Sometimes people believe that real estate agents work for real estate companies. We are independent contractors which isn’t anything like being an employee or working for a company and of course as we all know real estate companies don’t sell any real estate at all. In most cases agents pay for everything including the for sale sign. If we have offices we pay for those too. We generally fin our own business or it finds us.
Having business especially listing homes for sale is very important but sometimes I can tell as soon as I pick up the phone that I am talking to Mr. Wrong and I say no to potential business. There are people who don’t like real estate agents at all and even though they call us they are happy to tell us that they don’t need us, we charge too much and we don’t work hard enough. In general life is just too short to work with people who are negative, ignorant and kind of nasty.
The caller often has a 9 to 5 type W2 job. Being self employed is a lot of hard work and it takes courage to support a household without having a job. We don’t get paid every two weeks even if we don’t accomplish anything. We only get paid after we sell a home and only if the sale closes. Sometimes selling a home takes a long time and is a lot of work and other times it isn’t as much work and sometimes home owners change their minds and take their home off the market which means we don’t get paid at all.
I am not complaining about my job. There are more up sides for me than down and I did my time in the office slaving away for soulless money sucking corporations where woman rarely reach half their full potential.
When Mr. Wrong calls I just say no and I smile because I don’t have to work for or with anyone I don’t want to work with. I can say no and to work and sometimes I do.
