July 1st 2013

All Employees Please Attend,
     Well, there is no way this is your every day meeting. THI has been purchased by Thoratec and some of you will be retained, some will be offered positions by Thoratec and some will be laid off. Damn, I planned on retiring from this company at one time. Good thing I had a back-up plan! 2 weeks later I found out I am laid off. This has never happened to me before. Emotionally, I am upset because after 13 years of coming in to the same company every day, year after year, you begin to get quite comfortable. Intellectually, I knew this was the sign it was time to move on to the next stage in my life. When one door closes another door opens. Besides, they offered me a severance package to hold me over until I can start to make an income selling Real Estate. I am truly blessed!

Choosing a Broker

Seems simple enough, right? It isn't. Each broker has a different arrangement with their agents, but what most people don't realize is that part of each sale goes to the broker. So the standard 3% commission is more like 2%. The deciding factors then will be what kind of; training, advertising, technology support are they offering. In my case, I went with Keller Williams and I feel very strongly that I made the right choice. Admittedly, I see a lot of Reinhardt signs around Ann Arbor, but KW is listing a lot of houses. I have already received a good deal of training. I also heard that other agencies have less camaraderie.

The Exam!

There is a lot of build up for the exam. Having taken quite a few of these certification exams I had a good idea what to expect. It takes a lot of memorizing information that will not be used again. Like history class! So I broke it down into 30 minute segments for 1 month and the day before the exam I took the practice test...50%. Now I am a little concerned to say the least. Since it was a prepaid exam and I hate to waste money, I figured I might as well take it. Clearly, the practice tests were harder. While they do not tell you the score, I did pass. I was the quite pleased with myself, as you might imagine.

How It All Began, aka my education begins.

Picture this! I decided I wanted to sell my own house in order to save the 3% commission I was going to have to pay the selling agent. In these tough times why wouldn't an intelligent guy like myself save a buck? Next, I saw a Groupon for a 40 hr Real Estate Course and said, heck ya! Let me tell you what happened next...in the first 4 hours I was ready to go home. It was obvious nobody in their right mind, knowing what I now knew, would try to sell their own home. Not being one to quit I stayed for the rest of the day and it did not get any easier, but now my interest was peaked and I just spent 10 hrs of my valuable Saturday invested into my Real Estate education.