RE Career? Would Love BP's input! :)

[Todd Fithian]

Hey Bigger Pocketers! Hope all is well in the Investo-verse. So I figured Id pick the brains of some of the most knowledgeable people I’ve found, yourselves, about career paths in Real estate as a whole. First allow me to explain the goals of myself, and my girlfriend so you can get a good feel for our long term goals. We are currently house hacking a duplex that is bringing us a great return and allowing us to finally pursue some goals without being paycheck-strapped each month. We will definitely be looking to purchase more as soon as possible, but we also would like to get involved in Real estate on a career basis as well. I am re-instating my general contractors license, and we are both taking classes and in the works of becoming Real estate agents, a seemingly good combination. As for me, I have a good solid welding and contracting job, which I will be sticking with until I can move full time into Residential Construction/Contracting again, as well as buying and Selling. I guess the Real question I have here is mainly for my very driven girlfriend of many years. She has recently obtained her Bachelor’s Degree of Science and Business from Redlands University in California, but has realized throughout our “investing” and Learning of REI that Real estate is the field she would like to pursue. So I’m curious about your opinions of how she might go about pursuing a career in this field, such as working for an investor, or a realty group, and how she might get her foot in the door. Obviously she knows to go face to face and try via hard work, but if anyone knows of anyone looking for a driven intelligent young woman in the area, or of any good advice, it would be majorly helpful! Thanks BP, you guys teach us something new every day. Todd Fithian

[Andrew Fielder]

@Todd Fithian Tell her to check her careers page at Redlands. I found my first job out of college at CSUF that way. I also found an internship with a developer on craigslist.

There's a few paths she can go down. When you're straight out of college most of the time you're not going to be in a position to pick and choose. I will tell you that getting your real estate licenses is the obvious first step to work in the industry. Friends and family is typically the best way to get in the door in these situations. 

My girlfriend @Danielle Kaiden did Psychology at Chapman and she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to do as a career. I showed her a few things about real estate and she decided she wanted to try it out as well. She got her real estate license and started working for an agency as a property manager. She absolutely loves it and is giving me a run for my money. Hope to end up opening our own property management company when I complete the brokers exam. I think property management is a great fit for women (without trying to sound sexist) as it appeals to their natural way of doing things. And this is true of the industry, you'll find that sales is typically dominated by males and property management by females. 

It depends on the personality but best thing she can do is just get involved in something related to real estate and if she likes it she can continue doing it and if she doesn't then she can try something else out. That's the beauty of the industry, there's so many sub-segments to it. As long as you're learning something from the position you really can't go wrong. Hope that helps. Good luck to you.