Update

It is the day before the Fourth of July and the weather is absolutely glorious, dry, sunny, and the temp is hovering around the 80 degree mark. The windows are all open and the place is airing out from a long winter of hibernation.

It is official, my Real Estate license is inactive, I have turned in my lock box keep, and sold my lock boxes. I stopped by the Weichert office yesterday to turn over the lock boxes to the agent that purchased them, and visit with the folks there,

So... what is the difference between what I am doing now and being an agent?

as an agent my cell phone went off on a regular basis - mostly with voice mail announcements from the office, now it sits silent for hours on end. +

as an agent I would get daily email messages from Big Jim Weichert trumpeting how great the market is and how we can all expect huge transactions in the immediate future - I still get those, but not as frequently -

I no longer have to spend lots and lots of money to maintain the pretense that I was actively pursuing real estate business. +

as an agent I used to sit in the office on the phone waiting for a customer to call, now I don't +

the biggest difference however is that as an agent there was a hope, maybe a prayer, that I would earn some money (those unhatched chickens) to justify all the money I spent on supplies, memberships, etc. now with that out of the way it feels as if a load had been lifted. +

finally, even though there was no money coming in, no prospects, no customers, etc., and even though the market was in the crapper, homes weren't selling, and everyone was offering huge bonuses along with pleas to please bring your customers to buy the homes we have to sell, even after all that it was sort of like gambling, you weren't winning, in fact you were losing, but there was always the thought that somewhere somehow you would win one and recoup some of your sunk costs. That hasn't changed much