This is the story about how I found my love for real estate as a military brat.
Last year, my dad was getting ready to retire and my mom, who is a DODEA teacher, was applying for jobs all around the world. Since she was looking for jobs, she also had to look for houses in each of the areas she was applying for. Anytime she looked at houses, I would get excited because I had always thought it was fun to look at new houses. But because I was never old enough to have a say in the house we get, I wasn’t allowed to be a part of the house hunt.
Fast-forward to the beginning of 2022, my mom had gotten a job in Guam and she was waiting for her orders. Since she knew where she was going to live, obviously she had to focus on getting a house there. As she was looking at houses I would get more and more excited saying things like, “Don’t forget to let me know what house we are going to get when you find it,” and, “Can I help?” This always got on my parents' nerves because they didn’t think I would be much of any help. Little did they know that I was really interested in looking at the houses because I had such strong opinions, so I downloaded a real estate app on my phone and started to search on my own.
For reference, we are a family of five, and it was preferred that everyone, except my parents, had their own room. The oldest, my sister, was going to college in the fall and wouldn’t be living with us. However, my mom wanted her to feel at home when she came to visit over winter break and summer vacation. So, we needed a three-to-four bedroom house with at least two bathrooms. It needed to be pet friendly, on the bus route, and close enough to the base, where my brother and I went to school and my mom worked. We also required a cheaper house because we would be living on a teacher’s salary, and if you didn’t know already, teachers don’t make a lot of money yearly.
This was a challenge that I was ready to face. I started looking at houses for fun, and when I found good ones that fit most of our family criteria, I told my parents. At first, they thought it was cute and funny that I was trying to find us a house, but when I kept showing them houses, they started taking me seriously. My mom would introduce me as her “real estate agent.” I created slide shows with a picture of the house, the satellite view, the address, and how far it was from each school.
This became my “job.” I kept looking at houses and showing them to my parents all the way until we found one. I had thought it was a lot of fun, and one time I was looking at houses and talking to my parents about it when my little brother said, “You should do this for a living.” And that is how becoming a real estate agent became my dream job. It never would have happened if we weren’t a military family, and my mom didn’t have a job as a DODEA teacher. So, thank you for everything to my mom, dad, brother, and sister.
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