Real estate career rewards tenacity

Photograph by: Jonathan Ernst, REUTERS
It's not that long ago that some people figured they could make a fair amount of money by just selling a few houses. Many who had retired early from a long career in another industry or profession were tempted by a new opportunity to be their own boss and put in as many hours as they felt like working to reap nice rewards.

It doesn't work that way. It's still a job that can provide lots of personal satisfaction both in pride in helping others find their dream home as well as earning a good living. But today's realtor must be a qualified professional who is willing to work hard over long hours to achieve any amount of success in providing an essential service.

There are still people who get into real estate as a second or third career but Ron Stanners, broker at Maxwell South Star, cautions that to get into the profession today takes a lot of study, a big financial commitment and probably a good length of time before efforts are rewarded.

A realtor for 28 years, Stanners is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of his own company that now has a complement of 115 realtors in his office in the professional building of Heritage Hill. He is still actively recruiting for others to join him but says that while last year he was accepting about one new person per month, there have only been three or four this year.

He says some people, after making a decision to become a realtor, rush into investing time and money in the appropriate courses before understanding all that the job entails.

Stanners prefers to sit down with prospects and discuss the rewards but also to try to determine if they are suited to the job. To obtain the necessary licence means taking a 12-week course and an outlay of around $4,200 and after paying licensing fees, initiation fees and dues that is closer to $7,000. So it's best to understand that real estate is not the cake walk some believe it to be.

To sell real estate in Calgary, one has to take a Real Estate Associates Program, either through the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) or at Mount Royal College. Candidates can either take an intensive classroom course, an evening/Saturday course, or distance learning.

Then before the successful certificate holders can join the other 5,400 members of the CREB in securing listings and finding buyers, they must be licensed through a broker like Stanners in order to work within the MLS system.

He says that many do not realize that even after all of this training and a keen determination to succeed, it usually takes a few months before a sale is made. So real estate is not for the impatient or faint-hearted. Rather, it is a career where self-discipline is essential in going out every day to find a new customer; otherwise a realtor is unemployed.

Stanners adds that the real work begins after the sale is made and the paperwork begins.

Yet he is quick to promote real estate as a meaningful and rewarding career and upon completing courses, newcomers are well-qualified to support and protect clients. Although some realtors have found it tough slogging over the past year, he says his office sales were four per cent higher this past June than a year ago and prices are only $10,000 below last year's median.

Last month his team finalized 10 sales over a million dollars and one of over $2 million--an indication that higher priced homes are selling well in the Calgary area--and Stanners is convinced that come, September sales will be higher than 2008. A good time for the right people to think about a career in real estate.

Don't let reports of downsizing at the city and university put you off still looking at those two institutions. The city has no job fairs scheduled but there are still jobs being listed on its website although I don't appear to be qualified for the long list of responsibilities and qualifications listed for most of them. One for a passenger agent says you must be able to maintain patience for extended periods of time while providing information to some of its 90 million annual customers.