A New Beginning
I have decided to post this in the success stories section of our community based on the fact that I am leaving myself no choice but to achieve it. If there is anything I’ve learned from these boards, its that there is always another way, and there is always a second chance at success in real estate. I will attempt to be brief but informative.
My wife and I are both in our mid twenties. Currently I serve in the US Air Force stationed at Hurlburt Field in NW Florida. Being success hungry driven people that we are, we gave wholesaling a try last year. We discovered the area is not the greatest market for it, but the main take-away was the networking and experience gained from the ordeal. Fast forward to now, we have both became licensed Florida real estate agents, with a high focus on military members (since I am still in.) We were approached by another very young but hot shot agent who guided us and mentored us through the process of becoming licensed. We followed his lead, even joining a 100% commission, very low support brokerage in exchange for him promising my wife and I that we'd achieve a Keller Williams level support from him, without the painful commission split. He is an ex KW agent. My wife and I nose dived headfirst into the industry. She even quit her full time job to pursue real estate full time, which has become a large challenge for us living on one income, and me being a senior airman. Our mentor promised us support, guidance, and a reason to create a team with him. The team was the 4 of us, myself, wife, him, and his younger brother. What we learned in the first few weeks - months at teammates, was that we really were not seeing the type of growth we expected to as realtors. We'd show up at mentors home, discuss being a realtor, then head back home after a long day of messaging people on Facebook asking if they would like to buy or sell. Me personally, brought in multiple leads from the Air Force that I'd found since. Mentor would drive us to show my clients homes using his MLS access and SUPRA access to enter and view properties, and guide us through submitting an offer. At this point my wife and do not have the funds to purchase our own realtor memberships, or supra access since we're more focused on getting by month to month until RE profits begin.
Fast forward to today, where I begin our story, no longer with mentor or the team. Mentor slowly but surely began informing me well after the fact that his mentorship was not free, and that he was entitled to whatever % of my profits he would give himself. I bought my second home, and am preparing to rent out my first home. Mentor claimed 50% of my new tenants security deposit as profit to himself for explaining to me how to rent a property. Multiple things I disagreed with, my wife and I requested a team meeting to establish some guidelines on what types of mentorship and favors from the team would actually be team support, and what actions would require compensation just so we would know ahead of time and plan accordingly. Mentor was highly offended by my wife and I for questioning him, and replied very harshly with a long speech filled with curse words and insults, and concluded by the following statement. I will not speak to you or your wife for 30 days. I do not care that you don't have MLS access, do not care that you cannot use SUPRA to show a home, and I do not care that you two are not independent enough to be on your own. You will find out how it feels to not have my mentorship, and that starts right now, so if you would, get the F*** out of my home.
Of the few people I've described our experience to, many have struggled to believe that a mentor figure would behave in such a way. It is true that I prefer this not be the case, that we still be teammates, that my wife and I have our team that we helped co-found still on our side, but at the current moment we are acting independent agents, for a brokerage that offers zero support to its agents, without MLS access. I believe this is the face of adversity, and we have panicked over it, but now we will press onwards. The map is laid out, to close a deal, use the proceeds for all of our accesses to networks agents use, and to continue to mentor ourselves from the help of other realtors, and these boards. I have less than a year left in the Air Force, so a steep task at hand is to gain enough traction in real estate to walk away from the service in 11 months. I have got my wife to create an account on BP as well, so she will be reading along and learning. Typically these threads exist to reveal motivation from what we've accomplished, fewer are created to document the struggles that we all undergo, so that we might one day reveal the triumphant accomplishments that have been had in the face of adversity. A positive attitude, and a belief in the why we do these things in life that scare us will yield us the freedom in life we all strive for. Thank you to anyone who reads our quick little story, and I am excited to share updates in this thread as we have them. I am so grateful for BP and our members.