How Did I Get Here?

As the days approach closer and closer to the beginning of my first career, I have thought a lot lately about the road that I took to get here and what inspired me to want to make real estate a part of my life. All of the events leading up to me choosing real estate as my career and securing a job seemed to happen so quickly and consecutively. When I think back to the first exposure I had with the real estate world, I began to be inspired:

The way that I got into the field of residential real estate was very serendipitous, and inspired me to make it my career. It began when I interned at Prudential Real Estate my sophomore year of college with one of the top real estate agents in Long Island, New York after cold calling many firms. After a few weeks I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into this field so I asked the agent what he gets out of the job. He told me that he gains a lot of satisfaction out of helping people make a large emotional decision and that he can be the helping hand who assists them in their decision. This really stuck with me as I always wanted to help people, but did not want to go into the medical field or any other occupation with a foundation of science. Real estate seemed like a way that I could achieve my desire of helping others and making them happy. My other form of motivation came from a family member who went from living on the street to owning his own multi-million dollar real estate firm in just over 20 years. If that wasn’t enough motivation for me, after he abruptly and prematurely passed away, I got to talk to people who were associated with him and every single person said how he touched their lives in such a special and unique way that no one had before. I would love to be able to have the same affect on others’ lives through my work. Other reasons why I chose this field come from the many benefits that it offers. Although I will have to be on call at all hours of the day, I will have the ability to have a flexible schedule and choose how much or how little I want to work since I will be working off of commission and get to choose my work volume. This will allow me to gain a work-life balance of my comfortability and will never feel like my job is taking over my life. Being able to be mobile during my day on the job is very important to me as well. I never wanted to work a job where I felt trapped in a cubicle or an office, so being able to go to different residencies and show them to clients will keep me at ease. This will also break up the monotony of a normal eight hour day job. Because I will will be working with numerous different clients, showing different houses, and having every sales condition be different, I will never feel like I am trapped in the same work cycle everyday and will keep my job interesting. The location that I will be working in, Miami, is also a motivation for me to work in real estate. I always wanted Miami to be my destination out of college after living in New York my whole life. The Miami real estate market is currently one of the most thriving markets in the country and has great opportunity for me to be successful. The median sales price for residencies in Miami as of the end of 2014 was $224,000 which represents an increase of 10% compared to the prior year and 29%, 5 years before that. There were 3,200 sales of homes in Miami last year which is an increase of 600 dating back to the end of 2009. The market is continuing to grow and become more lucrative and is becoming more of a desired destination for people to live with a 5.8% increase in population in the past five years. A lot of this desire comes from international buyers. Most of these homes that they are purchasing are luxury condominiums which is going to be my specific field that I am working in. These international investors from countries such as Brazil, Russia, and Argentina account for the majority of the luxury condominium sales in Miami. Many of these purchases are the buyers third or fourth investment and are sometimes left vacated and only invested in only to make a profit when the market rises, especially in pre-construction buildings where the price per square foot is less expensive. Opportunity for advancement is also one of the reasons that I chose this industry. I have the ability to become a broker after only two years of being an active sales associate and this gives me the ability to control my own firm.

All of these prior experiences and benefits have motivated me and inspired me to venture into the world of real estate and I could not be happier with my decision. I believe that it is truly a great fit for me and I get to live in the place that I’ve wanted to since I was a kid. I couldn’t be more excited for the future.