Hi there.
Tired of teaching middle school after 15 years, wanted a career whereby I can control my own schedule and whereby the amount of my income was mostly a result of my own efforts. Wife kept wanting to wait to have kids, the bio timeclock is up and now I have two of the cutest baby girls. Problem is I'm committed to all the care for the younger baby and about 1/2 the care for the other and its takes about 110% of my non-work time. It wouldn't matter if we were childess but now I have competing priorities and commitments.

I spoke to one former successful but disenchanted RE person, who is now in financial planning at a bank, and he said that I don't really have control of my schedule, my clients do, and that they want to see homes, meet and sign papers at their convenience in the late afternoon, early evenings, weekends, and non-major holidays. They expect their calls to be taken late at night with detailed explanations of their frivolous questions whenever they get anxious.

I've applied for my salesperson's license, but now I'm worried. I can work hard & efficiently, have good business and communication skills, and I don't mind getting up at 3am to get a headstart on business/work before the rush to daycare, but picking up the kids at 4pm, and commencing with 5 feedings for 2 kids, washing/cleaning/cooking/diapering is non-stop til 9:30pm. My wife (elem teacher) will help somewhat but mostly she's tired, and may cover for an hour or two once in a while. She is supportive, would like the extra money to invest, but doesn't know how much she can handle without me there most of the time.

Another agent, who sold me my house a few years ago, who has been super successful for a long time didn't respond directly when I said I would like the ability to schedule my time, to make accomodation for my girls, and still be able to work hard and productively, he only nodded his head. Previously, he showed me his schedule when I tried to arrange an appt w/ him to find out what I'm getting into, and he was booked solid from 8am to late in the evening for 2 weeks straight. He's been in the business for 18 years. I was only able to catch him when he had a cancellation at 8:30pm. He said due to a surplus of listing referrals, he didn't suffer any noticeable decline in the market slowdown during the last three years, but it seems to me that this amount of work is what it takes to maintain the business.

The question (finally):
How much percentage of my work can be expected to be done during regular business hours, and how much during traditional home time hours? If I want to protect my ability to take care of my children, is this career incompatible with my goals?

Thanks if those of you who have been in this game awhile can give me an idea.

It sounds like you already have your hands full with your kids for now. Being a full time real estate agent takes a lot of dedication, time and effort. The positive side of this business is that you CAN control your time. It can sometimes be very difficult to have clients working around your schedule, but as long as you play your cards right, you should be ok. DO NOT let your clients control your life! You control your own life! Yes, your schedule can get very hectic once in a while, but when you get tired, it's time to go home for the night. One thing you don't want to do is get burnt out in this business. If you stress yourself too far, you will get burnt out. Then you will resent yourself for it later. Just do things one at a time and try to stay on pace. Don't over exhaust yourself and don't be too slow either. If you really want it, it will pan out in the end.

Congrats on your two girls, who are (and should be, imho) your first priority. They won't be children forever (although at times it will feel like it!), so enjoy them as long as you can.

As far as making real estate work for you, I guess it depends on how much business you expect to do. If you don't plan to take on many clients, I guess it could work, but every deal is different and you have to be flexible to deal with varying demands. While there are some things we can control, you will find that you simply don't have as much control at times as you think you will and it is impossible to predict what will happen when. If you have a backup plan for child care, that would go a long way, otherwise, scheduling around your kids may be problematic.

I cannot imagine this career with small kids -- when I first started, some days I could barely get the dog walked (now a dog walker comes even if I'm home and not busy - I have to have that routine in order to ensure flexibility), much less even consider attending to children. Some days are blissfully calm, others are a maddening rush from early morning to late at night.

Sometimes our attempts at trying to do it all result in doing a mediocre job with everything. I think that's why you hear other agents complaining so much about agents who are non responsive or incompetent. I suspect in many cases, those agents may be in the same boat and expect the rest of the world to adjust to their schedules.

Again, I guess it somewhat depends on how much business you want to do and if you plan on growing your business through referral. If your clients feel they are not your first priority (while your clients may greatly admire your dedication to your family, they hired you to look after what may be the largest investment they ever make in their lives and they deserve your full attention to the details of their real estate needs), they may think you are a great guy, a great parent, but a not-so-great agent.

Is it impossible to do? No, of course not, but it will not be easy. You will have to be impeccably well organized in every aspect of your life and you will have to figure out a way to be responsive even when it's not convenient for you. I wouldn't attempt it without some kind of back up child care plan.

A career in real estate is a career like any other and should be treated accordingly. If you were to embark on a career which required your presence in an office full time, you'd have to make arrangements for your children; consider this somewhat the same, albeit with a little more flexibility. Just don't make the mistake of thinking you can weave a successful real estate career completely around another priority. You're going to need a plan that enables you not only a high degree of flexibility so that you can be there for your family, but for your clients as well. They deserve no less.

Good luck!

Thanks to SusanScuba and Agent 007, I appreciate your insight; it gives me ideas to think about.

I also am interested in hearing from realtors who are parents of very young children and how it has worked out. I assume one group I'm not likely to be hearing from are former realtor-parents for whom R.E. sales didn't work out for them due to family constraints - but if any are out there on this board for some reason, your experience would be helpful for me to understand what I am up against.

I would prefer to do an excellent job with a limited number of clients, than a mediocre jobs with many clients. If I find myself working at my threshold, can I bring some sanity into the situation by referring "excess" clients, or would that be taken as an insulting brush-off, especially if it were a direct referral from a former client?

Its too bad there's no grandma around to help - that would be very ideal, but alas, we are both parentless, and no one we can think of to help occassionally. I'm planning on doing as much child-prep as I can once kids are asleep, bottle washing, food prep, washing/cleaning so everything would be ready for my wife on evenings I will be working late.

How much work can I do during the wee hours? It seems seeking out housing matches for buyers is largely electronic these days, I figure I can prep offers and seller-carry notes at 4am, as well as prepare ads, mass mailings, webpostings and I'm even willing to do drive-bys and put up 'for sale' signs & flyers before sunrise. Where there's a short break in the day maybe I can catch some zzzz's in the car, wipe my face & brush my teeth w/ a travel kit before moving onto the next task. Is it true that WiFi-laptops can allow me a new, more flexible way to work than for realtors 15 or 20 years ago? How much of this is reasonable, how much is my own wishful thinking? Am I setting myself up for burnout? I'd hate to think I'm stuck to teaching. Its not a bad career, but I'd like to have differing experiences in my life.

Please help me develop a realistic perspective. I'm prepared for all comments. In a about a week I'll have to decide on commiting to a permanent teaching assignment, or to a broker's office, and standing on this divide in the cross-roads is starting to consume me.

The Real Estate Business is all an issue of Time Management! Schedule everything you do Including Family obligations.

If you have say 3:30pm to 5:30pm blocked out to pickup the kids and get them fed and a client calls wanting to see a property at 4:30pm then you say "I'm sorry but I already have an appointment scheduled at that time how about 6:30pm?". Contray to what some agents think you do not have to be available 24/7. You clients will understand! If you are available to drop everything every time a client calls that means you do not have enough clients!

Pardon me saying this a few questions:Aren't school teachers paid well and you get the summer off and many holidays?Don't you have set hours you work and then time with family?How many more years would you have to teach to get a full retirement?If you didn't do any transactions right away could all of you get by off of your wifes salary with no problem for 6 to 12 months?

These are all questions you need to answer.I personally do not work Sundays and some people think I am crazy.My clients understand if they want to choose me Sunday I am not available.
Don't just think of real estate as regualr r.e. listings.

You could work in a new home subdivision work set hours but make as much income as you want depending on how many homes you sold,then go home and turn off the phone.You could also focus on land sales and commercial transactions those hours are more business hours than weekends.Why not go out with a r.e. agent that's a friend over the weekend and see if you might like it or not before making a drastic jump away fromt he teaching job.

You could work with investors only,or help people in pre-foreclosure,you could become an auctioneer,really there are tons of ways you could go as a real estate agent.You could only do bpo's if you wanted to.

Best of luck.

I am a new agent married with young kids 9 and 6 and basically you can do whatever you want, if you schedule the time.

Young kids, old kids, it doesn't matter because as long as they are your kids they will always need you just in a different way at different ages.

Here is the deal-- you may not be able to be a President's Circle Super Achiever Billion Dollar Club member RE agent; something has to give somewhere and it may be your level of achievement.

When I discussed this with my husband we decided that our house was probably going to be a little non traditional. We can't pine away for the weekends to do everything because I might be busy. So movie going and errand running will sometimes happen during the week, when I may not be as busy.

We will eat dinner together more often and early. I think you just need to decide what type of adjustments you are willing to make and let that guide you into how you will work your business.

Good luck and take care!

I have a 2 and 4 year old. They go to preschool and are at a sitters house mon-fri until 5pm. My wife picks them up some times I pick them up. I take my daughter to school everyday, my wife drops off my son on her way to work.

I work from home and maintain a hectic schedule, but I am more easily available to care for the kids when the need arises. I also keep the house clean and cook all the meals.

A babysitter is key though. I could not do what I do if I had both kids with me everyday. My wife works long hours so we are always coordinating our schedules to fit our needs. It is true that as an Indepedant Contractor you have alot more control of your schedule, but you still have a job to perform.

I've been many many weeks now with no days off. I can see my kids in the evening i'm stuffing envelopes, calling prospects or what ever. They have a desk sitting next to mine and they mimic what I do. I get alot done with them, but the bulk of the work is done while they are not with me.

Thanks everyone for their comments.

It would take another 21 years for me to acheive full retirement benefits (age + service years = % of last salary, and any golden handshakes avail that year).

We have funds which could tie us over for a year or two, but what I'm really trying to weigh is how much I'll have to compromise family time to do a good, full-time job in real estate.

It seems if I want to maximize my home time and still have a moderate salary, I will need to stay with teaching during this critical point of having two cherubs in diapers. Time-wise I have to admit there's no better work schedule than to be a teacher. Not wanting to feel beaten, I still want to do something with my license, and I might have an unusual opportunity to work part-time according to my own schedule. My several brothers and I are in the early construction phase of a 22unit condo development right now and are looking for the next site to redevelop, and this seems to be the hardest part of the game. One bro is an architect, another general contractor, another CPA w/ commercial lending connections, another lived as a really cheap [censored] all his life to buy small apartments so he has equity-convertible funds and is the guarantor for the loans, and I've been the well-travelled but dirt-poor and RE-clueless silent partner, until now at least. My new license would give me an inside avenue on commercial property sales - but with zero experience its pretty scary to cold call and negotiate for $3mil unlisted properties. The contractor-brother has a brokers license to facilitate the build-outs, but its not his profession, nor his interest and while he might be signing the papers because my license is registered under his, I/we cant count on his limited expertise/experience. Maybe I'll seek out an RE agent friend for fee-based consulting to make sure everything gets lined up properly, and I'll assume he'll want a big fee.

Perhaps I'll have the most flexibility by remaining as a teacher and doing RE sales for our own investments, both the brother's syndication, and my own modest efforts as funds from the larger group developments become available.
Maybe and hopefully for the next few years, I can get into RE more as a part-time investor rather than as a salesperson. As the kids reach school aged years, it would be more reasonable for me to switch to real estate full-time at that point. For each year I work as a Jr. High teacher, I think I age 1-1/2 years, and I'd like to prove to myself that I can be successful in the business world.

I really appreciate everyone for their advice and support and while I've clarified what direction I need to take, I would continue to learn from any further ideas about my situation.
Thanks.

I forgot to mention that I have a 7 year old daughter. Well, she's my girlfriend's daughter, but I look at her the same as a daughter. She lives with us half the time and her dad's the other half. When she is with us we have to schedule our days around picking her up from school, soccer practice, etc. It makes it difficult for me sometimes to be a real estate agent and have other priorities, but I know what's important and I make it work. If for any reason a client requests my time during the time I have to handle my daughter, I tell them that I have already scheduled an appointment during that time slot. It usually works out fine. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Get married 007

Thank you for the great advice. I will when I am ready.

A whole bunch of the answer to your question depends on your RE goals. If you want to make 20-30k a year, I'd think that's pretty doable even with small kids; that's just turning 4 or 5 deals a year. Then maybe your business could grow as you became more available, when the kids got into preschool.

When my girls were little my wife stopped working and was a full-time mom for about 10 years, until just recently. My oldest is 12 and youngest is 9... so my kids got to have a full-time parent which is a rarity. I think if you play things right you could pull something like that off but maybe not until they are out of diapers, and not without, well, losing out on some parenting!

Good luck.

-jeff