Brokerage Advice needed: New Part-time Real Estate Salesperson

[James Hernandez]

Greetings, thank you for your time and attention. I'm coming here with humility to ask for your perspective because I don't have any.  I'm giving you my questions first just in case you don't want to read the whole post:

My questions are: 

1) Does my law license make me a more valuable prospect for a brokerage or a mentor? 

2) Should I focus on a specific area of real estate sales because of my background such as probate sales or short sales, or something else I haven't identified? Or 

3) Does my limited availability hamper my desirability to a broker or mentor, to the point where my legal experience cannot compensate for my current commitments?

Here is my dilemma, I working a full-time job and have family obligations so I can only commit to Real estate part-time.  I'm hoping to find a brokerage in Orange County, California (southern CA) that can utilize my skills despite my limited availability.  Also I'm not sure whether I should start with a working from the bottom and take anything mentality or whether because of my work experience, I should try to get into a niche area of real estate.

I'll try to keep my background brief: Part of the family business growing up was rental properties.  We had about 20 doors.  I soured on the real estate business because growing in the 80's technology wasn't around to make our lives easier and trying to figure out drywalling and pluming as an 8 year old by yourself on the weekends was not fun.  So instead I went to school, got a job (lawyer) and invested in a 401(k) as Robert Kiyosaki would say.  Well after reading RIch Dad Poor Dad and now that the kids are older and the family is healthy, I have come to accept that I actually really enjoy the real estate business.  So I started studying and this week I passed my CA real estate salesperson test.  

Currently, I'm an attorney with the Federal Government. Previously, I had a small side practice in the area of Estate Planning (wills trusts, no probate).  I'm still proficient in area but I do not actively seek clients.  Now I would like to practice real estate sales part-time.  

From reading various blogs, part-time real estate agents' success is limited in that a good portion of clients may want to contact their agent or see a property during the day and during the week.  Fortunately, I can have some availability during the day and week in my current employment with enough advanced planning to obtain permission from my supervisor.  I hope that is enough flexibility for a limited number of clients.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read any portion of this post.  Any input, advice or directions you are willing to share will be most appreciated.  

Take care, 

[Marcus Auerbach]

@James Hernandez I have been an investor for about 13 years and an agent and team owner in Milwaukee for 6 - I have some concerns about your plan, but let me say this first, I don't want to put cold water on your plans, I just want you to go in eyes wide open!

You don't need to worry about your attractiveness, any brokerage will happily sign you up. They just let the market do the weeding out. 90% or so quit after one year and it's hard to say who that is.

Part time is tough. Most clients work and want to see properties after work. I do this full time (more than 40 hrs for sure) and close about 50 deals a year. In my book if you don't close 20 deals a year you don't know what you are doing as an agent. National average is 7 per year I believe, you can Google that.

Part time is a way to get started, to transition to full time.... what's your end goal?

Sometimes I have an attorney agent on the other side and typically that is bad news. They tend to overcomplicate things and often try to come up with twists to one up an agent without a law degree. I am sure you are not going to do that :-)

The pattern I see with career changes is that individuals comming from people jobs usually do best. Like teachers, sales people, hospitality. Working as an agent requires mostly people skills. Understanding construction gives you an advantage- I have done so many remodels that I just know what to look for and what it will cost. I am also an engineer, which helps with that part, not with the people skills, I had to work on that.

There is no point is specializing as a new agent. Generating leads is the hardest thing and you can't be picky. You need at least several sources.

That crazy part is that people don't hire you because of your skills. Read that again. They think all agents are the same anyway. That is how even horrible agents have business! It's just a matter of being social enough. That was hard for me, because as an investor I could never find an agent who knew more than me, so I thought people would be happy to work with me. That was a tough realization to find out the market place is giving me almost no credit for my skills and knowledge... it helps of course later in the process, but not in the initial stage.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have further questions!