Occasionally, real estate professionals will debate the pros and cons of sharing trade secrets.
Although, I am now a retired Realtor after 40 years, I remember thinking when I first entered the real estate business in November 1981 that I was entering a "cut-throat" business.
This month, Debe Maxwell has presented the ActiveRain “2022 Thanksgiving Gratitude Challenge.” This Challenge offers an opportunity to contemplate blessings we enjoy.
My first office, had about a dozen experienced professional old-timers in it, and I was the rookie. Imagine my shock when I asked the question, "What's the interest rate these days?" The answer was an incendiary 18 1/2%. I thought how can I sell real estate in a market like this?
The agent at the desk behind me coaxed me to look for the 1 in 20 houses, which had an assumable loan, with a low interest rate, but little equity. That way, a buyer with a little cash for a down, could do a loan assumption, and if need be - possibly put on a second for a few years.
Without that 3-minute suggestion from that very experienced and helpful agent, I would have never seen my "career" off the ground.
Shortly thereafter, another agent walked me over to the supply drawer, and helped me assemble a Buyer package, and a Listing package. Again, it was the experienced agents in the office, who mentored me to my beginning success. I was truly blessed to have chosen that particular office, with those incredible agents, who freely mentored and shared their wealth of experience.
I was in my first office for the next 10 years, until it closed its doors to the Sacramento real estate bust of 1991. But, over the years, I repaid those helpful agents, by helping tend their escrows, when they went on vacation, or letting in an occasional appraiser, home inspector, or termite repairman, etc.
While the agents in the beginning of my career were a blessing to me, I always endeavored to be a blessing to new agents entering our profession.
Be a blessing in someone else’s life today. We'll all be the better for it!
*The following photo was taken in the early 1980s, at the beginning of my real estate career. It was before I became white-haired.
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