What to do?

[angel_nieves]

I am currently working for a Long Term Recovery Group that assists with natural disasters (i.e. Hurricane Wilma and such). However my contract is up and I am reluctant to sign a new contract for another year. The group I work for is excellent we where just awarded with the honor of being nationally recognized as the best LTRG. It’s just as a case manager I am tired of seeing people abuse the system. I love helping others and I have clients and their family come up to me thanking for the work I have done for them.

I am currently looking at helping an acquaintance to open a real-estate office here in South Florida. I would be running the office and doing the paper work until I received my real-estate license. The down side to this is that the real-estate market here in Fla has gone down in volume the lowest since 2003. However the acquaintance that will be opening the company has been a top seller for the last 5 years and 15 years experience of being a realtor. His business plan is very well thought out and he is a very wise man when it comes to business.

So I guess the question is should I gamble on making a go of assisting with the company or should I stay with the long term recovery group.

 

[MustangGal]

Would you be able to go back to your current job if things do work out in real estate? It sounds like you might be ready to try something else for awhile...

 

[angel_nieves]

Yes I would but if things did not work out with the real estate I would go back to collage for the medical field.

 

[Dee*Jay]

It sounds like you have options if the real estate thing doesn''t work out. Looks like a no-lose situation to me. (BTW, take my advice with a grain of salt because I just (on Monday!) quite my nice stable well paying job at the Chief Compliance Officer for a financial firm to go into real estate full time, LOL!)

 

[Pandora II]

I think working with a load of people out to abuse the system gets very tiring after a while. Eventually you end up burnt out and then you just don''t care about any of it anymore.

This happened to me earlier this year and I still feel sick and shakey every time I think of having to go and run another advice surgery. Which doesn''t make me much help to anyone or myself!

If you have this opportunity go for it. I always reckon I have the ability to get back on my feet no matter what - if it goes wrong, well you have some new experiences!

 

[angel_nieves]

The thing I a worried about is the fact that the market here in Fla has hit bottom it hasn’t seen since 2003 and probley will not be as strong as it was in 2005 for a while. I am not worried about jobs I have financial security to the point we are fine on my hubby''s check. I just hate to fail and if I go into some thing I like to push it to the top.
I have talked already to my current supervisor and she supports my thoughts on this. She sees this as a good change for me.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Macie, certainly the market in general affects how someone does, but top producers are top producers for a reason. All I hear up here in the Chicago market is how lousy it is, and I literally had to quite my other job to be able to accommodate all of the business that''s coming my way. (Dee knocks on wood--HARD--while type that!)

Plus, I''m 100% with Pandora in that any new experience is a good thing. Even if this doesn''t end up being The Career for you, I''m betting that you will be able to take away some things from the experience that will benefit you somewhere down the line.

 

[angel_nieves]

Thanks so much Pandora and Deejay. I am very hyped for this change. Four years ago I worked as a mortgage broker and I was pretty good at it I just wanted more interactions with people and not a computer. I think that will benefit me with this change. Deejay how hard is the test to get a real estate license? I know my cousin tried and failed and she is a very studious person.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Macie, there are two parts to the test, one national and one state (so obviously you will take a different test than I did since I'm in Illinois). You have to pass both parts. I've heard that the thing that trips a lot of people up is the math. Stupid things that you don't even think about in real life (e.g., a cubic yard is 27 feet [3 X 3 X 3]; almost everyone goes with 9, or they teach you how to figure out how big [in feet] a plot of land is by backing it out of the legal description, which is based on an acre). There are also all sorts of useless things. Like in Illinois there use to be dower rights for widows. They did away with that concept like 50 years ago, but yet it's still in there. (And BTW, don't even ask me what dower rights are because the instant I answered the question about it on the test I let that bit of useless information slip right out of my too-crammed-full head!!!)

If I was going to give you one piece of advice about passing though it would be to TAKE A CLASS. The point of the class is to teach you how to pass the test. They will teach you all the tips and tricks, and just as importantly, they will tell you want you *don't* need to concentrate too much on, and given that there is SO MUCH information you will appreciate that endlessly! You will of course learn what you need to know from a book or an on-line course, but you won't know what to weed out and so you end up cramming your brain with too many things that you don't need.

 

[angel_nieves]

Thanks Deejay I will be attending classes in the next month and reading everything that will help me out.
Wish me luck and again thank you for your help.

 

[Dandi]

All the best Macie! Let us know how it all goes.

And sorry for the thread hijack, but on a completely unrelated topic... where did you get your avatar??!! I LOVE IT!!

 

[angel_nieves]

I found my avatar using google cats and saved the image from there.

Have a good day!