The weather app said ten degrees outside at 10am, so I dressed with three layers on top plus my jacket, thermal leggings and jeans below, hat, gloves, and hand warmers. It’s December 28th, 2017, my first year in real estate, and I’m feeling broke. No, I’m not going skiing. I’m going to show a series of cheap apartments just so I can make a dollar.
And let’s face it. No one wants to work in that week between Christmas and New Years. I had a four year career in tech before this, and I never did shit during this holiday week.
But all of my business this year will be rentals and because I peaced out to a friends lake house in August (my real estate colleague warned me I was missing out on peak rental season — the best time to make money), I’m in quite the financial predicament.
But alas! I am a real estate warrior and work in rain, sleet, or extreme temperatures, and nothing is going to stop me!
Not even face-numbing windchill that slaps my face heartily as I exit my Bushwick abode this morning. I walk amidst intense wind to the above ground M train, where my journey begins, heading south towards Ellery street in Bed-Stuy to show a railroad two bedroom apt, before swinging back up to Ridgewood, Queens, to show two one bedroom apartments.
Because of some unfortunate scheduling, I ride the M train back and fourth five times throughout the frigid day. This is the definition of real estate warrior as I wait on the above ground platform for the train to arrive, exposed to all elements, and mount multiple flights of stairs to reach train and apartment on multiple occasions.
At the end of this day, all three apartments will have pending applications on them. And once rented, I will now have… $2000 coming my way. Welp, this’ll be good for my rent + about five days of expenses.
The moments in my career where I’ll be chasing $2000 because I need to are now behind me. But I’ll always remember being stuck on the M train platform in the winter of 2017 being battered by wind and other precipitation as a time when I earned my stripes as a Real Estate Warrior.