When I became a Realtor in 2004, my mentor told me he tried to take every Friday off. That was his personal time, where he drew his line in the sand. There’s another successful Realtor whose voicemail used to say something like, “If you are receiving this message after 6pm I will call back the next business day.” She was a single mom raising her daughter, and take I knew that time was important to them. I’m sure her clients understood and appreciated that. She has always been a top producer so her business obviously wasn’t hurt by being unavailable at night.
Even with these boundaries, I’m certain those Realtors made exceptions. After all, we’ve all got phones and it’s hard not to answer (a) a call from a current client, (b) a call from a potential new client, (c) a call from a fellow Realtor. Other Realtors can wait, but we don’t want to keep our clients waiting. Mostly though, what we don’t want to have happen is a potential new client reaches out to us and we aren’t available so they move on to another Realtor. This is the likeliest scenario with an online lead, where replying rapidly is the name of the game.
For most of my real estate career I haven’t been the best with keeping boundaries. It’s literally 8pm as I write this, and I just responded to a text from a client. I like to shut down my email by 8pm and either catch up the latest Giants baseball game or write. I don’t take regular days off, but I do surf and when I head to the beach it’s like a mini vacation each time. I can surf Cronkite or Fort Point and be back home within two hours if I hustle, but I prefer to take my time. When I go to Bolinas, Stinson, or Ocean Beach I leave the house by 8:30am and I’m back before 1pm. The only time I don’t have my phone with me is when I’m in the water, and I often will take calls all the way up until I’m suited up. When I get out of the water I check my phone messages, but not my email. I figure those can wait until I get home and back in front of a computer.
There are lots of Realtors who are even worse with boundaries than me. Years ago, one of my peers who had a wife and two children told me he had not taken a weekend off since he became a Realtor, and it had been at least three years already. His marriage ended in a divorce.
It’s not usual for a Realtor or client to text me before 10pm. By that time in the evening, I really don’t want to respond to anything business related. My first broker used to tell Realtors at her company meetings that when she became a Realtor she would routinely work until midnight. She was also the top producing Realtor in Marin County for a decade. I don’t think I could handle that kind of work schedule, and I know I wouldn’t want to bring that upon myself or my family.
I guess the main thing as a Realtor is to develop your own work/life balance that will promote a good life for yourself and your family without hurting your business. I’ve always tried to do that. When my kids were younger, I used to go to their swim meets every Saturday morning, which I really enjoyed! Unfortunately, I’ve had hearing issues for a while now and being in loud settings is actually physically painful for me, so I had to stop going to the meets a few years back. I was also able to coach both my daughters in soccer for seven seasons, and I’ll always cherish those memories. They had games every Saturday and practices twice a week. I missed only one game in all those years, and I can’t recall ever missing a practice.
One of the main reasons I became a Realtor was that I didn’t want to travel for a living. My father, while extremely successful as an international independent business consultant, traveled 50% of the time. I didn’t want to miss any part of those years with my family, and with the schedule flexibility that comes with being a realtor I’ve been able to lead a pretty good life. There have been times I’ve looked at my phone too much or texted too much, when I could have and should have been paying more attention to my family. I make no excuses for that behavior.
Ultimately, being a Realtor has worked well for me. I like the business of real estate, and I have enjoyed the work/life balance that I’ve established. It’s not perfect, but I’m happy. I have no complaints and I appreciate the opportunities to be of service.