Input on wife's re-entry into workforce as RE agent (sales, real estate)

[Ruby49]

A friend told there are lots of Westchester County RE agents on this forum. Hoping someone can offer input.

Wife is seriously considering going back to work now that our child will soon be ready for kindergarden. She is 3.5 yrs now.

Previously my wife worked in design/advertising. While she was pretty successful (ran her own biz for a long time), she is burnt out in the field and has no wish to get back into design. She likes the idea of real estate as:

- her father/family members were brokers/agents and she feels she has some familiarity with the industry, even if she is not licensed yet and doesn't really have experience selling RE

- she loves homes of all kinds, enjoys touring them, envisioning possibilities, home design/redesign, staging, decor, etc

- she loves Westchester County

- has previous sales experience from her biz, feels she was a pretty good negotiator, new biz developer, closer, etc

- her marketing/advertising background is very useful/transferrable

- she presents well and easily gains people's trust

I don't know much about the world of selling RE as I work in tech sales... can anyone weigh in on the pros/cons of embarking on this career path given her background. Obviously getting licensed is an early step but there must be other important things to know, particular to selling in WC, I would imagine.

Would it be a good idea for her to go for her license now, even though our child is 3.5 so that she can hit the ground running so to speak once our child is in school most of the day?

Thanks for your input, in advance.

[SailCT]

I thought this would be great for my wife too who had been in marketing; but because we are not and never will be rich as most of the financial people working in living in Westchester and CT are; my wife basically started coming home and talking to the kids about the huge, magnificent houses she was showing to clients. My wife started to resent me because I don't make millions per year and cannot afford 3-4 million for a house or even 2.5 million! My kids started to feel like they weren't good enough because we didn't have a big beautiful house with a pool. I really wish my wife had gone into teaching with the steady hours and steady paycheck, health and pension benefits. Or some other part-time or full time work. Real Estate can be good, but it is cut-throat; and to really do it well you will definitely need to join a club and get your wife to join many organizations to network and get listings. There is no part-time with RE unless she has friends that will throw her listings a couple times a year which can happen too. The absolute best-case scenario is if your wife has connections as you mentioned and if she can have a builders who will give her all their listings. It really has to be a 40+ hours per week; every week full-time job to make it work. Also, you have to pay about $5k per year in fees just to be a Realtor.

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

Originally Posted by SailCT

My wife started to resent me because I don't make millions per year and cannot afford 3-4 million for a house or even 2.5 million! My kids started to feel like they weren't good enough because we didn't have a big beautiful house with a pool.

Surely this cannot be true..