Why I decided to Become a Realtor

My real estate journey began in the mid 90’s when I purchased program to teach me how to buy a house with no money down. After receiving the course, I combed through it several times to become familiar with the concepts to communicate them clearly. Soon thereafter, opportunity knocked, and I was ready for the challenge.

A couple months into a two year lease I became aware the owner wanted to sell. Opportunity knocked, so I decided to pursue the idea and called the owner’s realtor. When presented with the seller’s acceptable purchase price, I pointed out the home’s defects. The owner’s realtor advised him to get inspection through the city to save some money on the cost. He apparently was unaware that if there were any code violations, they would have to be cured with 90 days. The code violations were numerous and costly! This put me in an ideal situation to negotiate the terms of the sale. Using the techniques I learned in the course, the owner agreed to seller financing, and put money in escrow for me to do the repairs myself.

While that could have easily launched me into a lucrative real estate career, which was my intention, that’s not the end of the story. The plan was to sell that home to finance a move to Florida and begin investing in real estate. Having never purchased a home in the traditional way, I was unaware of the pitfalls of buying a home out of state without a job there. My dreams of moving to Florida turned into a nightmare when I used an inexperienced agent and an unscrupulous lender. There were other issues as well with title, an undisclosed property easement and the seller that led to years of mediation and court. While some of those things worked out in our favor others did not. Long story short, we lost $30,000 not including attorney fees.

That experience led to the desire to advocate for others during the biggest purchase of their lives. Since that time, I’ve built experience as a property manager, commercial and a residential agent.