On a warm San Diego day in mid-June of 1969 I drove home from my last day of high school. About 60 days later I turned 18. Around 30 days after that I was jumping up and down in front of our mailbox, holding the notice from the California Department of Real Estate informing me I’d passed the salesman’s license test. A few weeks later I was proudly putting a knot in my tie, bright and early Saturday morning, the 18th of October. I had a full head of blonde hair, and was shaving more days of the week than not. 🙂 I was minutes away from driving to the office for the first time ever.
I was still living at home, and going to college full time. 1969 was a recession year, but I didn’t know it. I went full time in February 1974 — the beginning of the ’74-75 recession, and was married a month later. Seems I had great timing from day one. 🙂 Times were tough. San Diego hadn’t had their first real price run-up yet. Interest rates, to the best of my memory were generally in the mid-7’s to 8%.
I remember like it was yesterday, sitting in the office of H & R Block, sometime before the income tax filing deadline, (Big time, wasn’t I?) and the woman doing our taxes looked up at me, my wife looking on, and said, “Mr. Brown, you’d have been better off not having worked last year.” Ouch. To her everlasting credit, my wife looked her in the eye and asked why she was working part time, at night. Was it possibly because her husband wasn’t cuttin’ it? We’ve not been married for a decade now, but we still chuckle about that night. Even with the kidney shot to my ego that night, it was way cool to know she had my back.
1975 wasn’t much of an improvement, as I made more money, but only because I was getting the hang of things. We were still mired in the recession. I remember one guy in my farm area Read more
But: There can only be one best. This week, that honor and The Odysseus Medal go to Michael Cook with 
And if that’s not unsettling enough to our sensibilities, The Black Pearl this week goes to Carl Drews with 
Am I aware that some agents are very skilled at actually selling the house being held open? Yes. In fact, Greg and Kris both commented that they have sold houses numerous times by holding them open. My good friend