Category Archives: Work

Dumped

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What can I say, at the end of August, I was so excited and thrilled to have multiple buyers in my pipeline. I closed one family at the end of October, but unfortunately, I just lost the second family a few days ago.

Sure, from the get go, it was a doubtful and challenging scenario with the hubby and wife currently living four hours apart, both being out of town with limited availability to scout out homes during the week, and ultimately with the wife calling all the shots all while communicating SOLELY through her hubby. In retrospect, maybe the multiple red flags should have tipped me off, but honestly, I was just so dang happy to get them signed on to work with me, and I was so determined and perhaps naively optimistic that I would find them the right house.

Remember that family to whom I showed over 30 houses a year or so ago? Fuck that. 30 homes was nothing. For this latest family, they covered a geographic region from San Jose to 90 minutes south in north Salinas. Yes, all of it was possible— they could live in ALL those places, they insisted. So, I scouted out probably 70 homes on their behalf in the three months of working together.

Last Saturday, while I was away at a conference, the wife texted through the search platform the oddest message and then she went on and on about really loving a house that just came on the market. Being as this wasn’t my first rodeo, I told her let’s see how the hubby reports back when he checks it out. Also, let’s wait for the disclosures. Immediately after the hubby saw it during the open house, they had me trying to prep for an offer. On Monday, as soon as I returned to town, I made arrangements to meet the list agent and tour the house and run comps. On Tuesdays, the disclosures were released. My clients reviewed and then late Tuesday, the hubby called me to say they were not only passing on the house but also passing on me.

The explanation was that the wife was burned out (SHE’S burned out from conducting the search strictly behind her computer monitor from the comfort of her own home?!?!), she wanted to take a break, and then they wanted to use another agent “to get new perspective.” Yup, just like that. Three months of hardcore work up in smoke. I will earn zippo on that whole project.

To be honest, I was stunned. I had been pulling/reviewing disclosures, contacting list agents, building rapport, running comps, talking to their lender, checking stats/inventory on THREE different markets, so much fucking work for nothing. I cried so much that night. And then the next day, all day I was sobbing on and off. Yet another asshole out there viewing real estate agents like a goddamn commodity. You just swap them in and out. No respect. I barely even got a thank you out of the hubby, and absolutely zero acknowledgement or comment from the wife. What absolute dickwads.

Thankfully, during the three day conference, I had already decided to sign on to the coaching program. My goals through the program are to build my skillset, implement an organized and integrated system marketing/tracking system, and generate a plethora of leads so that I am better positioned to be selective about clients. Moving forward, clients have to be 1. motivated 2. qualified to buy 3. nice. You have no idea how difficult it is to find people who meet just those three basic criteria.

It’s an interesting lesson for me. The whole time, John was telling me I was spending too much time on these people. Their (her) criteria was constantly evolving. First, we started out looking for homes with granny units or enough space to build an ADU. They had zero understanding about the regs surrounding ADUs. I educated them and pointed them to resources. Then, the ADU requirement went away and there were suddenly other criteria. It was a whole laundry list and yet, I found homes to check off everything. Then the demands changed again. Each time, I asked questions to better understand their needs. John told me to scale back and stop asking questions. You’re wanting to find patterns and apply logic to what they want. It defies logic. You can’t work with crazy. But I was so determined…

A few months ago, my 83-year old seller (for whom I worked out a solution with the local housing agencies) told me “you’re very optimistic.” I thought it was the strangest compliment, bc if anything, I consider myself a realist/pessimist. But now I see what she meant. No matter how unreasonable my clients were, I just doubled down and worked harder. For whatever reason, I convinced myself that we were closer to closing on a home than not. And boy was I wrong. Boy did I misread. As Bubbey and my friends told me, she was never going to buy. I didn’t believe them. After all, we had written two offers before… they were serious. That was my proof. But I suppose, the ultimate proof will be in the pudding. That family that viewed 30 homes? I looked them up in public records about 1.5 years after we’d met. They still hadn’t purchased a home. We’ll see if that’ the case too with this family.

As fate would have it… a few days before they cut me loose, I had a memorable conversation with their lender. I told him how I had seen so many homes on their behalf. He said he’d known them a long time and during that time they had worked with many agents and professionals. The consensus was that no one ever communicated with the wife, yet she was the only decision maker. And the hubby was always the messenger. They’d run through multiple agents and be in and out of contract (red flag), and universally, people found them to be very difficult to work with. Honestly, I had underestimated a lot:

1. The hubby’s level of pain. When I first met him in August, he had already been searching for 8 months on his own. Scouring open houses an hour away from where he currently lived then driving eight hours every weekend to reunite with the wife and kid and return for work on Monday. I thought to myself… how long could this possibly go on? Apparently, this arrangement of living apart and driving an inordinate amount every week can go on forever. And now my realization is that she’s a saboteur— perhaps she doesn’t even want to live with him anymore!

2. The wife’s power. Being in a relationship where J and I are mostly balanced in discussing big decisions, it never really occurred to me that the hubby would be so damn spineless. My goodness, I showed him numerous homes that he LOVED and then as soon as she seemed lukewarm on the home, he’d suddenly call out a bunch of things he didn’t like about the home he had previously LOVED.

3. I can’t work with crazy. The whole time, I kept studying the homes they saved or liked, looking for patterns or common characteristics. I’d ask for feedback so that I could fine tune or improve my search parameters… In the end, J was so frustrated with me. He said I kept trying to get clarification to better understand but their decision making was not based on logic. You just can’t work with decision makers who decide based on emotion. It’s too much based on whim.

Well, no matter how you report on the autopsy, it’s a shitty deal. It really hurt my feelings and hurt my confidence. And now I’m at the end of November and the deal I was hoping to close by year end is gone. And I don’t even want to think about the high opportunity cost I paid for this very undeserving and ungrateful family.

New Clients

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Believe it or not, business started picking up at the end of August. My lender sent me a lead for a couple (first-time homebuyers) looking in San Benito County, an hour plus south of here. I wasn’t too thrilled about them looking that far away, but as I’ve learned in some of our training, you have to reward the behavior. A referral is always a good thing, and I was certainly very grateful. The lender told me the couple would be interviewing with other agents, so I jumped on it as soon as I could and set up a buyer consult.

At first, they were looking in Hollister. Considering I had just closed a deal in Gilroy and Hollister was maybe another 20 minutes away, I figured I would suck it up and do it. After I met the family, they seemed so lovely AND their timeline was two short months so I why not? They signed on to work with me, and I was so thrilled. A few weeks in, I realized, they were actually looking in THREE different counties– none of them mine. Long story short, I made many visits south– as far as Salinas, which is 90-120 minutes away. Then, they were focused on new construction, then old construction, then back and forth again. You have no idea. On some weekends, I just couldn’t do an open house, tour with an existing client, and then tour with these new clients… I had to enlist the help of my mentor, who took them out twice.

It’s now October, and after three offers (one other one getting into contract), we’re in contract again. And you know me: I never get an easy file. Not only is the home far away, but their loan is not the easiest AND with the first home where we got into contract, I uncovered about $700/year in special taxes and assessments that the seller and disclosure reports never disclosed. Now, we’re in contract on another home and this time, there’s a 20-year solar agreement that the sellers didn’t know they were in. I’m telling you: I am reading so many contracts that John is lamenting I should have just gone to law school bc at least I would be getting paid (instead of working for free– at least until a deal closes). I can’t believe it but shit man, all those years helping my dad with his real estate transactions trained me up for reading this tedious and annoying fine print. Shit, I know the agreement better than the fucking solar company, I tell you!

Anyway, I’m hoping this deal will progress and I can get it through until closing day at the end of October. Meanwhile, I also signed on a new client through one of my open houses. The family has a healthy budget and is seasoned with home buying BUT the family is currently living in separate cities (way out of town) and they have a home for sale. Needless to say, for the last month and a half, it’s been a beotch coordinating two clients, both from out of town and searching for homes out of town. The logistics are a serious headache. The second family is nice but there’s also been a lot of flip flopping, so I’m getting pretty worn out.

I try to explain it to my friends: I’m super stoked and excited for the business. Both clients have signed me up as their exclusive agent. But both cases are very challenging, from the logistical standpoint trying to schedule showings and meetups as well as from the client navigation/guidance/management perspective. Their needs/wants are constantly changing, so things are hot one minute then cold the next.

Last weekend, I was out in Hollister all day long. Then both clients wanted to submit offers at the same time but on different homes. This shit happens in such a flash, that I ended up copping a squat at the local Safeway and using my mifi hotspot to review all the disclosures, run comps/analysis, make calls, prep the docs. Four hours later, I get an offer submitted. The second one is nearly good to go. On the drive home, the second family changes their mind on the home. All that work for nothing. Back to the drawing board… And that’s how this shit rolls. Up and down, on and off, hot and cold, stop and go.

But I realized yesterday that, despite the frustrations, once I get my people into contract, I like what I do. Especially with the first-time homebuyers, the work is very rewarding and I actually put two and two together last night. Real estate works for me bc it combines education with advocacy and care. I care about understanding the docs. I care about knowing the process and knowing all the ins and outs. And I want my clients to know what the hell they are signing with all these legal documents. Ultimately, I advocate for them and protect them even if it means the deal falls through and I don’t get paid.

Interestingly, remember my listing that imploded in April? Even though everyone around me and my co-listing agent insisted that my clients had no case (they signed what they signed), six months later, we got the City to work out a deal with a partnering housing nonprofit. We’re still getting the paperwork tied down, but at the end of October, my client will get almost $150k more than she would have gotten had we just acquiesced and accepted going by the book. Sure, it’s still not the market price we originally thought we’d get, but given the deed restrictions and her acquiring the home through an affordable housing program, this is a wonderful outcome. And I’m glad that we persisted– that we reached out to the City departments, made repeated appeals, scheduled repeated meetings, and thankfully, multiple agencies came together to create a better solution: synergy at it’s best.

So work is definitely picking up. I’m doing far more activities– I’m just hoping these activities will lead to results soon, bc I would really love to end the year off on a high note.

Learning Moments

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When I was a kid, my parents realized rather quickly that I was a strong-willed, opinionated, obstinate child. I was not easy. And as I grew through the stages from child to adolescent to adult, my notoriety only got worse.

Remember that time in college when John and I first started dating, and my dad basically threw me under the bus, telling John I was a very bossy kind of person? Well, as we feminists like to say, “I’m assertive, not bossy.” But in addition to being assertive, I’ll admit I developed a reputation for being defiant, judgmental, and downright bellicose.

The other day, I was lamenting to my childhood friend that J and I were getting snippy with one another recently. I mean, it’s been a challenging year– running high on emotions between grief and loss, fear and worry, disappointment and frustration. While I do believe J and I have a very solid, supportive, and loving relationship, there are times when we face challenges. As with any couple, we encounter shared experiences but also have individual experiences that shape our separate attitudes, outlook, and mood.

Plus, with me being in real estate, I have particular sensitivities about being valued and respected for my work. This business is a weird one: unlike most salaried roles, I have a lot of upfront work and research where I provide information and services for free, and then I don’t get compensated until the very end. Sometimes, if the client doesn’t work with me, it’s just free labor. I don’t get jack.

When J was tasked with handling his parents’ estate, he fell on the client-end of things as it pertained to real estate matters for the family. I won’t go into the details, but there were instances where he interacted with agents on the East Coast in a manner that echoed the disappointments I had personally experienced in my business. And I found myself struggling to separate his actions with what that insinuated in terms of how he viewed my career. To be honest, it reminded me about that time many years ago when Michael and Juanita Jordan got divorced. She got half of everything, and J made some comment about the unfairness of it all– the money wasn’t her money. Say what? You see, our entire relationship, J has earned more than I have. Partly, this is bc he is in an industry that society values and compensates highly. The disparity of income always bothered me, but J would always tell me, it’s “our” money. And then, when the Jordan story broke, I felt a dissonance between what J had always verbalized to me and how he was interpreting the divorce. The same thing happened with his recent dealings with the Realtors.

While I was dealing with disappointment after disappointment, feeling used and discarded by potential clients, J had been giving me words of encouragement. He too agreed people were being disrespectful assholes in the way that they ghosted me or pumped me for information/resources only to go with someone else or never submit a legitimate offer.

This disconnect caused a big rift, and I was disturbed by the contradictions. We argued and discussed a few times, and then we moved on. Not bc I wanted to drop the issue, but bc belaboring the disagreement/misunderstanding about the scenarios didn’t serve us. And that’s where my friend N, who has known me since the 7th grade, commented that she has witnessed the maturity and growth and compromise. I’m an adult now, so I don’t have the time nor energy to debate something as an academic exercise. But goddamn, it’s hard to let shit go. My instinct is to rehash and to persist. I am a bulldog after all.

But I also remember that years ago, when we went to couples therapy: In the midst of some story where I was insisting that I was right and he was wrong, the counselor interrupted me and said, “Both of your perspectives–however divergent– are correct. You are on the same team.” And so… the bulldog has to let go.

In talking with my friend, I was reminded too that it’s really hard to know another person, to interpret their feelings/actions/intentions with full accuracy. Sure, J and I have been together for over 20 years, but there are still things we don’t fully understand about one another. So rather than react with insult and offense, we should consider the other perspective, and we should always assume good intent.

In addition, this recent tiff has exposed a weakness of mine: I have learned that I have to be confident and comfortable about what I do and the value I bring to my work. No one else is going to give that confidence and security to me. So, I must be more self reliant, and believing in my own value will invariably translate to how I ask for business and how I handle clients who choose another route. That part is on me.

And frankly, I’m getting there. In all my transactions, I know I go above and beyond. I am careful, organized, and prepared. And whether other people acknowledge that or not, I have to feel proud knowing from my own interactions and observations with other agents that I am more thorough and more persistent about advocating for my clients. Maybe I can do a better job of demonstrating and pointing out to clients how I go above and beyond, but fundamentally, it starts with self-love. I gotta do me: believe it, feel it, claim it.

Comeback Kid

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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.

May Shit Flowers

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Well, I was hoping to be in better spirits given that we’re now into June, but what can I say, shit continued to hit the fan in May. On the bright side, Bentley went in for a 3-4 week checkup after his diagnosis, and he was sedated again for the blood work and joint taps. No inflammation in the joints and his WBC count went down from 50k to the high end of normal which I believe is around 20k. As a result, the vet tapered his steroid treatment. Those meds man, they make him so fricking ravenous and thirsty. One day, I was out for 5 hours– I came home and my office carpet was drenched. Poor baby. Thankfully, it was nearly all water and no urine. That’s how much he’s been drinking. Now I just open up the doggie door– John set up our garbage bins on the side of the house, to keep Bentley from harassing the mail people at the front door. I know, totally ghetto but what can we do.

So anyway, we’ve been on the tapered dose of prednisone now for almost three weeks. He still doesn’t run and patrol like he used to. I feel like the disease has aged him– Bentley walks like a lumbering old lion and our walks are pretty brief– only about 20 minutes. Also, the myositis caused muscle atrophy in his skull, so his face is leaner and sunken in. It makes me so sad, bc he had the most beautiful, full and smiling face. I was paranoid that maybe we were missing something else, like another disease or condition, but the doctor assured me that the pockets in his skull are purely cosmetic. And I mean, most importantly, the auto-immune disease is under control and he is not in pain.

Every day I palpate his body all over while I groom him. I’ve also been using the LED light therapy (aka low-level light therapy and photobiomodulation therapy). My friends all think it’s California kooky, but I read a few scientific papers about it and supposedly, the light stimulates the cells for muscle repair. The treatment is typically used for muscle and joint pain. He doesn’t really like it, bc Ben Ben tends to run hot, but he eventually gives in to his tiger mom. In the end, I think it’s helping him, so we’ll have to see.

In other news, my listing imploded. Long story short, the owner did not know there were deed restrictions tied to the home. In other words, she has to seek permission to sell it bc she acquired the home more than three decades ago as part of an affordable/subsidized housing program. Yup, that means, the transaction is going to be canceled. A bunch of other complications are tied to this whole thing, so I’ll just say, it’s a project.

Meanwhile, J’s mom has declined considerably. He is there now, with all her kids. I’ve reached out to a bunch of dog sitters today and no luck again. Hoping the one remaining sitter who hasn’t yet replied will be able to care for Bentley on short notice. I dunno, 2019 is turning out to be a major shit storm.

April Shit Showers

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Well, what can I say, April turned out to be a shit month. It started off that my deal, which was slated to close four days in, had to get pushed back, bc the sellers had trouble getting their “occupant” out of the property. Yup, he just kept blowing through deadlines, insisting that he had no place to go and no where to store his stuff. On one hand, I really felt for the guy. It reminded me that there really are huge swaths of the population where people are falling through the cracks for various reasons— health issues, addiction, abuse, what have you… On the other hand, the sellers had been letting the guy live in their house rent free for a number of years, and they always told him that one day, they would need to sell to help out their own family. It seems that he had at least some months to hatch a plan…

As all of that was happening, I learned that my childhood friend T was on the verge of eviction and homelessness. It’s a long story and we go way back to the second grade. We had lost touch in the mid-2000s and then last Christmas I saw her again. Her story is one of life’s many tragedies and it also highlights what happens when parents are fucking irresponsible with planning their eldercare. Seriously, if you’re not going to put shit into place in terms of financial planning and instructions, you don’t deserve to be parents! And of course, her brother is like my brother. Not a care in the world. Basically, he said he’ll go back for the funeral but can’t be bothered until then. As all of this weighed in my mind, I encountered a third scenario where someone was scraping by and preparing to live out of his car.

In the end, the occupant did finally leave after we extended the deadline. My hope is that he will take action and use the resources that are available to turn things around. Needless to say, the transaction was difficult to celebrate.

Other parts of work started picking up. The list agent with whom I frequently collaborate began getting all kinds of activity in his pipeline, and he called on me to assist. I was thrilled.

Then, Bentley fell very, very ill. He was lethargic, stopped getting up, stopped eating, was panting and drooling crazy. In one week, we made four trips to the emergency room, ran a shit ton of tests (blood work, ultrasound, xrays, joint taps), and things continued to get so bad that he yelped in pain when touched and he couldn’t open his mouth all the way. WTF was happening? I mean, he went from walking slowly/gingerly at home on Saturday night to getting hospitalized by Wednesday. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong. All the while, he was declining, had crazy fevers, had to get IV fluids, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, pain killers… he got put on a feeding tube and had an oxygen mask. I was losing my shit and then I had a seminar partnering with a financial advisor, and my parents were coming to town. It was the most stressful time of my life.

The day I gave my presentation/seminar, Bentley got hospitalized. For what we thought would just be overnight on fluids, turned into five days. Then two days after getting discharged and looking better, we were back in the ER– this time at the specialist bc our general vet told us they had gotten to the end of what they could do. Then, two more nights hospitalized with the specialist and all the while, “regular” appointments are booked weeks in advance so every trip is an emergency where the doctors are trauma/ER docs NOT internal medicine docs. Meanwhile, bc his situation spanned so many days, the doctors kept changing/swapping out every few days due to their work schedule.

By the time we got to the specialists, the general vet had already suspected IMPA (Immune-mediated polyarthritis). At the specialist, we did an MRI, spinal tap, and additional joint taps. Those results ruled out meningitis and confirmed IMPA but also, the imaging showed major inflammation in his head, face, and neck– the diagnosis with that was a SECOND auto-immune disease called immune-mediated polymyositis. Essentially, Bentley had two diseases where his body was attacking itself– in all the joints as well as in the muscles, which explains the level of pain he was in.

On one hand, what a relief to have some answers. The treatment in both instances is steroids + immunosuppressives. Of course, both those meds have crazy side-effects, but for now, we had to get this whole-body inflammation under control. Even after he was discharged from the specialists on a Friday AM, he had what seemed to be cyclical fevers and then face pain recurring over the weekend. Again, back to the ER on Sunday night for a fentanyl patch to tide us over until my internal medicine specialist returned to the office on Tuesday.

On Monday morning, I started calling the general vet AND the specialty center in despair, crying to have SOMEone advise on how to reduce his pain if it escalates again. My general called me back and said the concurrent auto-immune diseases is rare and very serious. She can only defer to the specialist at this point bc it’s such an unusual case. Then, after sobbing to a vet tech at the specialty group, a different internal med doctor on staff that day called to tell me she saw Bentley the week prior when he was hospitalized. She’s only seen a few cases with the double whammy, but for sure, the first week on treatment is very up and down bc the body is just so overwhelmed. I was a total mess with her on the phone. He’s just not getting better. But she said to give it more time. We are less than a week from starting the treatment. We’re “not there yet,” she said. When we get there, we will tell you.

On Tuesday, his doc called all annoyed that my general vet had emailed her and there were numerous voicemails while she was out. I mean, what do you expect. You discharge him Friday AM, you call Saturday and he looks good, and then shit goes down Sunday and he is crying in pain again. I’m going to call every goddamn lead I have to get some freaking medical attention. Needless to say, we saw her two days later on Thursday for follow up. That place is oftentimes a clusterfuck. The tech says they’ll take vitals and blood. I say I want to talk to the doctor first before the bloodwork. Tech says doctor wants to test blood. Fine. They take the blood. Then, we see her in the exam room and she says she might not need to take blood…. WTF? His WBC count is still high– higher than 10 days prior at the general vet. But symptom-wise he is better. She palpates and feels around. Joints seem ok. Still sensitivity with the neck and mouth. We decide to continue the current treatment plan and talk about options if he stagnates or if the situation worsens…

Mind Fuck

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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.

Catching a Break

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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!

Nature of the Biz

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I’m rounding out the first quarter of my third year in the real estate biz, and the ride has certainly been an eventful one. More than any other career I have undertaken (and I’ve done multiple), this one has been a serious rollercoaster.

You see, in the other roles, sure I often had that initial crisis of confidence. Honestly, I think it’s a woman thing. We tend to expect a higher level of knowledge, competency, and preparedness before we’ll feel confident about our expertise. So whenever I started something new, there was that initiation phase of building familiarity, skills, relationships and understanding the people and processes. After about a year in, I started getting the hang of it and it was smoother sailing from there. With real estate, it’s really a constantly-evolving process and the additional responsibility of building my own business entails added challenges.

As I tell many people, from a very young age, my mother always said I was bossy. After I became an adult, graduated from school, and entered the work force, I think she and my father were always rather incredulous that I could work for anyone. I mean, what can I say, growing up, they saw a lot of independence, resistance, and defiance. You know, immigrant parents, yada, yada. I didn’t like being told what to do, especially from my parents. In that sense, the autonomy of my current business is a great fit, bc I like weighing options and selecting the path forward. I like making the decisions.

That said, I’m not gonna lie: The lead generation part of building a business has been a struggle. I’ve grown a ton and definitely conditioned myself to enduring many more uncomfortable situations… but the task of persuading or convincing people to work with me has been difficult. First, I don’t think I come across immediately as a particularly extroverted or immediately likable individual. I’m kinda one of those people with RBF. I’ve had good friends from college admit this to me about our first encounter…

I’m working on the first impression piece, bc I know how important it is to the business. My biggest approach for summoning the energy needed for this continued self-development is to turn things into a game or challenge. That Stanford class on sports performance and mental fortitude still stays with me today so many years later. I want to be mentally strong, and I believe in continual learning and improvement. Ultimately, I want to become that person who has a presence, who exudes confidence, and who is compelling.

Of course, the downside of all this is that there is fatigue. I derive a lot of energy from pursuing this path toward mastery, but it’s also a never ending 24/7 kind of thing. You never know where and when the deal might come. This has caused some tension in my relationships. Interestingly, Bubbey and I find ourselves with roles reversed from several years ago when he was in the startup biz and I was working in government. Startup work is a 24/7 kind of business and at the time, I was frustrated by his complete obsession and utter lack of free time. His schedule was constantly changing and it was hard to make plans. Well, here we are again. There’s a line in the real estate business that says, “Anytime you need a deal, just go on vacation.” We had this happen several times already– when we were in Italy for our anniversary, when we were in Leavenworth for a group vacation, when we were home for Christmas… It’s hard for people outside the business to understand and I’m often frustrated having to explain it to people. It’s not like I get a stable, constant paycheck. In real estate, it’s feast or famine. I only get paid when I get a deal, and since I’m just getting my business started, it’s not like I have a consistent pipeline of business. The work comes in fits and starts and when the deal comes my way, I HAVE to take it. And I don’t want to apologize for having to take it, just like people don’t apologize for their life choices– be it going to school overseas (and being far away from family) or having kids (and seeing less of their friends) or working at their demanding jobs.

Ultimately, when Bubbey and I faced this scenario years back, he tried to spend more time with me. But he was so consumed with work that there just wasn’t a way to really balance it. I didn’t understand it at the time, bc I wasn’t working in such a demanding environment. I myself had also previously worked at a start up, and it was also crazy intense but I was in a lower role. I didn’t have the pressure or responsibility of running a team and of meeting the engineering deadlines for investors and customers.

In the end, J was never really able to attain work-life balance until he left the job.

I don’t know what lies ahead for my real estate business. My hope is that after the first several years of building the business, I will get enough consistent business to a point where I can hire help and delegate the duties… But we’ll have to see. I am trying to get there as fast as I can bc for some reason, I always feel a time pressure. Like it has to happen sooner than later. I dunno. For now, I’m continuing to plug away and I’m enjoying the journey.

Joe Cool

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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.