Second Wind

You Did What at Your Age?

 

Earned My Real Estate License

Joy Watson

 

 

Due to favorable circumstances at that time of my life, I was able to retire at the end of 2013 from a longtime bank position in my small hometown. I was looking forward to doing a clean sweep of my house and helping my husband care for his mother who had moved in with us. 

 

The year is now 2020, and I am still looking forward to that clean sweep since more important things caused me to put it off. In my defense, I keep the books for our personal finances and for my father’s rental properties, as well as manage them. The newfound freedom of my retirement also allowed us to do some traveling. 

 

In 2018, my son-in-law Mark wanted to change his career to property management, and we learned that he would need a real estate license for that. My husband, Jay Watson, a real estate broker, suggested that I get my real estate license, too, so I could help him with his business. 

 

In 2018, I reached the age to get Medicare coverage and start collecting Social Security benefits. In July, my son-in-law and I began taking classes to prepare us for the state real estate license test. Real estate school was divided into six “classes” that lasted two days each. We were given a tremendous amount of information in classroom instruction, along with assigned extra reading, and each class was followed by a test. I actually enjoyed the classes. 

 

On the day of the first test, it hit me all at once what I had done. What in the world was I thinking going back to school when I had just started my retirement? Could I really do this?

 

Mark and I wished each other luck going into the first test, and I had no idea how it would turn out. But we both passed, hands down, which resulted in some high fives! We still had five more classes to go, but now we had the confidence that we could really do this. 

 

I took the state realtor’s test in October 2018, and it was the hardest test I had ever taken. Out of 110 questions, we could miss up to nineteen to pass. During the test, I reviewed twenty of my answers and was afraid to change any of them. Afterwards, I nervously asked the test administrator when I would find out if I passed the test. She said she would hand me the answer as I left. 

 

I was thrilled to learn that I passed!

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Why did I decide to get my realtor’s license at this time of my life? My husband definitely needed my help. Much is involved in finding phone numbers on sticky notes. : ) We actually make a great team and enjoy working together. Closing on a property sale is very rewarding, but I’ve also experienced the disappointment of a sale falling through. I had to relearn the lesson about “the customer is always right” when they didn’t take my advice that a certain house was perfect for them.

 

I never guessed I would be selling property at the age of 66, but I learned that I could!

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Tierra Roja Real Estate
 

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Joy Watson

June 2020

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