If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know my passion lies with writing about topics that really matter. The eternal things. The things that affect our salvation. The cultural changes that are leading us into the future.
In a world that makes sense (to me, anyway) this would be my full-time job. In reality, it barely provides bourbon money.
For those of you who don’t know, my wife owns a real estate brokerage in Northern Virginia. I also work for the company: I do marketing, design, website management, signs and graphics, business cards, social media, etc. Recently, I also got licensed as a Realtor. Lately, I’ve been spending more of my time here, writing about the Church, than there, selling houses. I’m doing an inventory of my life these days, and I realize that I need to put my priorities back in order and do a better job following my first vocation, as important as this avocation is to me.
Real estate isn’t about sales. It’s about people. It’s about one of the most basic needs people have: shelter. We help people buy homes. We help them sell homes. We help them find the homes that are right for them. Any successful real estate business is built on relationships. It requires trust. It demands integrity.
I know that a number of my readers live and work in Northern Virginia. If you, or anyone you know, is looking to buy or sell a home, please have them contact me. I’m a relatively new agent, but I’m married to the broker, and it’s no exaggeration when I say that she is the best at this business that I have ever seen. Something I’ve learned watching my wife do this for the past decade is that you won’t get the business if you don’t ask. So I’m asking.
I absolutely intend to keep writing here in my off-hours. But like all of you, I have a day job to attend to. Your business referrals help keep food on the table for my six kids. And when my kids are fed and happy, I can spend time writing about the topics that give you a reason to come back.
Thanks in advance for your business and referrals.
You know that just as you’ve made this intention to be more deliberate in your real estate career the blogosphere will erupt with numerous hard-to-resist stories.
May St. Joseph powerfully intercede for your business!
When the day comes where I can make a living on those stories, I’m going to be ALL. OVER. IT.
Steve,
You can make a living when you do any good thing for the Lord’s sake. An eternal living…
Anything done for the love of Him and His People He will never forget, infact, He promises to save the soul of anyone who saves the soul of a sinner.
But as for selling realestate, it is a profession filled with moral landminds. My family has sold many houses, I rarely have encountered an honest agent. Moreso today, when those who flip houses have ingratiated themselves so much with agents, that the seller finds it nearly impossible to find an agent that is not working with the buyer from the time before the seller met him or her…Conflict of interest, emotional manipulation to reduce the price of the home so that the flipper can make a greater profit and money under the table so that the seller’s agent works with the flipper…all these are very grave mortal sins, which doom these misguided souls to everlasting damnation. What a crime it is to steal 10’s of thousands of dollars of home value from poor or working class individuals, so that one’s friends or business partners who live in mansions can make more money. The tv reality show on flipping has greatly degraded the moral enivronment in the real estate industry. If St. Alphonsus dei Ligouri in his Theologia Moralis says that one merits eternal damnation for stealing so much as 20 dollars from another, how much greater does one merit for the crimes these folks do with pleasure every day of the year?
You cannot do evil for the sake of the Lord; if you plan to save your soul, I would strongly urge you to never represent buyers, only sellers, and expressly allow your clients to terminate your contract if they judge you have not kept faith with them, or defended them from such shady pratices…
With respect, I think you’re perhaps applying a bit too much scrupulosity to the situation. I get it. I have those tendencies myself.
But it’s an honest living as long as you live it honestly. If you have integrity and are committed to the best interest of your client before yourself, you’ll do just fine.
And when there’s a large family to support, making more money is typically better than making less. I’m working hard to find a way to turn writing about things on the Internet into a full-time, decently-paying job, but even when I do, the likelihood that it will bring in what the current business does is not high on the wheel of probability. (Do wheels of probability exist? They should.)