There are few things that are more motivating than fear. In my case it was ever present, once I left the military. At the time I didn’t realize what real fear was. I had a wife, and at that time two children, a car payment, rent, utilities, and buying food and no guarantee of any income. I was now existing on the promise of being able to sell homes and earn commissions. In addition, I had to create all of this on my own. At that time there were three of us. My father in law, who was a real estate broker, my brother in law who was married to my wife’s sister and me. We found out that our world was to sell government repos. How does that work? First we were all working on commission only. If we didn’t sell something and close it there was no income. Every week a list of homes that had been repoed and refurbished by FHA, (there were also VA homes that were advertised but they were sold differently). were printed in the local paper. That was our list of properties. We needed to go into the neighborhoods where these houses were and knock on doors and ask the neighbors if they knew anyone who might be interested in purchasing that house. It seems hard to believe but this actually worked. You would find buyers this way. These homes were only on the market for a week. After a week a sale occurred in downtown San Francisco at the FHA offices. It was basically a lottery. Each agent would submit his offers for the various properties. They would draw out the names. Usually they would draw two names. The winner and the runner up for each property. The winner had to qualify and the property would be his. Over time I accumulated a number of buyers who were looking for similar homes and when new ones would come on the market I would let my buyers know and I would write up offers. Sometimes I would take 10 or 15 offers to San Francisco each week. Some weeks I would not have any winners. Some weeks I would have several. One week I remember having 4 of my customers win. Winning really was just the beginning. You had to get them qualified, and then be sure that they had enough money to pay their closing costs and end up owning the home. I didn’t get paid until that happened. It was a crazy way to make a living. Most of these homes were in pretty undesirable neighborhoods, so just being out there knocking on doors was an adventure, almost like running the gauntlet in Hoover’s Orchard. I didn’t carry a big stick. Just made sure I didn’t make eye contact with any suspicious characters and every thing worked out. It was interesting, the buyers were, for the most part, people who didn’t think that they would ever own a home. The fact that this process opened the door for so many people was amazing. I really felt like what I was doing was a great thing for them. The buyers were extremely grateful. I rarely met with these people and their families without being ask to join them for a meal. They made me feel special and it was very satisfying to make it possible for them to become home owners. This still didn’t make the fear go away. It was always hanging over my head and was the primary reason that every Monday meant doing all of this all over again. I ended up making a living but it was very stressful.
Move ahead to my next work home….Kmetovic and Ingalls. The experience was like night and day between my father in laws firm and Kmetovic and Ingalls. They were a very prestigious firm and dealt primarily with homes in the Almaden Valley and Willow Glen. A highly professional company. I was the only young guy in the firm. Most of the other agents were old enough to be my mother or father. They kind of took me under their wing and helped me learn the ropes. We also had many referrals for people being transferred to San Jose. The landscape was much different but the fact that there was no income unless you sold something was still present. I remember Fred Kmetovic coming to me one day to see how I was doing. He was concerned about the car I was driving. He was very diplomatic but made it clear that I might consider upgrading to a nicer vehicle. I made that change and I don’t know if that nicer car made any real difference but it made Fred happy. I now had a mortgage since we bought a home and had 3 children at that time. Fred basically said that you needed to have enough reasons to succeed. Easy for him to say. I believe he was right. Again having a bigger nut also amplified the fear I felt if I didn’t perform. Bottom line, I had many reasons to succeed, lots of bills to pay, more mouths to feed and I suppose thicker skin and more drive. I learned a great deal from the people I worked with at Kmetovic and Ingalls. Most of them were past the fear stage because they had all…”made it”, at least that appeared to be the case. As time went on I became more successful and after about 3 years with the firm became their top salesman. Fear won out. As I look back now it is hard to think about the anxiety, stress and heart pounding fear that I experienced. Eventually I had enough sales in the pipeline that I could relax a bit, knowing that I would be able to meet all my financial commitments.
The day came when I felt like the commission structure wasn’t favorable enough for me at Kmetovic and Ingalls so I started looking around. At that time most of the best agents in the San Jose Real Estate Board were moving to a company called Allstate Realtors. The move was largely the result of a very favorable commission structure. Again, to make that move was a high risk situation. I was pretty comfortable at Kmetovic and Ingalls. I made the move and again out of the fear of failure and heading into the great unknown I decided to start “farming”. What is farming. In residential real estate it is choosing an area of homes, generally where you live. Working that area, becoming an expert in that area with regard to home values, etc. What I did was start writing a newsletter called Hunsinger’s Half Acre. It was started out of fear. I wrote, published and distributed that news letter for 5 years to approximately 1,000 homes. Because of my fear of failure I ended up doing this newsletter which took all of the peaks and valleys out of my business. I never really had the kind of anxiety that had been present for so many years. My business was solid and the dedication to the newsletter changed everything for me. Fear, Fear and more Fear…shaped how I approached my business.
