It was January 1996

I was pregnant with our 3rd son Jon.

I had been selling real estate for less than a year, but had sold 18 houses in my first 6 months and was very cocky and over confident as a young real estate agent.

I thought I knew plenty and that I should open my own brokerage.

Mistake Number 1.

32 years old.

Three kids under 6 years old.

A husband who traveled a lot for his job at the time.

Aaaaand… we lived on 5 acres in an old foreclosed home that I fell in love with that needed a ton of work.

I had big dreams and big goals and luckily a supportive husband who just shook his head but said nothing (smart man).

We spent the first year working out of our house.

Then moved into our first office…then outgrew that and moved into another office… then bought a building.

2006! The winds started to change. It was clear something was going on in the market but no one was prepared for the upcoming market crash including us.

2009 we were forced into bankruptcy and I thought my life was ending.

But my hundreds and hundreds of BPO’s and countless hours reaching out to asset managers and reo companies started to pay off and we were awarded a couple large bank foreclosure accounts.

I could breathe for a moment.

We decided to buy a franchise.

Mistake Number 2.

We hired a sales manager and built the brokerage to 120+ real estate agents and by most standards many would consider that successful… until it isn’t.

2014. The reo market is mostly gone as the market has started to improve.

However, with market shifts agents start to look at other options (kind of like the current market) and we lost 20 of our top agents to a shiny new brokerage.

It was the beginning of the end.

We looked at countless options. How could we keep this big boat afloat.

We had 3 offices (and the big leases that go with them). We had staff, overhead, copiers, coffee centers, utilities, Error’s and omissions insurance that was through the roof, department of real estate audits, marketing bills and so much more.

The truth was like most independent brokerages they are dependent on the owner to continue to produce and sell and … I was in fact the biggest producer at our company.

So at the end of the day… we literally had nothing to sell but a bunch of office furniture.
10 years ago this week we made the heartbreaking decision to close our independent brokerage after 22 years of blood, sweat and tears.

It was like a death.

I grieved … hard.

Little did I know… God… the universe… had a MUCH BIGGER Plan for us.

Here we are 10 years later and our life has changed in so many ways and as heartbroken as I was all those years ago…

Closing the doors to our independent brokerage was the best decision we made.

It gave us freedom. It gave us our life back. It gave us opportunities that we were never open to or willing to look at.

And for each and every mistake and challenge along the way I am grateful.

Be grateful for your mistakes and your failures… they are simply a stepping stone to something better you just can’t see yet.

The market has been tough this last year… you are not the only one.

If you are a small brokerage or team and struggling to figure out your options or what is next for you shoot me an email or DM.

I feel you and what you are going through… I have been there.

What I know is … it is darkest before the sun rises.