I have been researching the real estate business for awhile now and not been able to make the leap.

I have wanted to get into it for over 3 years now, and until now no one has ever supported my idea.

Just newly my wife makes more money and is just now supportive of my aspirations.

also I have a few friends who thinks it's great but the vast majority of my family thinks it's a horrible idea.

I'll either fail miserably or in the fluke that I do succeed it will be at the expense of my family life.

Is it really THAT demanding? Will I never see my family? Will I struggle my first year to make even $40,000?

I swear my family has so little confidence in me they think I should just quit anything and kill myself but somehow I'd screw that up :)

FWIW, I have been able to find a realtor who'll take me with a 70/30 split and no desk fees. ALOT better than my first look into real estate where the broker wanted my to pay $1800 for a tiny semi private office with no window.

I want to make the leap but everyone says real estate is a terrible idea.

I really feel like this is the perfect timing to make the move.

I am unable to find work in my field where $70,000 was the norm.

Since my field is not ransferable my only other options are low paying mfg'ing jobs or trying to start my own construction company.

The construction and contracting sounds very exciting to me, but realistically it is TOO competitive. ALOT of guys who do not know what they are doing are doing it and quoting jobs too low.

They get the work but don't make any money and drive profits down. ( Not to mention give newbies a bad name with their shoddy workmanship )

I don't know?

Anyone?

I think you need to make a decision based on what you think, not what others think. You write alot about your family/friends and your new spouse. If you have no children then now is the time to do what you want to do. The more kids you have the fewer chances you can take. Once you have a responsibilty to feed people you will take fewer risks. I would stop asking your family what they think. They will tell you without being solicited. Even then, it will only be there opinion. You are a grown adult with free will. Just do it. What is the downside? What is the risk? When will you ever have the freedom to do it again? Maybe in retirement, but no sooner.

Best of luck

I say it again and again. If you want stability and NORMAL hours go to work in the commercial real estate field.

I love it!

Real Estate or Construction, in both cases you are opening your business. In either case you need to make sure you have access to enough money to successfuly launch your business and sustain it early.

If your properly financed and have a good business plan it really doesn't matter to your long term success if your family isn't that supportive.

However, I think a big factor in determining early Real Estate success is the size and composition of your circle of influence. If your able to get a lot of your initial business from your COI then you'll do great. However, if your COI isn't supporting you this may be difficult.

Finally, I view Real Estate is a full time job with flexible hours, which is great for attending most family needs.

You can talk yourself out of doing anything if you think about it long enough. In a different business, I used to call it Analysis Paralysis.

Three years of thinking is long enough. Actually, when you don't want to make a decision, time will usually make the decision for you . . . . so that your indecisiveness becomes a decision in itself.

"Time and tide wait for no man." Wait long enough, and your life will be over and then you'll never know.

Have you just been thinking . . . . or have you gone so far as to take the Examination?

When you get hungry, you'll make a decision.

I thought about going into real estate for two years before I did it. The timing just wasn't right, so something was holding me back, although I didn't realize it. But when the timing WAS right - and by that, I mean that I hated my J.O.B. enough and had financial backing (a supportive husband) and felt confident in myself, I made the leap.

For me, it was a fantastic decision, but it was a different market. Not to be a negative-nelly, but some markets are nearly impossible right now. However, I see you're in Canada which I understand is fairly stable compared to the US.

Please ensure that you are financially ready for a career change, and that it's something YOU are excited about doing - not just as a money-making venture and not to be rebellious against all the nay-sayers, but something you truly have an interest in.

I'll add one more thing and please take this in the spirit I'm intending it... if everyone is advising against your going into real estate, maybe they see something that gives them the impression it's not the right career for you. That could be any number of things - and they aren't necessarily bad things - but if these are people who know you and like you and care about you - and they don't think it's a good idea, maybe their opinions are worth considering.

If you had all the money in the world but you were bored and wanted to go to work at something you love to do - and the salary is not an issue -- what job would you do just for the love of it?

[quote=super realtor]I say it again and again. If you want stability and NORMAL hours go to work in the commercial real estate field.

I love it! [/quote]

I've heard amazing things about commercial but it doesn't seem as easy to get into as residential.

[quote=Artiste]If you had all the money in the world but you were bored and wanted to go to work at something you love to do - and the salary is not an issue -- what job would you do just for the love of it? [/quote]

1. Star in porn with busty women : ) LOL.
Seriously, probably building custom homes. but that takes capital.
Hopefully if I do well in RE I will be doing just that.
Kind of a long term plan / dream.

It's not. Residential might be easy to get into but the average annual income is about 18,000. So basically the poverty level.

Nothing worth doing in life is easy so get that out of your head.

My first job at 14 was working 14 hour days at a produce farmers market.

Unloading pine straw,wheat straw,watermelons,pumpkins,flowers,potting soil,cement stepping stones,food trucks,bags of gravel,and on and on.

This job taught me everything going forward was easy.You can either look at something and find 10 reasons not to do it or you can say I will succeed at this and how am I going to get it done.

Mindset and listening to negative people hold people back more than anything.If you hang around people you want to aspire to you will start seeing great results.

If you try hard enough someone will help you out to get started and show you the ropes. Everybody started at one point in the profession.

Well, you could go big or start small.

My family is putting 4 small cabins on a parcel around a lake. There are also businesses nearby that rent small hunting and fishing cabins too. FYI.

[quote=super realtor]It's not. Residential might be easy to get into but the average annual income is about 18,000. So basically the poverty level.

Nothing worth doing in life is easy so get that out of your head.

My first job at 14 was working 14 hour days at a produce farmers market.

Unloading pine straw,wheat straw,watermelons,pumpkins,flowers,potting soil,cement stepping stones,food trucks,bags of gravel,and on and on.

This job taught me everything going forward was easy.You can either look at something and find 10 reasons not to do it or you can say I will succeed at this and how am I going to get it done.

Mindset and listening to negative people hold people back more than anything.If you hang around people you want to aspire to you will start seeing great results.

If you try hard enough someone will help you out to get started and show you the ropes. Everybody started at one point in the profession. [/quote]

My main problem is that I thought I proved to everyone I can accomplish anything.

I have tremendous work ethic and a layer of skin so thick a chain saw would stall out ( maybe a bit much :blush: )

Gone are the days when people encourage each other and comfort them when they fall.

I see fear based rational followed by an " I told you so " mentality.

I love some of the people around me, but I wish I didn't have to alienate them from my life as I pursue a career change.

When I made this post I was hoping others would come forward with their experiences of
when they entered the RE field and say how it was difficult at first but proved to be better in the long run.

You are right when you say nothing is easy!

Something I want to live by and teach my young daughters is you only fail if you don't try.

18,000 eh? Re/Max said it was 134,000 :D

Re/Max is smoking some serious weed.The average in the U.S.A is about 42,000 but that is where 10 percent make 100k or above and the other 10 make about 40 to 50k and the other 80 make about 5k to 20k as they work part time or work full time and make very little money.

In Canada there is no way the average is 134,000.If that was true everybody would be moving to Canada.

I just don't want people puffing the numbers.You can't worry about what other people think.Some people are the 9 to 5 r's who require nothing of themselves except to be ordinary rather than extraordinary.

My mother-in-law is this way and will never understand an entreprenuers mentality. You put up a safe barrier while around them and enjoy their company and then forget about their negative ways and focus on your life.

You can't change them most of the time just how you react to them and how you let them affect you and your emotions and state of mind.

Go back and carefully read the Footnote that must have accompanied that Statistic.

REMAX does not include BPOs as commission toward annual totals, so I have to wonder if they include it in annual income. I wonder if the amount is even reported to International. I would be a Hall of Famer by now if they counted BPO income.