Sorry, for those who follow or subscribe to this podcast, it was the neglected step-child, ironically because I was always too busy with my Real Estate Career.
As of January 1st, 2017 I've left Real Estate to look for something else, and I'll tell you why in a minute.
First of all, if you're listening to this, you're a true friend, and I really appreciate you. The thing I will miss the most is the clients I have worked with at various times over the years, watching your kids grow up, or change from a small house to a bigger one. You have become friends, and that doesn't go away, but the Calendar at Christmas time does, I'm afraid.
To give you a little context; my mom likes to describe the difference between my younger brother and I by watching us in Gymnastics class when we were kids. We got in line and ran down towards the springboard to jump over the pommel horse. Rob would Run to the spring board stop, and wait for the guy to lift him over the pommel horse. By contract I would run as fast as I could, hit the spring board, try to jump over the pommel horse before the guy could help me over.
It's always been this way for me. I literally and figuratively dive head-first into the things I'm interested, and Real Estate was no different. So when my son Joey was born, Jennifer told me that as she was getting started in her therapy private practice it was my turn to get a job with health benefits. I put this off in part because the Affordable Health Care Act, or Obamacare gave us great insurance for the 3 of us for the first year, very cheap. Like $79 per month total. Unfortunately the next year it went up to $1400, and we had to quit, and have been without healthcare since. And on top of that, I frequently took other people's problems on as my own, took their stress, answered phone calls or texts late at night, and spent a lot of my own money to smooth over negotiations by paying to fix things myself. These things were not conducive to family life, as I brought my stress into the house with us nightly. On top of that I volunteered every year with the Greater Fairbanks Board of Realtors, going to many of the committee meetings, even ones I was not a part of, served as Director, Treasurer, President, chairs of various committees, etc.
By the time I made the decision to close the business down, I did it carefully and gradually, from October through the end of the year, making sure all my clients were taken care of by colleagues and that nothing was left hanging. Of course my last two transactions had repair money held in escrow until the Spring, and I will still help take care of those things.
So it took me months to get out, to get my buyers and Sellers taken care of until there were none left, and in the mean time, some of the damage was done. Jennifer had moved out. She's been taking time to decide what she needs to do, and I am here looking for another job with health benefits and regular, predictable hours.
Please keep me in mind if you know of a position where a driven, possibly obsessive person like me might fit in.
If you've made it to the end, thanks for listening to this final episode. I would like to have done more with this podcast, and I will miss Real Estate, but Family has to come first, finally.
