Admittedly, I spent some amount of time this spring/summer wallowing– oh about my frustrating aging parents, my imploded listing, Bentley’s health woes, my aunt’s cancer, my slow business and empty pipeline…

Things finally turned around in July. Just as I decided to fly back to Taiwan to visit my sick aunt, I got my clients into contract. I’d met the hubby many years back, after I’d left the govvie job, through a job networking group. As soon as I earned my real estate license in late 2016, I started sending eblasts to my acquaintances and friends in that group. I saw G now and then, maybe every year or so since 2013. This March, he said he and the wife were looking to buy. We met for a buyer consult shortly after.

In the beginning, things were rather discouraging. They were adamant about a single family home (vs. townhouse/condo), but it was out of their budget in the area. As the year evolved, and rates came down, and the market shifted, and they grew open to areas farther out, a charming 1920s Craftsman an hour south came onto their radar. Competing with two other interested parties, we were able to swoop in and get into contract. Let’s just say that was the easiest part of this transaction. Over the next 30 days, it was a constant struggle with communication, responsiveness, and paperwork… When I was in Taiwan, I called the list agents daily at 3-4AM (15 hr time difference) to poke and prod with paperwork and negotiations. It all turned into a broken record really fast: plenty of promises and verbal assurances and then no deliverables. Deadlines just blown right through. Unanswered emails, unanswered texts. Full vm boxes. I’m telling you… how are they even in the business of real estate?

After I returned Stateside, more of the same. When I did manage to catch them via phone, lots of politeness and courtesies to my face, but in reality, zero consideration for me and my buyers having to drive 60 minutes to the home and no cares at all about the contract nor the schedule. In the final three days, there were lots of surprises: delays for the walk through, assurances that the house was cleared out only for me to find appliances missing, lots of personal property and trash left behind, no keys to the locked gates… The original Sunday walk through was first postponed to the morning of closing (Monday) even though when I contacted the agent on Saturday, she had said all was good to go. Then Monday morning, the day of closing, the washer and dryer went missing. On Tuesday morning, the rescheduled day of closing, the washer and dryer were back but then the fridge disappeared. And the water was already turned off, and there was a ton of stuff in the toilet. You have no idea. It was almost comical how shit unfolded in the final two days.

We did finally close on Tuesday, with repeated promises from the list agent that the fridge would be returned that afternoon and the keys all provided at that time. At 3:30pm, 5pm, and 6:30 pm, I’m still texting/calling the list agent asking where the hell the fridge is. Internally, I was losing my shit, but professional VG kept her fucking composure, I tell you. Fridge arrived at 7 pm. No goddamn keys and the seller was a resistant asshole, insisting to my buyer that the locks had already been cut. Flat out lied to her face, but she wasn’t about to escalate with a 6-ft plus linebacker-shaped dude. Two days later, still no keys for the gate locks. My people even purchased their own bolt cutter, but in the end, the locks were so darn heavy-duty, the pros were called.

As soon as my buyers told me about the professional locksmith, I ask the list agent to reimburse my clients to make this right. No response. The next day, I called/text again. No answer and vm box is fucking full. The thing about me, though: I am a goddamn bulldog. She finally calls me back and says her clients offered to cut the locks for my clients. No they didn’t. They insisted that the locks were already cut. Liars. OMFG, WTH are you talking about? We had already closed. Your sellers are legally required to provide the keys by 6pm. Fucking bullshit. She says the sellers don’t want to pay. I don’t give a fuck what your sellers say/do. At this point, you charged 6% commission for your services, not including staging costs and other separate pricey charges to your clients. My side only got 2.5%. This whole transaction, I had to ride ass… nearly the entire 30 days. On delivery day, the house STILL wasn’t cleared out, the fridge was gone, and the keys were not all provided. On top of that, your dickwad clients shut off the water and left tons of crap in the commode!!! You promised a resolution on the outstanding items by the afternoon on Tuesday. We were left with just the fridge and no gate keys at 7 pm. Come the fuck on. Step up to the plate and have some goddamn integrity. I started arguing with her, and I was fuming afterwards. I complained to J and he said, “Well what did you expect those agents/sellers to do? They’ve been sloppy and sketchy the whole damn time.” Touché, but still. Call me naive, but I expected some kind of conscientiousness.

The good news is that I have another transaction under my belt. I’ve worked things out with my buyers, and they are super pleased, so I’m very thrilled about that. But goddamn, I can’t help but have a bad taste in my mouth: I feel like an unspoken agent code was violated. I’m telling you: not all agents are the same. Be very selective when you choose your representative. For my part, I will be sharing my experience with the office, so others can be forewarned about these hooligan agents.

In this business, it’s a lot about the pipeline. The goal is to come into contact with as many people as possible in the hopes that ultimately, I will connect and do business with some subset of those I’ve met. The process of “getting out there,” as they term it, is both challenging, exciting, and exhausting. In November, I completed my second full year as a licensed agent. To date, I had tried all kinds of strategies for growing my book of contacts: door knocking, cold calling, mailings, homebuying classes, flyering, open houses, emails, referrals… Some stuck better than others. I found that open houses really helped me build relationships with listing agents and loan officers. As I hosted over 65 different properties, I started to get faster at reviewing disclosures and evaluating comps. I also grew my confidence of talking with strangers and discussing the market. I have learned so much in my second year. I’m much more familiar with the software, the digital forms, and my new brokerage (which I joined in July) is so damn organized. The office has systems and processes, and people really know what they’re doing.

It’s interesting bc I didn’t think I would like real estate as much as I do, but somehow, I find myself really enjoying what I’m learning and I am seeing now how starting my third year, there is something that compels me to get up every morning. I feel motivated to build my knowledge, skills, and mastery.

In February, I attended an intensive 3-day training in Southern California. What I realized is that my top motivation really is about finding a role that is compatible with my personality and skill set and then growing in that role to become the best that I can be. In some bizarre way, real estate brings out a feeling that I probably haven’t felt in many, many years: competition and striving for excellence. As a kid, I was super competitive. I excelled in various academic arenas– in school and in Chinese school. I did speech competitions, participated in activities and teams– math, science, Latin, mock trial. And then college crushed me. And after my dreams of being a physician were dashed, it seemed like my life was just going to be about settling for mediocrity. I went through a series of careers and jobs… I did well in them, but the long term wasn’t very clear. With real estate, I feel like there is a trajectory. I feel like there is a path to growing something in the future.

But there is still the daily grind. And I get frustrated. I was at a staff meeting yesterday, and an agent who has been in the business about 5 years described just how much this job messes with your mindset. Every day, she’s wondering if she’s good enough, if she should quit. Her emotional stance jumps day to day, week to week, feeling like she’s on top of the world and then plummeting to feeling just. not. good enough. It is seriously a crisis of confidence very fucking week, and that emotional instability really takes a toll. I could relate so much to what she shared. It’s a constant struggle and with the routine rejection, you really have to work at keeping your sanity. This job takes a lot of fucking resilience. Thankfully, I always get back up. It might take me a few days to recover, but I won’t be beaten down.

In March, after many months of business drought, I finally caught a break. The list agent with whom I had my very first deal over 2.5 years ago, started getting a lot of business. Mind you, he’s run his own brokerage for years with only enough business for himself. But as he started picking up more listings this year, he needed to call on someone to help him host more open houses and communicate with the many Chinese-speaking visitors.

So I started covering a lot of his listings… not in the best areas and not in my usual price points, but I did it anyway. And every lead I captured, that person went into my database and I methodically kept them on my drip marketing campaign.

In February, the list agent got a new listing for a very distressed home. He invited me to attend the listing presentation and meet the sellers. The meeting at a local diner lasted FOREVER. Barely any conversation about business– just chitty chat. I was dying after more than two hours. But as he built his rapport with them, I was there kind of at the periphery but still there. And a few days later, as he advised them of their options, I was given the challenge to find a buyer for the off-market property.

I pinged my database via email and text and phone. After a few rounds, finally, someone responded. And after a few visits to the home, the general contractor made the decision to buy! Of course, there were already multiple interested parties, but in the end, the fact that I had met the sellers in that initial meeting helped me score an in-person meeting to present my client’s offer. And soon after, my client was in contract! And not only was this client super knowledgeable, having been a GC and local investor for 20+ years, he was so straightforward and pleasant to work with.

As it turned out, this deal got complicated towards the end as the close of escrow date approached. The “occupant” was very resistant about vacating the property and in California, there are all sorts of potential landlord-tenant legal issues… Thankfully, in the end, the deal closed and I learned so much. The hardest part was seeing the downside of real estate: it was not easy getting someone who had no job, car, and no other place to go, out of the property. It didn’t feel good even if it was what the sellers wanted and what needed to be done to protect my client. At the end of everything, I got my client an amazing deal, and the sellers were thrilled to get the money fast to help their family. But someone also lost the place he was living… I hope that the tenant will seek assistance from social services and job placement agencies to get him back on his feet.

Interestingly, this off-market deal led to my very first listing. You see, the day that I presented my offer (for the first time ever in person) to the seller and the listing agent, it just so happened that a mother and daughter were sitting at the table next to us. We were at that diner again. They overheard our conversation and proceeded to interrupt my offer presentation to tell us 1) they also had a home to sell 2) they wanted to meet with us, bc they liked what they had heard.

Yup, bam, just like that. I got one offer accepted and a listing appointment booked on the same day. It was super sweet and certainly made for a great story!

After my lunch with A, I immediately reached out to her #1 in the company colleague (whom I had met before) to set up a coffee meeting. When I met with J a week later, we had a great conversation. I mean, this dude is just the epitome of calm and cool. Sure, he wore a very nice suit, but he was just chill. And we talked for hours.

The heavy hitting agents? They talk. A lot. They run raffles. They run contests. They invite potential buyers to lunch with lenders to get them preapproved. Somehow they get buyers to agree to this. The lesson? It’s about confidence, certainty, and swagger. It’s as if they make the ask without asking. It’s more like, “Let’s do lunch” rather than “Do you want to meet for lunch?” There’s a fluidity to the ask.

And ultimately, all of this communications mojo is honed through networking… Story after story, he told me about how he went to a meetup or a happy hour or a party or an event, talked to some people, befriended them, they introduced him to yet more people at the event, and bam, he got business from these guys the next week or two. I mean, at the highest level, this is how business happens, right? It’s WHO you know.

I noticed too that with both of these loan officers, they’ve never really been about getting every client. They understand from the get go that they will not earn the business of every person, and they are ok with that… and I think how it translates is it exudes confidence to the clients. In other words, it’s totally free of desperation. So that’s my first realization. Maybe in some way, I have been coming across desperate? Two. Building my network and social skills will only help me in this business. More networking (which was already one of my new year goals). Three. The success of others leaves clues. When you exude cool, you attract people. There isn’t really a slickness but rather a chill authenticity… Anyway, I saw it in J and I’m convinced it’s part of his magic.

All of this reminds me of experiences from my childhood. When I was in school, I was often bullied, bc I was Asian (only 10 in a class of 1200) and bc I was scrawny. I had my friends but for the most part, I was considered a nerd. But in Chinese school, which I attended every Sunday, I was the cool kid, er rather, the mean girl. I carried myself differently in Chinese school. I was a badass in Chinese school. And the way classmates interacted with me was different. I’m convinced that confidence is 80 percent of the game, so I’m continuing to build it through skills mastery and stronger mindset.

I had lunch recently with a loan officer friend of mine. For Chinese New Year back in early February, she had gifted me a lovely cheese board set, so I invited her to lunch as a belated thank you and catch up. She’s a super pro having been in the loan biz for over 15 years. She’s just one of those people who always appears to have her shit together: you know, goes to the gym, dresses super classy and professional, sends her two kids to private school, kicks butt in her business… I lamented to her that my business was so slow. My last deal was the end of summer.

She was so kind and sweet in her response. She told me that I was THE hardest working agent she knew and that I had the most consistent follow-up she’d ever seen. Like every time we co-hosted open houses together, I’d send a thank you card afterwards. I’d send her the leads and cc her on my emails to the visitors. Whenever I sent her clients, I’d check in with her on their status. She said, she worked with so many top producing agents, and they never did ANY of those things.

I felt really special hearing her acknowledge these habits. But still, I didn’t know why I was stagnating, and I was feeling so frustrated. At the end of our lunch, she told me not to lose hope– to keep doing what I was doing.

But, she also suggested that I speak with her colleague, who was killing it this year. He was #1 in the company across the entire USA for closing loans. She said he worked with a bunch of big time agents… maybe he would have additional insights, bc as far as she could tell, she could not figure out what was wrong with me! Turns out, from the time I met her about 1.5 years ago, she’d been puzzled by my low production. She said, she kept trying to figure out, What is wrong with you? And it didn’t make sense to her… Who knew I was like her latest conundrum?!?

It was a good meeting. I appreciated someone noticing my efforts, and afterwards, I did feel re-energized to forge ahead.