I Want To Be A Realtor When I Grow Up

Has ANYONE ever heard that? I know when I was growing up in the dark ages, I thought I had two choices, a teacher or a nurse. That was if I aimed high and went to college. The other options included clerical work if I went to business school, with secretaries being highly prized - I think executive secretaries were particularly valued since they needed to dress well and were paid to do so, not to mention the time management skills they had to have that kept their much more highly paid bosses afloat.... It all came down to typing skills in the end it seemed. Beyond these options, it was assumed a woman would be barefoot and pregnant.

Well, teaching was out. I was a great learner but not a conventional thinker - I'd be fired for nonconformity, plus I hated public speaking, even if I would be twice the audience's age at some point. Nursing was definitely out - all that caring about people's bodies, the bodily fluids, the extremely personal histories, the antiseptic environment. So many things wrong with the nursing picture.

As a Catholic school student in elementary school, I was constantly told I should be a nun. That was probably because I was a shy kid and everyone thought I would amount to nothing. This is not a slam against nuns, some of whom are so patient and devout, but I knew my future held bigger things than those kinds of restrictions. We won't talk about sex. OK, just did. What is the celibacy issue all about anyway? A human need cannot be willed away by prayer - I will not believe that is true. So I am a cafeteria Catholic, picking and choosing what it is that I adhere to. I do believe the oddities of this faith will catch up with my beliefs and the beliefs of many other Catholics. If you hate me for it, who wins? I'm thinking the devil. But I digress.

Back to my topic, as usual, finally.... The only realtor I remember in my childhood is the one who found my family the property my mother still lives in. My father died in September 2007 and my sister and her husband moved to PA from AZ (their jobs allowed that to happen, miraculously) and they purchased the property. I think of my sister as the knight in shining armor. My mother calls her husband the cookie monster, probably with good reason despite his rake-like build. All is going well.

That realtor in 1964 was so professional, so organized, so revered by my parents, my mother in particular, and if anyone thinks a man chooses a property for a family home, well, I think you are probably wrong. That woman, knowing we had to make the move for my father's job, and knowing we had a family with 9 children (ultimately there would be 12) showed a lot of sub-par properties. There was disappointment; I think I remember tears; I know I remember despair. My mother talked about the time they stopped at a local coffee shop to re-evaluate. (We nine kids were at Grandma's up the road.) It was then the details were really hammered out.

My parents were leaving a property just outside New York City for a property in suburban Wilkes-Barre. The cost differences were huge. The tiny house they were leaving could purchase three times the home for half the price, and they did. It wasn't until that discussion was had that progress was made. I know 1964 was a lot different than today, but it all comes down to listening and understanding. I remember my mother describing the "shacks" they were first shown and then finding the property they now own. It was a fixer upper they were glad to acquire on arguably the best street in the best suburb of the city where they were searching.

My mother loved that realtor for finding them that property, our family home, and talked about her regularly enough that I remember the profession though I was only six years old. When that realtor took the time to learn about my parents, she apologized for assuming from afar what our family was like. To her, nine children equated to a shack but we were more like "The Sound of Music" (I hate that movie...) and she apologized for jumping to conclusions and showing what she had originally shown. We went to that little coffee shop many times through the years. My mother always mentioned the realtor and it was clear she meant that that was the turning point. In an odd coincidence, a grandchild bought that coffee shop years later and turned it into a highly profitable pizza place - I think it was the third in their local chain. Anyone believe in karma?

My point is this. Hardly anyone sits down and thinks, "I'm going to be a realtor." Part of the problem is that there are few degree programs that state that as a goal. In many places, becoming a realtor means passing a test and hanging up the shingle. The only real estate profession I knew about before choosing this profession was real estate attorney. Not realtor. Attorney. Law school. I was not up for law school.

Somewhere deep down while I was a very young child studying the floorplans in the many shelter magazines my mother subscribed to, I found my passion. No one saw it, no one knew it, not even me until it was the classic 20-20 hindsight. But here I am, a realtor. In Michigan. In one of the worst real estate crises parts of this nation and certainly Michigan have perhaps ever endured, and I am surpassing the norm. I expect this year to be enormous. I expect to finally be able to hire the help I need. I expect I am going to have to clean up my office to give them a place to work. I hope they believe in karma; it's real, it's here, and they're gonna need it.