Paper Anniversary

A year ago, I was sitting in a room filled with tiny cubicles in Bellevue. With me I had a pencil, an eraser, a basic calculator and a piece of graph paper. On the other side of a glass wall were the lockers where I had left everything else; my purse, my cell phone and my car keys. The clock was ticking, and I was answering multiple choice questions. The Friday prior I had completed my 90-hour crash course, the Washington State required classes. 60 hours of fundamentals and 30 hours of practices, and now I was working on passing my license exam. Following day, fingerprints and next my paperwork with Coldwell Banker Bain.

It's been an incredible year, amazing in so many different ways. Yes, I would be lying if I wouldn’t admit it to being frustrating at times. Wobbly and scary in the beginning, but also extremely rewarding. The honeymoon is over, but I still love my job. This is not an easy playground. During my first year, I have seen several agents start and then quit. Some of them realized this wasn’t the right fit for them to begin with. Some needed a steady income and a couple just sort of faded away. Did you know that nine out of ten agents quit during their first year?

For my first year in real estate, my goal was a prudent one. It was very much down to earth as my target was to help one client buy or sell a home. Just one. One in my first twelve months, not one every month or week. I never thought this would be easy. I never expected anything to happen quickly. I knew well that it takes time to start a new business, and by time I don’t mean months, I mean years. I exceeded my goal multiple times, enough times to experience a little bit of stage fright entering my second year asking questions like; what if I just got lucky? What if it all ends here? What if… losing a deal that I thought was going to go through didn’t help, right after that I lost on a listing meaning someone more experienced got the deal because of their experience. It hurt, but mostly it made me doubt myself. It took me a few weeks to lick my wounds before I gave my own butt a kick and got back to work.

My first open house started with tears as I was unable to get inside the house. That day I learned how to reboot the suprakey app on my phone. It was my first big time lesson, and there have been many bigger ones since. But every time I pull my phone out of my pocket to open a lockbox, I remember the first time, the time when it didn’t work.

Then there was the open house when I got spooked. It was the guy that first came in at the beginning of the open house, strolled through and left, only to return thirty minutes or so before I was supposed to shut down the home and leave. He claimed he had lost his cell phone and asked if I could come into the basement with him to look for it. I politely declined explaining that I had to stay where I was in case I had someone come in. He spent a while in the basement, came back upstairs, stated he hadn’t found his phone and left. Maybe he truly had misplaced his phone, who knows.

After I scrambled through my first transaction I decided to learn my contracts in and out. I mean, not just what I needed to know, but to really know and understand them. I may not be the slickest sales person with an answer to every single objection, but I for sure know my stuff and will not get caught with my pants down when it comes to contracts whether it’s forms or computation of time. Last week I sat down with my supervisor to discuss whether 22AD was indeed to be paired with 22EF as 22AD refers to 22A, and with 22EF there is no 22A… see, it’s all pig Latin to you, but this is what I enjoy. And the conclusion was, after going back and forth for awhile with him, that 22AD wasn’t necessary even though it would provide information.

I still run into the big objection of me being inexperienced. I bet I will run into it for a long time… My defense is that one year with Coldwell Banker Bain equals 7 years some place else with the training program my company offers, I mean, I have had hundreds of hours of education this year, that’s quite a bit more than the state required 45 hours per year during the first two years. I still have weekly trainings.  I also genuinely believe that I’m good at what I do. I ‘ve got this. I’ve got it, even if I haven’t done this for fifteen or twenty years. Honestly, I probably know better than most of those brokers with over ten years of experience as my knowledge is fresh and current.

I’m starting my second year in real estate tomorrow. I feel accomplished as I made it. A year ago, everything was new and exciting. It’s still exciting, very exciting.