Friday, June 27, 2008
Don't let the grass grow beneath your feet...
Well, it's another year, and here I am again, making another leap of faith.
I've entered into an agreement to buy a small Property Management company. It's not that things haven't been going well with my current broker - quite the contrary. Things have gone great, and I'm finally at an income level that is nice again, so of course I have to shake things up.
I was offered the new management company, and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. It will allow me to progress about five or six years into the future over where I would be if I didn't do anything... by my loose reckoning, anyway. The big thing is that it will allow Rob to join me in the business, so we can both work from home. I think Rob is going to be a fantastic property manager - people love him. And he is so good with them, and seems to have fun... and he's actually interested in how properties work, what the trades and contractors are doing - I think it's going to be so nice to have someone to work with and talk to during the daytime (I have to admit, there have been lots of times in the past year when I have lost focus, not having anyone to work with...).
So Rob's given his notice and has only another week with his home-builder company. Then, he'll be working with me, and we'll be putting our home office together so we'll have a place to work, and he'll be starting to take over some tasks from me, which will be great. Over this next year, I have to get my broker's license. I guess it's a long course, if you take the courses, but if you just do it by correspondence, I can't see it being much of a problem. I can do the educational component to the license now, but will have to wait until next August before my license can be upgraded - according to RECA, you have to have an active associate's license for two full years before you can be a broker. That's kind of a pain, but we're allowing for it in the purchase agreement. The broker who is selling me his company is going to stay on for the next year, transition things to me slowly, and then will be sort of retiring at the end of next summer. Then, it'll be all mine! Yay!!
I sat down and figured out what it's going to cost us - not only in terms of getting a loan and startup costs, but losing Rob's income to the household - and it's scary. I am a little worried I am taking on more than I can handle, but if we don't try, we'll never succeed, so hopefully it all works out. People keep telling me it'll be alright, so I'm just going to have to go with that!
That's the exciting news on the business front. On the other fronts, the wedding last summer was fantastic - the perfect wedding for us. I loved it, and had a great time. I hope all my friends & family did, too. Our honeymoon out East was great, we spent three weeks travelling - we went to my grandmother's farm again, and then came back slowly, saw some sights. The sad news - while we were on our way home, about five days after we left the farm, Granny passed away. It is still crushing news to me, and it doesn't seem real, and I really don't care to think about it much. I went back for her funeral in October, which sucked. Some of my mother's relatives (hey, they're not MY relatives - I can limit the scope of that relationship if I want) are kind of horrible people. It's amazing how a death in the family serves to emphasize how selfish people can be.
Fall went by pretty fast, Christmas went by fast. My sister had a baby in April, named her Natalie Marin. My brother looks like he has a job this year, which is really nice and he'll be back in Indiana instead of Atlanta, so not too far for us to go and visit him next year. The dogs are all good, the cats are all good, my parents seem alright, Rob seems alright, so I guess life is good. Oh - our yard looks fantastic. We have been doing a lot of work in it and it is now a little corner of paradise in the world, a place to relax for us, as if we needed more encouragement!
That's the update. I hope all is well out there in the world of the web.
I've entered into an agreement to buy a small Property Management company. It's not that things haven't been going well with my current broker - quite the contrary. Things have gone great, and I'm finally at an income level that is nice again, so of course I have to shake things up.
I was offered the new management company, and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. It will allow me to progress about five or six years into the future over where I would be if I didn't do anything... by my loose reckoning, anyway. The big thing is that it will allow Rob to join me in the business, so we can both work from home. I think Rob is going to be a fantastic property manager - people love him. And he is so good with them, and seems to have fun... and he's actually interested in how properties work, what the trades and contractors are doing - I think it's going to be so nice to have someone to work with and talk to during the daytime (I have to admit, there have been lots of times in the past year when I have lost focus, not having anyone to work with...).
So Rob's given his notice and has only another week with his home-builder company. Then, he'll be working with me, and we'll be putting our home office together so we'll have a place to work, and he'll be starting to take over some tasks from me, which will be great. Over this next year, I have to get my broker's license. I guess it's a long course, if you take the courses, but if you just do it by correspondence, I can't see it being much of a problem. I can do the educational component to the license now, but will have to wait until next August before my license can be upgraded - according to RECA, you have to have an active associate's license for two full years before you can be a broker. That's kind of a pain, but we're allowing for it in the purchase agreement. The broker who is selling me his company is going to stay on for the next year, transition things to me slowly, and then will be sort of retiring at the end of next summer. Then, it'll be all mine! Yay!!
I sat down and figured out what it's going to cost us - not only in terms of getting a loan and startup costs, but losing Rob's income to the household - and it's scary. I am a little worried I am taking on more than I can handle, but if we don't try, we'll never succeed, so hopefully it all works out. People keep telling me it'll be alright, so I'm just going to have to go with that!
That's the exciting news on the business front. On the other fronts, the wedding last summer was fantastic - the perfect wedding for us. I loved it, and had a great time. I hope all my friends & family did, too. Our honeymoon out East was great, we spent three weeks travelling - we went to my grandmother's farm again, and then came back slowly, saw some sights. The sad news - while we were on our way home, about five days after we left the farm, Granny passed away. It is still crushing news to me, and it doesn't seem real, and I really don't care to think about it much. I went back for her funeral in October, which sucked. Some of my mother's relatives (hey, they're not MY relatives - I can limit the scope of that relationship if I want) are kind of horrible people. It's amazing how a death in the family serves to emphasize how selfish people can be.
Fall went by pretty fast, Christmas went by fast. My sister had a baby in April, named her Natalie Marin. My brother looks like he has a job this year, which is really nice and he'll be back in Indiana instead of Atlanta, so not too far for us to go and visit him next year. The dogs are all good, the cats are all good, my parents seem alright, Rob seems alright, so I guess life is good. Oh - our yard looks fantastic. We have been doing a lot of work in it and it is now a little corner of paradise in the world, a place to relax for us, as if we needed more encouragement!
That's the update. I hope all is well out there in the world of the web.
