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There are many different paths that folks have followed to land a career in the real estate business. For many, it’s a second career. Sometimes it’s part of a dual career. Often it is the attraction of flexible hours combined with a low barrier to entry. Sometimes it’s simply a default option when other possibilities fail.
Interestingly, this is one of the few job sectors that seems to experience an influx of new entrants with each economic downturn. That is both good and bad and certainly could be an entirely separate discussion by itself.
I believe that being a real estate practitioner is one of the most important careers in our entire economy. I could offer a bunch of rationalizations for that belief, but it really boils down to just a few.
Clients need your expertise
What we do is a critical component in a process that is, for many consumers, the single most important financial investment they will make in their entire lifetime. Yet because this process happens so infrequently for most people, it is also probably the one event in a lifetime they have the least experience to do correctly.
Consequently, this means the average consumer can be the poster child for catastrophic mistakes and vulnerable to being taken advantage of by the unscrupulous.
Outside of a well-trained practitioner, almost all available information on the process is published with an intentional slant and not designed as pure education for the consumer. Therefore, it should be viewed as an honor to serve in this role of protector.
Agents are information interpreters
Secondly, with the rapid expansion of access to real estate-related information (the speed of which is growing exponentially), the role of the real estate professional has shifted entirely from one of information source to that of information interpreter. Apart from propriety, local information, this has become a universal truth.
This shift is critical to understand; sadly, many practitioners still have not grasped it. The illustration I sometimes use is that this career is similar to the role of being a college professor. All the instructions that a person needs to learn, say, quantum physics, can be found in textbooks. The contents of these are readily accessible to pretty much anyone who can read and has an Amazon account.
Yet what most people need help with is the interpretation of that information and how to translate it into sequential steps, which lead to success in the field. Hence the role of the professor. In real estate terms, that really is our role as practitioners — to educate, nurture and shepherd a process.
Real estate is a higher calling
Most importantly, the true gift of being in real estate is that what we do is indeed a higher calling.
We help people navigate the rough waters in emotionally charged conditions. We help people provide shelter for their families. We help people with the home where they raise children and their hopes and dreams are realized.
Done properly, we are both the provider and the protector – it would be hard to point to a greater service that can be rendered to another human.
The bottom line is that this is a higher calling because we help people. Never lose sight of that.
This role provides the rare opportunity to create a legacy in the many lives each of us touches. To be remembered, long after we are gone, as someone who positively impacted lives – that’s the greatest gift we could ever be given. I think that’s pretty darn cool.
Phillip Cantrell is the CEO of Benchmark Realty. Connect with him on Facebook and LinkedIn.