After working as an engineer for eight years, I dated and later married my second wife. She was a realtor and she talked me into getting a real estate license and selling apartment buildings.
I attended Lumbleau Real Estate School at the traffic circle and signed to take the exam at the Ambassador Hotel in LA. The "school" consisted of sitting and listening to some guy read selected passages from the text book. The school knew what questions would be on the test and if you highlighted whatever he read and committed them to memory, you would pass the test. But more on this later.
The now defunct Ambassador Hotel was an older large hotel in LA. It's signature venue there was The Coconut Grove Nightclub. The tests were given in one of the large ballrooms. On the day I took the test there were 3500 people also taking theirs. The allotted time for the test was four hours. After a little over two hours I was finished. I looked around and everyone else was slaving away over their tests. I was all done and was thinking to myself what the hell am I missing. Finally I pushed my chair away from my table and it made a screeching sound. I was the first one finished and everyone else was giving me the eye.
I took my test up to one of the proctors and as I handed it to him he commented to me "Pretty hard, eh?" I said not really and he then asked why did I give up. I said that I didn't give up, that I was finished. He asked if I didn't want to check my answers and I said "No". It took about two weeks to get your exam results back. I was told that if I got a large envelope back that I passed. A number 10 meant that I didn't pass.
After the test, I was invited to go up to the hospitality suite. At the hospitality suite, I was handed a drink and asked if I remembered any of the questions on the test which I did. By this process the school could basically reconstruct the test for the next batch of up and comers.
Sure enough my large envelope came in the mail along with a fingerprint card and voila I was now a real estate agent. Not a Realtor mind you but an agent. It was sort of like a fresh newbie out of boot camp as I didn't anything at all about selling real estate.
On my first day at the office I was assigned to the "up desk". This is where most newbies start out. The idea is to answer the phone and if it is a potential buyer to get his, or her, name and phone number. This isn't near as easy as it sounds.
No sooner than I sat down at the desk Jessica, a title rep, came in and set up a table with food and champagne. Being I was "at work" some kind hearted soul handed me a glass of bubbly and a sandwich. I thought to myself that I could get used to this gig.
One of the other things that a good apartment house agent does is read the classified ads for apartment for sale by a FISBO, for sale by owner. If you ask intelligent questions the seller will most likely give you answers. You then go out and look at the property. This would become my daily ritual.
While driving around Long Beach one morning I spotted a 16 unit building that didn't have a sign on it or anything but it spoke to me. I found out who the owner was and called her. She was a nice older lady who had owned the building for over twenty years. I asked her if she would sell it if I brought her a fair offer. She gave me the stock answer that everything was for sale at the right price. She gave me the breakdown of the units and the rents she was collecting and she said that she had no idea what it was worth. I talked to a guy who I knew who was always "looking for a deal" and wrote up an offer. The lady said the building "wasn't worth that much money". It was. She accepted the offer and I had both ends of a sixteen unit building after only four days in the business. All real estate offices, at least in California, have a "board". The board is where you write down a sale that you made or a listing that you had was sold. I had both ends. Suddenly everybody was asking "Who is that guy?"
Not only was I an instant legend but the non-producers in the office would start bringing me deals. Over half of all real estate salespeople in SoCal never really sell anything. But most of them do have an uncle or cousin who wants to buy, or sell, something. They have a client but have no clue as to what to do. They don't want to admit to any of the old pros in the office that they don't know but the seem to always trust the new guy. I was hitting on all twelve cylinders.
After a few weeks I located another building that was available for a darned good price but I didn't have enough cash yet to go it alone so I talked to the office manager and showed it to him. It was a deal and he took me to his bank and he borrowed enough for the down payment from the bank for us to buy the building. We not only bought it but the day after escrow closed we put it back into escrow with a new buyer. This was fun. It was also the good old days. About two years later the banks had to stop loaning down payments to buy property. But it was good while it lasted.
All of my life people were telling me I should get into sales, that I would be good at it. There is sales and then there is professional sales. In the Southern California market, you have to be a professional. Which means you have to get some formal training in your craft. Take closing a sale. Everybody knows what that means but they really don't actually have a clue. Closing isn't really a talent that you are born with. You have to be taught it. It is a defined process. Some are better than others at closing but virtually no one is born with that talent. It's like music. Most all professional musicians have had lessons. Lots and lots of lessons if they want to be any good. I went to classes taught by Tommy Hopkins and Zig Zigler and others. Some were great some wore bad but everyone of them brought something to the table.
I paid more in taxes in my first year in real estate then I had earned the previous year. I was driving a Porsche and the wife had a Mercedes. We had bought a duplex with a small house behind it on the very apex of the hill in Belmont Heights. It was huge with a formal dining room, three bedrooms and nine foot ceilings. It also had a big avocado tree in the side yard and I had a small vegetable garden in the back yard.
Life was a dream until 1981. The worst year of my life. The economy was in a recession and the prime lending rate hit 23%. Try selling income property when the prime is at 23%. Also that year my dad had died and I was diagnosed with cancer. It turned out after waiting weeks for blood tests to be returned I only had Cat Scratch Fever. My marriage fell apart and I found myself a bachelor once again.
I ended up moving aboard my schooner in downtown Long Beach and peddling second trust mortgages for awhile. The pendulum really does swing back and forth. I was buoyed up by good friends and fixed up with their cousins, sisters and friends for dates. I was at Avalon one day a year later when I was told that a company called Instrument Laboratory wanted to talk to me. But that is another story.
I attended Lumbleau Real Estate School at the traffic circle and signed to take the exam at the Ambassador Hotel in LA. The "school" consisted of sitting and listening to some guy read selected passages from the text book. The school knew what questions would be on the test and if you highlighted whatever he read and committed them to memory, you would pass the test. But more on this later.
The now defunct Ambassador Hotel was an older large hotel in LA. It's signature venue there was The Coconut Grove Nightclub. The tests were given in one of the large ballrooms. On the day I took the test there were 3500 people also taking theirs. The allotted time for the test was four hours. After a little over two hours I was finished. I looked around and everyone else was slaving away over their tests. I was all done and was thinking to myself what the hell am I missing. Finally I pushed my chair away from my table and it made a screeching sound. I was the first one finished and everyone else was giving me the eye.
I took my test up to one of the proctors and as I handed it to him he commented to me "Pretty hard, eh?" I said not really and he then asked why did I give up. I said that I didn't give up, that I was finished. He asked if I didn't want to check my answers and I said "No". It took about two weeks to get your exam results back. I was told that if I got a large envelope back that I passed. A number 10 meant that I didn't pass.
After the test, I was invited to go up to the hospitality suite. At the hospitality suite, I was handed a drink and asked if I remembered any of the questions on the test which I did. By this process the school could basically reconstruct the test for the next batch of up and comers.
Sure enough my large envelope came in the mail along with a fingerprint card and voila I was now a real estate agent. Not a Realtor mind you but an agent. It was sort of like a fresh newbie out of boot camp as I didn't anything at all about selling real estate.
On my first day at the office I was assigned to the "up desk". This is where most newbies start out. The idea is to answer the phone and if it is a potential buyer to get his, or her, name and phone number. This isn't near as easy as it sounds.
No sooner than I sat down at the desk Jessica, a title rep, came in and set up a table with food and champagne. Being I was "at work" some kind hearted soul handed me a glass of bubbly and a sandwich. I thought to myself that I could get used to this gig.
One of the other things that a good apartment house agent does is read the classified ads for apartment for sale by a FISBO, for sale by owner. If you ask intelligent questions the seller will most likely give you answers. You then go out and look at the property. This would become my daily ritual.
While driving around Long Beach one morning I spotted a 16 unit building that didn't have a sign on it or anything but it spoke to me. I found out who the owner was and called her. She was a nice older lady who had owned the building for over twenty years. I asked her if she would sell it if I brought her a fair offer. She gave me the stock answer that everything was for sale at the right price. She gave me the breakdown of the units and the rents she was collecting and she said that she had no idea what it was worth. I talked to a guy who I knew who was always "looking for a deal" and wrote up an offer. The lady said the building "wasn't worth that much money". It was. She accepted the offer and I had both ends of a sixteen unit building after only four days in the business. All real estate offices, at least in California, have a "board". The board is where you write down a sale that you made or a listing that you had was sold. I had both ends. Suddenly everybody was asking "Who is that guy?"
Not only was I an instant legend but the non-producers in the office would start bringing me deals. Over half of all real estate salespeople in SoCal never really sell anything. But most of them do have an uncle or cousin who wants to buy, or sell, something. They have a client but have no clue as to what to do. They don't want to admit to any of the old pros in the office that they don't know but the seem to always trust the new guy. I was hitting on all twelve cylinders.
After a few weeks I located another building that was available for a darned good price but I didn't have enough cash yet to go it alone so I talked to the office manager and showed it to him. It was a deal and he took me to his bank and he borrowed enough for the down payment from the bank for us to buy the building. We not only bought it but the day after escrow closed we put it back into escrow with a new buyer. This was fun. It was also the good old days. About two years later the banks had to stop loaning down payments to buy property. But it was good while it lasted.
All of my life people were telling me I should get into sales, that I would be good at it. There is sales and then there is professional sales. In the Southern California market, you have to be a professional. Which means you have to get some formal training in your craft. Take closing a sale. Everybody knows what that means but they really don't actually have a clue. Closing isn't really a talent that you are born with. You have to be taught it. It is a defined process. Some are better than others at closing but virtually no one is born with that talent. It's like music. Most all professional musicians have had lessons. Lots and lots of lessons if they want to be any good. I went to classes taught by Tommy Hopkins and Zig Zigler and others. Some were great some wore bad but everyone of them brought something to the table.
I paid more in taxes in my first year in real estate then I had earned the previous year. I was driving a Porsche and the wife had a Mercedes. We had bought a duplex with a small house behind it on the very apex of the hill in Belmont Heights. It was huge with a formal dining room, three bedrooms and nine foot ceilings. It also had a big avocado tree in the side yard and I had a small vegetable garden in the back yard.
Life was a dream until 1981. The worst year of my life. The economy was in a recession and the prime lending rate hit 23%. Try selling income property when the prime is at 23%. Also that year my dad had died and I was diagnosed with cancer. It turned out after waiting weeks for blood tests to be returned I only had Cat Scratch Fever. My marriage fell apart and I found myself a bachelor once again.
I ended up moving aboard my schooner in downtown Long Beach and peddling second trust mortgages for awhile. The pendulum really does swing back and forth. I was buoyed up by good friends and fixed up with their cousins, sisters and friends for dates. I was at Avalon one day a year later when I was told that a company called Instrument Laboratory wanted to talk to me. But that is another story.
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