All Forum Posts by: Whitney Breedlove

Thanks everyone for posting yall's progress. Let me know what you hear when you get your updates!

I'm also building a house with Delta. I received permits at the end of October and waiting for them to scrap my lot currently.

Thanks everyone for the input! I sincerely appreciate yall taking the time to respond and help me out.

I really do feel like it's a good idea, as yall have mentioned, to do it part time and see how I like it before diving in. I also like the idea of specializing in a certain area and not letting myself get too distracted from this area. I'm assuming a lot of people drop out so quickly is because it's much more of a sales job than they were expecting and perhaps they assumed that their broker would provide all the leads. 

Thanks @Karl McGarvey. It's good to hear you can be successful without having to do this. It seems antiquated! 

Quote from @Marian Huish:

I concur with @Bruce Lynn & most of the others…. You will be an awesome agent @Whitney Breedlove, given your background and current ‘sphere’ of pity clients Betty our business associates, your husbands, as well as the parents of your school friends.  I just wouldn’t give up my full-time job until you have a deal or 2 under my belt.  Select a brokerage that permits part time, offers flexible training and office support hours, lead generation (aside from sitting’deck duty’ to capture walk-ins) a mentor, and a competitive commission split, low fees as werr as other ‘perks’ such as stock & health care.  Best of luck!  

 Thanks for the response! I'll definitely look for that when I'm trying to find a brokerage. 

I have another question for you all - how much "cold calling" do yall do on a day-to-day basis? I planned to mainly use social media for marketing as well as getting out into the community and meeting people but I'm listening to David Greene's book and he highly recommends calling people in your network everyday to organically ask for referrals but to be honest, if someone called me that I hadn't talked to in a while and did this, I would be totally annoyed. I definitely am not afraid to let everyone know I'm in real estate and ask for referrals but I also don't want to alienate those I'm close with.

Quote from @Karl McGarvey:

I personally would not be giving up guaranteed income from a stable job until I have the business generating to replace most of it. So many new agents from the “Covid Era” flooding the market that not everyone will make it. Extremely possible to start part time and build business while working a W-2. Then after a year or two your RE business will hopefully naturally take over because you are so busy. Just my two cents, Im not a fan in blowing through my savings on a “hope” when I can reduce that risk.

That totally makes sense. I definitely have some free time while I’m at work to work on real estate. It may be hard to squeeze in showings unless it’s mainly on the weekends. I do think it’s a good idea to try and do both as long as I can and then I’ll have a better idea of how sustainable it will be full time to support my family. Do you know what brokerages typically think about their agents doing both? Is it frowned upon or pretty common? 

Quote from @Bruce Lynn:

Do it.... you have to be smart and know how to study if you are an attorney.   You have a great network, and I would also say do you best to leverage your husband's network as well.  Teachers make good money and are great home buyers, there are plenty of them, and plenty of turnover.  Plus between the two of you, you should know every kid in school and have a good insight as to who might move at the end of the school year.   Make sure to sponsor the new teacher breakfast ever year.

Classes to get your license should be fairly easy for you....you probably know 1/2 the info already.

The common quote is to have six months of reserves, but everyone is different.  Some new agents set the world on fire their first year.  Some never sell a house.  So tough to know where you fit in to that range.

Another option is go to work for a title company.

 Thanks so much for your input! I definitely like the idea of sponsoring the new teacher breakfast and leveraging his connections at the school to grow my business. I also see you work for Keller Williams. I’m considering them for my brokerage but still pretty early in making that decision. Do you happen to know if any of the branches in Houston are pretty good? 

Hey guys,

I’m considering quitting my job in the next year to become a full time real estate agent. I’m currently the bread winner for my family and I’m wondering how hard it is to support a family working as a real estate agent full time. I know this largely depends on the person but I’m pretty terrified to take the leap. By the time I quit I’ll have enough money saved to support my family for a year with no income. My husband is a teacher and we have 2 kids. I have a pretty big network and live in a highly sought after area of Houston (Clear Lake) where the houses are on the slightly more expensive side although we have a little bit of everything. 

Right now I’m an in-house transactional attorney for a big company. It’s a great job but I just have 0 passion or interest for my job and real estate is something I’ve always loved and I invest on the side. I also hope that being a real estate agent would give me more of a flexible schedule to spend time with my babies. Im not looking to make 6 figures my first year or anything but hoping I can work toward that after a few years. 

Personally, I would give them the extension considering the circumstances but you can make it clear in your communication that by giving the extension you’re not waiving any of your rights under the lease.

I’m curious where your property is located in Cape Coral. I’m in the process of building a property in the North East in Cape Coral (still waiting on permits so construction hasn’t started) and I’m wondering how the houses faired in that area. I’m glad there wasn’t damage to your property! 

Thanks for the input! Sending you a DM @Ronald Rohde.

I'm currently an attorney and just started going down the path of getting my real estate license. I do realize that attorneys may sell real estate without a license but I wanted the education anyway. So I'm wondering if there are potentially unique opportunities for people who are dual attorney agents? Do brokerages seek people out like this to perform a dual role in their company? Initially I was thinking I'd leave the legal world behind after I got my license and just practice real estate full time, but now I'm wondering if I can leverage my legal license somehow as an agent? Anyone out there currently doing this?