Diary of An Anonymous New York Real Estate Agent

What is it like to work on a salary? I've almost forgotten. Seriously, it's been years since I punched a clock, had real benefits, paid vacation, or knew precisely how much money I made per paycheck. Initially, I didn't intend to live this way. It was just damn hard finding a decent job in my original field of work, or any other, for that matter. Real estate was a fallback job, and I never expected to get so used to being able to work my own hours (which turned out to be 7 days a week most weeks), make my own schedule (which included people calling me at all hours), and be responsible for witholding my own taxes. (Hint: it pays to put money back for taxes, but no agent I know actually does this).

The whole "flexibility" thing isn't as great as it sounds. What good is making your own schedule when you're constantly on call? What is the benefit of theoretically being able to take extended time off when doing so could wreck your cashflow? Other agents will practically try to steal your business from you out from under your nose when you're present. If they get wind that you're on leave, fuggedaboutit. (Luckily, the agents in my office are not like this. We're the rare realty firm that works as a team and we don't try to screw one another over. The screwing over, or attempted screwing over, happens mostly in the field, by other asshole agents at asshole firms).

At any rate, the realtor's life is one of constantly being on edge. On edge that you're going to miss that million-dollar client because you slept in for an hour or dared take a day at the beach (Indeed, a weekend in the Hamptons once cost me a deal I'd been working on for a few weeks. This after having zero weekends off for well over a year. The one weekend I took off was the one where the people found another apartment on their own). On edge that another broker's gonna screw you over, or that a client will disappear on you. I could go on, but it'd just depress me.

As for the salaried life, I may yet get a chance to find out, if this job interview I have in a few days turns into more than a polite chat with me sweating it out while wearing the female equivalent of a "monkey suit." I don't want to say too much, but it's at times like these that keeping this blog "anon" seems like a smart decision. A few people have encouraged me to "pimp my blog" and link it up, etc. It's not time for that. Yet.

As for the broker's course--well, I finished it, took the test at the state building downtown, and am still waiting to hear if I passed or not. I feel fairly confident that I did pass, so if I flunk it'll be muy embarrassing. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to actually do with said broker's license (that should be obvious from the previous paragraph of this post), but feel that having it is better than not. Especially considering that next year they're requiring 75 hours of course time. To hell with that noise! It was worth getting over with.

The 75 hour thing is nonsense. We got out of class early every freakin' session. It was obvious they were struggling to fill the time alloted. One instructor even said they were scrambling to figure out what to teach in a 75 hour brokers course, because they barely had enough material to teach now.

My vote is for them to talk more about real life scenarios, not stupid arcane legal terms that we'll never see again. There are so many things that I don't know, even after taking the course. But at least I'm smart enough to have a network of resources--both people and references--to turn to when I don't know an answer. People who know much less than me become brokers and open up their own companies every day. That, my friends, should scare you.