Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Christine Hansen and I am an aspiring writer. I live in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland with my husband, Chris and our three children. I have a son from a prior marriage and he has two daughters from his so we do not have any children together. We've been pretty much inseparable since we met just over 4.5 years ago and we'll celebrate our one year anniversary in April of 2021.
I've lived here my entire life and in fact, live just slightly over two miles from my childhood home. Ironically, we live just over 3 miles from where Chris grew up. It was just me and my brother, who is almost 5 years older, and the closest thing to a pet that my parents allowed was goldfish. Did I mention that I'm almost 50 years old? However, this writing thing is not at all new to me. I've always loved the English language, any English or writing courses and even tried my hand at short stories when I was very young. Granted, I don't recall finishing most of them but I enjoyed the process nonetheless. I've always been a voracious reader so that does seem to lend a hand to creating writers as well. I really should have pursued writing much earlier in life, but back in the late 80s, you either went to college or you got a job. Working was not new to me since I'd started early, working as a babysitter, around the age of 12. There was also that defining and shocking moment when my parents told me that they weren't sending me to college. They'd not revealed this to me before but strangely acted as though I should not have been surprised. I recently ran across my high school transcript and it was excellent. I'm sure any college would have been happy to have me but practicality won out and without a significant amount of money from my parents, I ruled out attending college. The last thing I wanted was to pay off college loans for the rest of my life. Quite frankly, the option of taking out a loan wasn't even mentioned. It was a time when I felt pressured to redirect myself to a new career, which sadly wasn't writing.
Okay, so my parents had saved a VERY small amount of money, just not nearly enough to go to college. Location, location, location...the #1 rule of real estate. Ironically, this is what led me to go into real estate. My parents' property was divided into two plots and just behind our house lived their very good friends, John and Brenda. Even prior to moving with them to this property, they had spent a lot of time at our house. Both John and Brenda were realtors with Coldwell Banker and seemed to do very well. After all, it enabled them to move out of their townhouse with their two kids and build a nice home. It seemed like a cool idea to sell houses and luckily, this small amount of money would fund the education, testing and early costs of becoming a real estate agent. You should be aware that I was 19 years old. This would not be the only naive decision I would make at a young age. I should mention that my best friend's Mom also worked for Coldwell Banker, so it seemed natural to attend their classes. Honestly, I was bored with the minutia of what I was learning but figured it would be much more fun when applied. Plus, I'd get to see a lot of neat houses and doesn't everyone love going into different houses? I managed to pass the course test and then spent many hours studying for the state and national portions of the Real Estate Exam. I PASSED! The fun would start now, right?
Back in 1990, when I got my real estate Salesperson license, the internet is not what we have now. You couldn't just browse listings online for free. You needed a brokerage to connect to the Multiple Listing System, or MLS. In order to access it, you had to pay fees to MLS on a regular basis. Additionally, you had to pay brokerage fees (to allow you the use of their name and access to clients), the annual fee to the National Association for Realtors, continuing education and miscellaneous marketing costs. My small "fund" was depleting quickly at this point so I was hoping that I would sell a house pretty soon in order to break even or come out ahead. Let me return your attention to my age of 19. I'd like to think that I was just overly confident, but truly I was ignorant to the ways of the world at this point. You know, it was probably the same part of me that thought I knew everything and thought my parents knew nothing just a few short years earlier. This was the first lesson that really smacked me across the face. While I was pleasant and looked the part, who in their right mind would sign a contract with someone with no experience? It became obvious that age and wisdom needed to go hand in hand in order to gain the trust of your clients. The other damning evidence that this was not my chosen career path was the reality of how familiar you needed to be with a math calculator. Yes, that's right...a calculator. You had to, at a moment's notice, whip out this calculator that would magically determine how much you could afford, at which interest rate, with a certain down payment and then the amount of your monthly payment. I am sure this is not the case in 2020. There has to be an "app for that", one which magically does it all without you worrying about missing a number or a step in the process. At the time, given that I detested math, this was the final nail in the real estate coffin.
After about a year or less, I decided to stop the financial bleeding and look for a full-time job with benefits. I'd kept my paying job at Kmart but there were no benefits and you basically stood on your feet all day. I'd grown up watching my Mom work at an office job so that seemed like the thing to do, particularly given my avid typing skills.
I did maintain my real estate license for several years by paying the renewal fees) but eventually let it lapse. I felt sad to let it go, given that I still count that as a huge accomplishment, especially considering my age. No matter what, I gained a lot of experience, especially in how the world works. My decisions going forward would soon provide many more opportunities to gain even more of this real-life experience.
Please feel free to share your comments or questions about this post. What was your first real-life lesson?
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