How we got here...

It all started by a pool...

Last summer, the kids were swimming in a backyard pool while we were sitting on the side with towels, snacks, and sunscreen at the ready.  That day, the conversation turned to where it so often went:  what was going on with the neighborhood real estate market.

Sure, we caught up on the latest local gossip and talked about the quirks and delights of our kids.  But we also spent a lot of time chatting about things like, did you see how quickly that house down the street sold?  Or, I wonder why that house is still sitting on the market after such a long time?  And, it looks like we are getting more and more young families coming out here from NYC; that can only be good for home prices here.

That day by the pool, the light bulb turned on...

We both like following the real estate market.  We both love our town and neighboring communities.  We both encourage all our friends still in NYC to come out and live the good life in the 'burbs.

Maybe we should do this for a living...

The timing couldn't have been better.  Our kids were getting older and in school full time.  Neither of us were particularly interested in going back to our earlier careers as entertainment executives.  Real estate, with its entrepreneurial focus and more flexible schedule, felt like the right answer.

So we did it.

We enrolled in a local real estate licensing school, crammed pages and pages of facts and information into our heads over a four week period, and took the requisite tests to get our licenses.

Next step, sign up with a broker and company.  We knew someone at the local Keller Williams office, so that's where we started our search.  As it happened, that's where we ended our search too because we both took to the company immediately and signed with them.

And now we find ourselves official real estate agents!  We've been at this for less than a month and find ourselves alternately excited by the prospect of being in this business and overwhelmed by just how much we still have to learn.

Through this blog, we invite you to join us on the journey of our first year as agents.  We hope to paint a picture of what it's like to start out in real estate and how we make our way through this new and exciting field.  Along the way, whether you're interested in a career switch or just in real estate in general, we hope that you will ask us questions and suggest topics to cover.

One of our teachers recently told us that half of the new agents in his classroom wouldn't last a year in the business.  And we know that for all of our enthusiasm and excitement, this first year is going to be a real challenge.  But we're ready to take it on.

After all, we started all this at a swimming pool, so there's nothing else to do but JUMP IN!

- Amy and Jill