Ep 170 - Our Journey Episode 2 - Pros & Cons of Being a Realtor

Today is Part 2 of the 12 in this journey series. We're walking through our journey to try and share with you what we've gone through and what we saw as the pros and cons to help those of you who are exploring our challenging field. We go over the pros and cons for us when we got a Realtor’s license and start into this real estate adventure.

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Pros include getting a basic foundation of real estate education, MLS access, it’s a good way to earn commissions, create your own schedule,  real estate is not boring because you learn new things every day, having multiple options to present, and tax advantages of being classified as a real estate professional. On the other hand, for the cons, unrealistic seller clients, demanding buyer clients, having to disclose that you are licensed even if buying directly from a seller, and not having an inner circle of contacts. 

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Transcript

Hey, everybody Flip and Dani here, founders of the Freedom Real Estate Group Family of Companies like that. Yeah. Welcome to another episode of our podcast and our podcast is called Freedom Through Passive Income. That's right. And this episode, this is part of our 12 part series called a journey. 

This is our journey. This is number two. Yes, number two of 12. And the title of this episode, and our journey is Our Journey Pros and Cons of Being a Realtor. Yeah, most people start off. Yeah. And we're going to try to keep it as serious as possible. Right. So anyway, so real quickly why we did the realtor thing. So again, I was still doing the art auctions. So I was still selling artwork, you were, you had done the New York Life, and then the insurance and then you went into the mortgage industry. But it was a friend of ours that you had met there, named Esmeralda. And she said, she kept putting the bug in your ears and you should do real estate, you should do real estate. 

And so and then I got done with the art stuff. And then we're like, hey, why we should do real estate. And what's the first thing you do when you do real estate? Become a Realtor? Yeah, you get your realtor's license, duh. So we studied that summer, that was the summer of 2008. And then, and then we got our license. And like I said, we both thought that we failed the test, but we both passed with flying colors, and September of 2008. And we immediately joined Esmeralda’s team. Yep. Elk Realty Group. Yes, that's right. Wow, good memory.

It's also her initials. That's right. That's true. But anyway, so we're going to touch a little bit on the pros and the cons of being a realtor.

 Yeah. So as a reminder, we're walking through our journey to try and share with you what we've gone through and what we saw as the pros and cons to help those of you who are exploring because I would say the number one thing that we get when we're asking people, What do you want to do is, I don't know. And so we're trying to build some paths for people to be able to follow based on what they choose. But to help people choose and to determine what they want to do or what they want to explore. We're sharing these episodes with you. And here are some of the pros of being a realtor. And these are Flip and Dani pros. Yes, Flip and Dani pros. Of course, we can only tell you from our perspective. So the first thing for me is real estate education. So when you're getting into real estate for the very first time, part of the reason why people don't know where they want to go or what they want to do, or how they want to start is because they lack the education, they don't know how many things that you can do. And it's so many I was going to say endless until there's an end to it, but it feels endless sometimes in terms of the niches and things that you can do in real estate. 

 So getting our realtors license for us was a really good way to learn some foundational principles that people know as realtors and if you've worked with a realtor, they're kind of snobby quite frankly, and they think they know everything because they passed the realtors board and license, But, I do know everything. So this was also a way for us to get on the same level of those realtors to say hey, we passed our Realtors license as well. So and we're never as smart as everybody else that's been in the industry for 10 years so I don't know why it matters but they're still snobby. So we went ahead and got our license that was a pro.

 Yeah, that was definitely a pro and with that also came MLS access so now we have access to you know this biggest pool of properties and we were in Austin, Texas at that time and so that was a pretty big pool when we first got MLS access and then it was just it was I was like a kid in a candy store and so that the first time when I got my login I always was in there all day. Yes. What are you doing? I'm still on MLS and so that was the number one thing that gave us MLS access.

 Yeah. And it was a good way to get commissions, right. So depending on what you're doing in real estate, you really don't know how you're going to get paid jumping in as a realtor was going to give you the foundation of education but also was going to give us a payday whenever we help somebody buy or sell a house.

 Yeah, because of course everyone has the dreams of the I want to make a million dollars being a realtor and you then you become a realtor and realize, wow, no I’m not. So anyway, but that was a great way. Great way to get things started. And then it also because you and I we worked, especially when we worked on cruise ships, we worked on our own. We didn't have anyone yelling at us. Well, except for when we were in the band stuff but we didn't have any, we created our own schedules and that immediately went into our being Realtors is we created our own schedule. We ran our own business, we had our own company, we set it up that way. And so that was the start of the pupa I believe I have the Freedom Real Estate Group way back in 2008. That's where we started everything that so hey, let's start a business, Hey, we should do this and hey, let's try it. Let's do it this way. And so that's where it all started. Yeah.

 And anybody listening that's got that entrepreneurial spirit. And you really do want to be a little bit more on the active side than the passive side. I think that part's key, because that's absolutely us. We wanted to be active and passive, right, we wanted to build both sides. So as entrepreneurs, we also wanted to feel like it was our own right. We didn't want to be working for somebody else. So anything that allowed us to be a part of a group still be building our own thing was a big deal. Yeah. So I think that relates to entrepreneur, mindsets. 

 Let me see where are we at many avenues to pursue not boring. So that's me, I am not I cannot stand boring. It's one of the reasons why I didn't like mortgage, it was okay, in all of the things that I was studying. Even insurance, to some extent was a boring real estate, it's the last thing that will ever be boring to us, because we learn new things literally every single day. So for those of you who are like me and don't like boring, well, then you're going to definitely like real estate, and it probably most aspects of it.

 And then there's also multiple options when presenting options, because even in the mortgage industry, you look at what they've got, what do they do with them, but what have been bubbling? Alright, here's the loan for you. Yes, but with real estate, it's like, okay, we can do this. Or we can do this, or if you want, we can do this. And lastly, we can do this one or this one. Yes. So it's it's more it was it gave us a bigger palette to work with.

 Yeah, it also relates to when you're talking to sellers, or buyers, if you're a realtor and an investor, you've got multiple options. So when you're sitting at the table and saying, Hey, we can do x x x x, you get to present I can list it for you, I can, lease it for you. Whereas if you're just an investor, you can't say those two things, you have to partner with somebody else, right. So I think that that's important. And one thing I didn't put on here is if you are in this active part of real estate, and this will apply to many of the things that we're going to be talking about throughout this journey, then you have special, like tax treatment in terms of classifying yourself as a real estate professional, because you have I think it's over 750 hours, or something like that, as long as you work in real estate for that length of time. Usually, if you're a realtor, if you're a flipper, or if you're doing a lot of the things that we're going to talk about on your journey. That's one of the pros that I forgot to list on most of most of those. So, again, that's why there's a key why we're actually recording these in order. We don't always record everything in order. We're doing this one in order because we said we're going to be yapping about it. We're gonna forget something and remember on the fly. Just start with the cons. Yeah,

 So cons. Well, boy, we got some unrealistic sellers right off the bat. And we learned that there's different approaches to talking to sellers, and we learned, what do you feel your house is worth? Yeah. Because that's really going to tell you because if you go in because we just went in there, boom, boom, boom, here's this. Here's this. Here's this. This is what your house is worth. Oh, I don't think so. Yeah, no, I don't Oh, Jim down the street sold his house for $30,000 more than that. And we're on the same street.

 On the other side of the coin, we also had demanding buyers. I remember we were at lunch, and I can't even remember where we were just I do you don't even need to remind me. I remember that. We had just gotten to lunch. And we had just sat down and think we even had a couple of beers in hand buyers called me up. Yeah, I need to see these two houses. Okay, great. I'll set those up and show you tomorrow. That we can't see him tomorrow. We need to see them right now.

 Yeah. So you are the one that left, right. Yep. Flip literally had to leave lunch and get in the car. And I actually I don't know if we were with anyway, you had a better memory than we were. We were their friends who were with us. So Flip had to get up and leave and go show properties. I had to go home and change first. Oh yeah, that was like, if there was anything to tell us this is not the right career path for you, that was it. Oh yeah, that’s why it’s burned in the old noggin. Plus it’s emotional vs. logical. In real estate investing, it’s just logical, gimme the numbers. If the numbers work, I’ll do it. Being a Realtor we saw these people be so emotional about everything. Even the slightest thing wrong with the inspection “Oh we can’t do it now.” Another thing is direct mail and advertising. If your a Realtor and also an investor and your doing some direct mail campaigns perhaps, because you want to buy houses in some certain areas, but you happen to have your license as well, one of the cons is that you have to disclose that you are licensed. What this means is this is not a con if you're sitting in front of a seller. If I'm sitting in front of Flip and I'm talking to you about your options. I'm absolutely going to tell you I'm a Realtor, because it's an advantage to me quite frankly that I tell you that I can do both I can buy your house I can only stay out so I can least your house I can do it all. But if you're doing direct mail those people who have had a bad experience with realtors and are tired of Realtors, like calling them and knocking on their door, they don't like them. The second they see you’re a realtor, they throw your card out, and it doesn't matter that you want to buy their house for cash. So that is one of the cons.

 Last one that we're going to talk about is the and this is just for Dani and I because as being realtors, again, we had just come off cruise ships. And we were in Austin, Texas, and the only people that we knew in Austin, Texas, at the time was my family. My family is not that big. And Austin, Texas is. And so we did not have the inner circle. We didn't have all of the friends and family and all of the people that we've known for decades, you know, while we're growing up, you know, and you know that my my aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, neighbors, daughters, dog sitter, you know, when you know everybody that we didn't have that. And so that was a major con for us as being Realtors, which leads us into what I won't say yet.

 Okay, I don't even know where you're going. All right, we said we were going to end every single of these journey episodes with five things so that we can kind of tell you what we think about them. Because these are factors that you consider as opposed to with regard to where you want to start your journey. 

 So risk tolerance. What do you think for a realtor? Oh, not much risk. No, no, no. Anybody can be a realtor really easy time availability. For Realtors. It's all day.

 Yeah, you need to have your time. A lot of people do do it part time. They don't also don't have a lot of business. They're usually just got their license so they can help friends and family And that's it. We call them the weekend warriors. So if you're going to do it full time as a career, you probably need time availability.

Knowledge. Oh, you need the knowledge. Definitely do though. That's part of the license. Absolutely. Yeah, I don't like weekend warriors because they really don't have the expertise to do what I want them to do. I want them to be specialized in the areas in where I think that specific properly property needs. Yeah, that specialization. Because the more you do it, the more you know, yes. 

 Inner Circle is really important. Yes, majorly important 

 Access to capital. As a realtor. Oh, no, I don't think so much. 

 Okay. And so again, that whole inner circle thing that leads us to tomorrow. Episode number three, yeah, we're gonna be let's be an investor instead. Yes. Talk about how that happened. Yes, exactly. So we look forward to seeing you on Episode Three where we turn into investors instead. Yeah, that's right. 

Make sure you head on over to our website https://freedomcapitalinvestments.com, so you can join our investor club. Make sure you're hitting the subscribe button the little bell thing that you were talking about. I think it goes ding whenever there's a new episode, that's what I hear. I need to practice on our own website and hit the like button hit the like button if you like this journey of episodes. 

Anyway, we're gonna like to end all of our episodes with invest Smart, Live Happy. bye everybody. 

 Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax legal real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. opinions and information on the show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss

 Transcribed by https://otter.ai