Actually my wife and I own 4 small businesses. The larger portion of my income comes from system architecture that I do for a technology company in San Jose. I have a design team that I direct down here in the Sorrento Valley.
My real estate foray started off as a personal crusade. I have rental properties and I got tired of paying my sister in law at Coldwell Banker commission every time I bought a new property or sold one. So I got a license and bought a Help U Sell. My plan was to hire a competent staff and simply oversee that business. While that was running I would continue with my engineering work.
Well I always had helped out friends with real estate just because I had some background but was not licensed. Once I became licensed and had a broker in my corporation, lots of those friends started to use me. I got tired of paying Help U Sell corporate fees (by the way Gordon was the broker in my corp when I owned my HUS) and I also had some reservations about HUS so I sold it and started my own brokerage. The goal was to simply have it and do trannies for myself and friends/family… Well things kind of ramped up pretty quick and I found myself with more real estate biz then I predicted. I hired several agents but my main problem is that I work with alot of smart people in my engineering profession so my expectations with the agents was to high I guess.
So the bottom line is I work alot…Most of the engineering work is done at night or in the mornings. The real estate is on the weekends and in the daytime.
Your idea about charging based on time spent or hours worked is not bad… If I had time to think about it I would but I dont. I am not trying to reinvent the wheel, I am just trying to stay 1 step ahead of the market model.
So am I happy with it? I guess…. It is a nice little supplement to my main source of income but if you guys think I make a ton of money you are wrong. WAY WRONG. I am WAY below 6 figures for the real estate business and I have had close to 10 closings this year.
Please do not get me wrong as I am not complaining. I am simply telling it like it is. I cannot speak for other agents. I understand the IRE of people who look at agents and break down hourly wages and say these guys earn 700$ an hour. I cannot argue as some of them do. Some are pompous you know whats that will not even touch your home unless it is in the 7 figure range. They make us all look bad. The majority of them are not though.
I close a deal with Coe Lewis last month, she is a DJ on Rock 105.3. Very nice and very professional. It is an ecclectic mix. Anyways when people bang on me for what I do I can understand that because they do not know what I really do.
My best marketing are my present and former clients.
