I spent 8 years building the wrong business, what’s next?

[business224]

I found mild success and yet still feel I have failed.

Over the last 8 years I have spent my time establishing myself as a successful Realtor. 3 years into this journey I came to the conclusion that if I did not start to hire agents I would be stuck self employed forever. Only as good as my next sale.

This new business team model came with some success and some challenges but most of all I learned how hard it was to operate a human resource system with 1099 independent contractors. Finding committed talent for a Real estate team can be hard!

The key to this business is lead gen, recruiting, training and retention. With that said 87% of agents fail in the 1st 2 years so sometimes I feel like I’m building a business on quicksand. 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

While we are at 8 agents it’s not as lucrative as I had wished and I really dislike running around with clients myself anymore. At this point I am considering my options and would love feedback.

Option 1- Make a change and get into the mortgage business. There are far less loan officers and my sales background would help my transition into this somewhat smoothly. On top of that I wouldn’t be running around on nights and weekends with clients. This seems to be a bit more scaleable in comparison to real estate sales and possibly more lucrative while still working on my online business.

Option 2- Stick it out with real estate sales, try to find more agents to grow and focus on building my online business ( I started 3 years ago) it’s a podcast for realtors that makes money through ad revenue and affiliates. Currently doing a couple thousand per month (Not much at all, but it’s showing signs of life) . I have been researching monetization models such as courses and membership sites to add value and increase revenue to the business.

Option 3- Keep the team, try the mortgage route and continue to try to build the online business.

I’m now 30. I am successful to my piers in my industry yet I don’t feel like it at all. I started at 22 and I’m still nowhere near my personal goals. What road should I take to get to my fastlane goals? What is the best business vehicle?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

It is much easier to say that you are in the wrong business than it is to admit that you have just gone about it in the wrong away, the latter hurts your ego.

The business of brokering real estate transactions is not a dying market. At least I don’t think so.

You just need to be better. Improve your model.

There are many, many ways of improving your lead generation with creativity and leverage. There are a million things you are not doing because it hasn’t occurred to you. Very common. I am guilty too.

The fix is to test, learn, execute, reiterate and improve, rinse and repeat forever.

I’ll give an example.

I’m running my lawn care company. We only do recurring maintenance. Half of our calls we turn away because they want a one time job, a cleanup, a fence built, etc. and we tell them no and they hang up and go somewhere else.

Ads become less profitable. We need to generate leads.

Instead of saying it’s a bad industry, we call up every lawn care and home service company in our area.

“We have customers call in and ask for X service that we don’t offer, do you want us to send them to you?”

“Hell yeah”

“Okay we only do recurring services, can you send us people that need their lawn mowed regularly”

“Yeah that’s fair thank you”

Now, every person that calls in is a part of our marketing system getting drip fed value through emails, and works with our partners.

They do a project or one time service, and we give our partners coupons to hand out for a free month of lawn services if they signup with us. Then we give them a referral check for $100 if anyone signs up. The coupons help them close deals, we receive free leads from partners, and in the process of calling all of these businesses we plant the seed of offering to buy their recurring customers off of them someday if they DO offer the recurring services.

We are changing our lead gen to have more attractive offers, instant responses, live agents calling leads within 3 minutes of submitting online info, scheduling in person quotes to help raise closing rates at higher prices, better training for workers to reduce cancellations and increase LTV, allowing higher ad budgets because a $3000 LTV means we can spend more to acquire them than if they cancel after one year and we only bring in 1/3 to 1/2 of that LTV.

Unique strategies like sending ringless voicemails, or doing the basics like optimizing direct mail campaigns, or having every salesperson knock on 10 neighbor’s doors on every quote to increase # of signups “hey we just signed up your neighbor Debra so we can get you a discount since it’s less drive time”.

Using those partners to create a link circle to each other on our website and theirs creates authority and raises our SEO rankings, so now we create a little gang of high ranked listings that send each other the customers they can’t serve. Example: a really popular landscaper that’s well known in our area that never does recurring jobs but gets 20 calls a day for it. We called him and said we would send him our one time jobs and project customers for free. He said “that’s so kind of you, I will send people to you when they want recurring services”. That’s all for free.

Combine all of these things and that will lower our cost of acquisition, increase LTV, leaving us with much more profit and ability to dramatically increase our advertising and marketing efforts.

Things like charging a monthly price for 12 months amortized out helps us reduce commoditization and gets us more money per visit if you actually calculate it out. Other things like offering 6% off if they pay upfront for the year increases cash flow for advertising.

Other value adds like being a high tech company that has automations and systems and being communicative and convenient increases value and allows us to charge more.

So that begs the question, could you be better? I am almost entirely certain the answer is yes.

 

[MakeItHappen]

The key to this business is lead gen, recruiting, training and retention. With that said 87% of agents fail in the 1st 2 years so sometimes I feel like I’m building a business on quicksand. 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

Well, the problem with 87% of agents failing in the 1st 2 years is something that all your competitors have to deal with as well right? There are people who build teams of 100+ people right? So you know this business can be fastlane.

However, you might get better at lead gen, recruiting etc. or hire/team up with people who can do this.

Maybe you can hire someone who has a management role in a competing business that is already where you want to be?
You could try to invite a couple of potential hires to dinner and just chat with them about business no?

try to find more agents to grow and focus on building my online business ( I started 3 years ago) it’s a podcast for realtors that makes money through ad revenue and affiliates. Currently doing a couple thousand per month (Not much at all, but it’s showing signs of life) . I have been researching monetization models such as courses and membership sites to add value and increase revenue to the business.

So you are successful at podcasting. Is it possible to use podcasting to hire new agents?


I would stick with what you have done so far. It's impressive that you have built a team of 8 people but you might need more, better, and different skills to go from 8 people to 50 or 100. And it might take some time to get really good at it.

You wrote that you are still meeting with clients... How big would your team need to be so that you could focus on building the team full-time? If you can't afford to not meet clients yourself yet I would reduce the time to a minimum. The time you spend with clients is time that you lose building your business (entrepreneur vs. employee role).

 

[The-J]

With that said 87% of agents fail in the 1st 2 years so sometimes I feel like I’m building a business on quicksand. 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

While we are at 8 agents it’s not as lucrative as I had wished and I really dislike running around with clients myself anymore.

Hire better agents? I guarantee you there are people in your area that are crushing it like you wouldn't believe but would love to be part of a better opportunity. Give them that better opportunity and let them grow your business so you can stop running around with clients & start working on the business. Hiring new agents makes sense if you're RE/MAX and you have all the training in the world & all you want to find is motivated people. You don't just need motivated people, you need motivated & skilled people.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[business224]

Well, the problem with 87% of agents failing in the 1st 2 years is something that all your competitors have to deal with as well right? There are people who build teams of 100+ people right? So you know this business can be fastlane.

However, you might get better at lead gen, recruiting etc. or hire/team up with people who can do this.

Maybe you can hire someone who has a management role in a competing business that is already where you want to be?
You could try to invite a couple of potential hires to dinner and just chat with them about business no?


So you are successful at podcasting. Is it possible to use podcasting to hire new agents?


I would stick with what you have done so far. It's impressive that you have built a team of 8 people but you might need more, better, and different skills to go from 8 people to 50 or 100. And it might take some time to get really good at it.

You wrote that you are still meeting with clients... How big would your team need to be so that you could focus on building the team full-time? If you can't afford to not meet clients yourself yet I would reduce the time to a minimum. The time you spend with clients is time that you lose building your business (entrepreneur vs. employee role).

Yes the podcast and YouTube is doing well. It is actually incredible to see the difference in business models. When I sleep the channel continues to make money. I wake up with money in my account. Comparably the real estate business is a true grind. It is cutthroat, high overhead, and very very time intensive. I have made the 6 figure incomes in this business and that is great, but I am not sure if this is the right vehicle to get to my personal (Large) financial goals.

Say my goal is getting to California from Boston, I do not want to be building a bicycle if I could be spending my time building a jet. Sometimes I just feel like I may be in the wrong business vehicle.

Attracting agents to the team with the podcast is possible however Real Estate is very local, and the majority of my listeners are hundreds if not thousands of miles away. My team would be useless to them. I was thinking of going two possible routes with this.

Route 1- would be creating an education membership for realtors where they can access monthly classes for a low cost. This I feel could be scalable and I love the recurring revenue model. The other option would be creating info products to sell to my audience or the real Fastlane, a software business. I believe this is the real big life changing wealth building opportunity. On top of that I have real insight into what agents need in a product and plus a growing audience to sell to.

Another benefit to building an internet company is that they are sellable with multiples. In my particular industry selling a team is very hard and usually have long earn out periods because the only real value outside of your systems is the agents themselves and there is a high turnover rate in brokerages. Especially when ownership changes happen.

Route 2- is burning the ship completely and get into the mortgage business as it seems to be much more scalable with less busy work while still growing the online business. I have a lot of sales experience so building a mortgage business and a pipeline may not be filled with as many challenges as a newcomer with no experience.

@MJ DeMarco - I have read all of your books many times over, I replay them on audible in my car usually monthly just to brainstorm and pick up nuggets I have missed. I have even listened to the majority of the podcast I could find you on. You are my favorite author by a long shot and have completely changed my views on money and business. My favorite book was always Rich dad poor dad before finding your content, but I feel like your books go much deeper into entrepreneurship and break down the technical aspects of business models. Thank you for writing all your content. Any feedback or insight here would be invaluable.

 

[James Klymus]

So what I'm about to tell you is about the hair industry, Because that's what I'm in, But I think it could work in the RE industry too.

There is an influencer in the hair industry named Chris Bosio. He's very well known on YouTube, And most barbers under the age of 35 should know who he is.

He has a few businesses that he's involved with, And one of them is his chain of barber shops.

His chain of 6-7 shops are only in the Tampa Bay area. He has people regularly moving from not just other parts of Florida, But other parts of the country and even the world to work at his shops.

(I want to note that barbers, Like RE agents, Are typically self employed. They aren't making money unless there is hair on the floor, Just like you aren't making money if you aren't closing on homes.)

Anyway, The reason why people are willing to uproot their life and move to a completely different city/state/country is:

1. He has created a marketing system that basically guarantees you will be making money if you come and work for him. The shops have people coming in, And if you do the bare minimum effort (Cut hair for 30-40 hours a week), You will be making not only good money, But great money. He has some guys making $3k a week just cutting hair.

The risk of "What if I can't make enough money in this brand new city where no body knows me" Is removed, Because he created a system.

2. He has created an aura around him self. He has a big platform, And is a big educator with a big following and a lot of influence.

People want to learn from him and his team. He has world class educators. It will improve THEIR status by being associated with him and his brands.

So he attracts HIS ideal "employee". Most people who are watching his stuff and want to improve their skills are NOT lazy shit heads. Therefore the people that will come work for him will most likely not be low quality people.

My question to you is: Could you create something similar using your niche fame and podcast?

What do your people want? I would assume they want to make a lot of money and be around cool people in the industry (High status).

Could you create a system where you have plenty of leads coming in for your team? All you have to do is plug an agent in and they will be making money. Making it as easy and risk free for your people to come work under you. AND you're generating the employees from your podcast/social media following.

The way I see it, Is you personally are not in the business of selling houses. You are in the business of getting your people houses to sell.

 

[Antifragile]

I found mild success and yet still feel I have failed.

Over the last 8 years I have spent my time establishing myself as a successful Realtor. 3 years into this journey I came to the conclusion that if I did not start to hire agents I would be stuck self employed forever. Only as good as my next sale.

This new business team model came with some success and some challenges but most of all I learned how hard it was to operate a human resource system with 1099 independent contractors. Finding committed talent for a Real estate team can be hard!

The key to this business is lead gen, recruiting, training and retention. With that said 87% of agents fail in the 1st 2 years so sometimes I feel like I’m building a business on quicksand. 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

While we are at 8 agents it’s not as lucrative as I had wished and I really dislike running around with clients myself anymore. At this point I am considering my options and would love feedback.

Option 1- Make a change and get into the mortgage business. There are far less loan officers and my sales background would help my transition into this somewhat smoothly. On top of that I wouldn’t be running around on nights and weekends with clients. This seems to be a bit more scaleable in comparison to real estate sales and possibly more lucrative while still working on my online business.

Option 2- Stick it out with real estate sales, try to find more agents to grow and focus on building my online business ( I started 3 years ago) it’s a podcast for realtors that makes money through ad revenue and affiliates. Currently doing a couple thousand per month (Not much at all, but it’s showing signs of life) . I have been researching monetization models such as courses and membership sites to add value and increase revenue to the business.

Option 3- Keep the team, try the mortgage route and continue to try to build the online business.

I’m now 30. I am successful to my piers in my industry yet I don’t feel like it at all. I started at 22 and I’m still nowhere near my personal goals. What road should I take to get to my fastlane goals? What is the best business vehicle?

1. Real estate is fastlane. But location matters. In a high price, high net migration, high demand areas - realtors make almost 7 figures when they are good (alone). Building out an office is even more fastlane.

2. Switching from realty to finance and hoping grass is greener… fools errand. Don’t bother, stick to what you already know and get better.

3. One of my friends started as a realtor. He then built a small office. Then he turned into a sales & marketing for developers. That was boutique and best in business. He then merged with a huge company and is now the largest in the country. He recently hired a new President to replace himself and focus more on family and hobbies. We do business together and he’s a perfect example of just how a realtor can built an amazing business.

What I’m saying is this: think Big and then think BIGGER. Look up @Kak as this is his thing. Read his gold posts.

Good luck.

Edit

PS. I generally find most realtors to be terrible, irritating and time wasters. What I am trying to articulate is this: stop being and acting like a realtor, become an entrepreneur!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[BizyDad]

You haven't cracked the code yet.

Doesn't matter what business you go into, you don't know how to put the right offer in front of the right person.

The reason most realtors fail is because they don't know either.

Now, you are better than they, so you're not as bad as all that.

But you lack a surplus of leads. If you had a surplus of leads, you could hand some more work off to the guys under you.

And if you knew how to generate the surplus of leads, you'd want to keep the real estate and start the mortgage so the two could symbiotically feed each other.

And which that kind of surplus, you could build the mystique that others mention which cases top people to be attracted to your team. And at some point you'd go brokerage.

But without that ability, every business you do will feel like a grind. If YouTube was your only revenue, you'd be complaining it's a grind and probably the wrong vehicle to fuel your jet dreams.

Who is moving to your area? How can you get yourself in front of them? Who is looking to leave your area? How can you get yourself in front of them? You wanna get the big bucks? Do you live near any sports franchises? Those guys buy and sell all the time.

Who just got married? Who just had their first kid? Who just got divorced?

Take what Johnny said, but also look at who is in a position to know these life events are happening before your competition finds them. Get leads from accountants, divorce lawyers, immigration attorneys, sports agents, arbitration experts, head hunters, etc.

And think about what you could do for them in return.

A lot of those industries will have hoops to jump through, not to mention ethical requirements that prohibit quid pro quo, but who said this was going to be easy?

I know agents that get high quality leads from all those sources, so it can be done.

Of course you can also learn some digital marketing strategies to generate these kinds of leads too.

 

[WJK]

Why must you do either or? Brokerage or mortgage? Can't you do both? They are affiliate businesses.

Are you doing residential, land (development), or commercial?
What is your average sales price?
Are you a listing brokerage or a selling brokerage?
Do you rent desks or take a percentage of the brokerage fees?
What's your plan when the market falls apart...again????? It has cycles that come and go.
Are you personally making RE investments? If so, what kind and what percentage of your income are you using? And is that percentage based on the gross income or net profits?
Do you own your office space? If not, why not?
Do you have an assistant to do the paperwork and maximize your time?

I can ask a bunch more questions. This is just the shortlist.

You sound worn down and tired. I can certainly understand that. RE is a rough-and-tumble business.

 

[Antifragile]

Why must you do either or? Brokerage or mortgage? Can't you do both?

@WJK - if a man spreads himself too thin… he can’t seem to get his realty office off the ground well enough, do you expect him to succeed at doing yet another (albeit complimentary) business? I doubt it.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

When you have successfully achieved your goals. When you have time freedom and want to do financing… why not?!

Thats my opinion. I’ve seen people do exceptionally well in real estate but only when they picked one area and got excellent. Spread out too thin, and it’s a crapshoot.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[business224]

Why must you do either or? Brokerage or mortgage? Can't you do both? They are affiliate businesses.

Are you doing residential, land (development), or commercial?
What is your average sales price?
Are you a listing brokerage or a selling brokerage?
Do you rent desks or take a percentage of the brokerage fees?
What's your plan when the market falls apart...again????? It has cycles that come and go.
Are you personally making RE investments? If so, what kind and what percentage of your income are you using? And is that percentage based on the gross income or net profits?
Do you own your office space? If not, why not?
Do you have an assistant to do the paperwork and maximize your time?

I can ask a bunch more questions. This is just the shortlist.

You sound worn down and tired. I can certainly understand that. RE is a rough-and-tumble business.

You can do both but as some of the post say I believe my hands will be in too many buckets. I also worry that some of my team will leave if they see their team leader move into mortgages.

Are you doing residential, land (development), or commercial? Residential.
What is your average sales price? 400k
Are you a listing brokerage or a selling brokerage? Both depending on the file.
Do you rent desks or take a percentage of the brokerage fees? 30% fee on each deal.
What's your plan when the market falls apart...again????? Shift to short sales and foreclosures. However, this does sound miserable.
Are you personally making RE investments? Yes, I invest into the online business, and I own a Duplex.
Do you own your office space? No Lease.
Do you have an assistant to do the paperwork and maximize your time? Yes, we have a transaction coordinator.

You sound worn down and tired- I sure am. I do not enjoy the business at all. It is a real slog. I am not a people person, and this business is all about people. I pushed forward to some strong success early on as a solo agent, but that fire is going out year after year.

 

[WJK]

@WJK - if a man spreads himself too thin… he can’t seem to get his realty office off the ground well enough, do you expect him to succeed at doing yet another (albeit complimentary) business? I doubt it.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

When you have successfully achieved your goals. When you have time freedom and want to do financing… why not?!

Thats my opinion. I’ve seen people do exceptionally well in real estate but only when they picked one area and got excellent. Spread out too thin, and it’s a crapshoot.

And I have seen people do both with great success -- as long as it is disclosed to the client. It takes a management team. The brokerage becomes a pipeline for the mortgage business and vice versa. Over the years, I have seen the mortgage business morph into all kinds of areas of lending. -- especially hard money for what we used to call "equity purchases" which are now called flips, raw land purchases, and for development loans. It depends on the type of lending and the type of brokerage business. They must be compatible. Another branch is apartment lending and mixed-use properties. I have also seen businesses that share an office building where They refer people back and forth. Finder's fees are limited by law in a lot of cases. But sharing a client base is priceless.

 

[Sorrento]

I found mild success and yet still feel I have failed.

Over the last 8 years I have spent my time establishing myself as a successful Realtor. 3 years into this journey I came to the conclusion that if I did not start to hire agents I would be stuck self employed forever. Only as good as my next sale.

This new business team model came with some success and some challenges but most of all I learned how hard it was to operate a human resource system with 1099 independent contractors. Finding committed talent for a Real estate team can be hard!

The key to this business is lead gen, recruiting, training and retention. With that said 87% of agents fail in the 1st 2 years so sometimes I feel like I’m building a business on quicksand. 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

While we are at 8 agents it’s not as lucrative as I had wished and I really dislike running around with clients myself anymore. At this point I am considering my options and would love feedback.

Option 1- Make a change and get into the mortgage business. There are far less loan officers and my sales background would help my transition into this somewhat smoothly. On top of that I wouldn’t be running around on nights and weekends with clients. This seems to be a bit more scaleable in comparison to real estate sales and possibly more lucrative while still working on my online business.

Option 2- Stick it out with real estate sales, try to find more agents to grow and focus on building my online business ( I started 3 years ago) it’s a podcast for realtors that makes money through ad revenue and affiliates. Currently doing a couple thousand per month (Not much at all, but it’s showing signs of life) . I have been researching monetization models such as courses and membership sites to add value and increase revenue to the business.

Option 3- Keep the team, try the mortgage route and continue to try to build the online business.

I’m now 30. I am successful to my piers in my industry yet I don’t feel like it at all. I started at 22 and I’m still nowhere near my personal goals. What road should I take to get to my fastlane goals? What is the best business vehicle?

I won't give any technical answer like "you need to change this by 60% , blah blah blah"

but instead give u actual tips to improve and scale here r 3 things u SHOULD do, u most probably do know but just stressing these points coz people tend to forget some basic elements. and the 3rd point is the game changer according to me.

1) Build Systems; Don't try to do all work yourself, leverage stuff in which u r either poor at or u don't need to do it urself and can just hand it to someone else for u.
Once u change from self employed to owning business, ur work changes from - working ur own and hustling to managing people and being a leader.

2) Because u r into real estate, u DO NEED A BRAND, I see that u have started the podcast, but it connects with other realtors and not ur prospects.
Here , you use money to grow money
Hire an agency, create short form videos, run ads for leads gen, burn money to make more money. U literally don't stop.

3) THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL IS THIS, plan controlled solitude, for eg : 1hr/day be in just complete solitude, with intention to THINK, I repeat, THINK.
Almost everyone is trying to be successful, they r so much engulfed in that mindset that they forget to think and just do what others r doing, no new ways to do business.
The key to take to the most out of this is by getting BORED, let your mind wander, u don't need any phone notification, calls, giving ur dog or cat a belly rub etc etc none of that, just be completely bored .

You need to get so bored that u feel uncomfortable being so bored.

After some time,
You will be astonished to find out that you get so much new ideas which u already knew of but never thought about.
Write these key thoughts down and implement.

You will almost never need someone else's opinion on what to do when u do the thinking urself.

The most common stuff I've noticed in successful entrepreneurs and leaders is that they spend much more time in solitude than being with people being the leader. The crazy thing is no one talks about it.

Even though, I feel like I'm in no postion to tell u what to do and what not (I'm 17), but ik these stuff r very important coz I have studied various buisness and people.

You will find answers to your problems yourself and not by someone else's opinion G.
Good luck with your journey.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[WJK]

You can do both but as some of the post say I believe my hands will be in too many buckets. I also worry that some of my team will leave if they see their team leader move into mortgages.

Are you doing residential, land (development), or commercial? Residential.
What is your average sales price? 400k
Are you a listing brokerage or a selling brokerage? Both depending on the file.
Do you rent desks or take a percentage of the brokerage fees? 30% fee on each deal.
What's your plan when the market falls apart...again????? Shift to short sales and foreclosures. However, this does sound miserable.
Are you personally making RE investments? Yes, I invest into the online business, and I own a Duplex.
Do you own your office space? No Lease.
Do you have an assistant to do the paperwork and maximize your time? Yes, we have a transaction coordinator.

You sound worn down and tired- I sure am. I do not enjoy the business at all. It is a real slog. I am not a people person, and this business is all about people. I pushed forward to some strong success early on as a solo agent, but that fire is going out year after year.

It sounds like you are in the wrong business -- or maybe the wrong section of the business. Can you get someone to manage your brokerage business for the day-to-day stuff to free up your time and give you a break? That is IF you keep it.

Can you sell the brokerage business? What would you do professionally? You need to look around at other options. You are running against your basic nature since you are not a people person. You are shooting yourself in the foot by trying to make yourself do what you don't wanna do.

You'll have the same problems in the mortgage business if you are directly dealing with the clients. You might be much better at the underwriting portion of it.

FYI. I started selling little houses in 1976. I did equity purchasing (flips) on the side in the ghetto in Los Angeles. I went from houses to apartment buildings to small commercial. Then I started writing commercial appraisals for the hard money boys in the area where we were investing in the small commercial properties. The lenders called me. From there, when my husband left me (I was his trophy wife), I learned to do form appraisals. It was way before licensing. I didn't know there were only 7% women in that part of the commercial RE business and it was controlled by the "good 'ol boys". They tried to get rid of me. So, I took bunches of their classes. Then I decided to go to law school when my kids left home in the early 1990s. I wanted the biggest stick I could find to counter these nasty "good 'ol boys". We were in a terrible recession at that time and the RE business was on its a$$. So, while I was in law school, I learned about being an expert witness and litigation specialist. They licensed appraisers during those days and I became a Certified General RE Appraiser. To pay my bills, I did my appraising, and I developed a huge expert practice by the time I finished law school. It was a blast and I LOVED it! I retired 20 years ago when my mom became seriously ill and I lost her. Now I'm a professional RE investor. After only 47 years, I know a little bit about the RE business.