like to gain access to great home bargain deals, please take a look at the above links and or contact me personally at 1(800)545-2849. My name is Marc Montgomery. Team Realty Force would love to help you!
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