Real estate and entrepreneurship
By: J. David Chapman/June 25, 2020
Entrepreneurs take greater-than-normal financial risks in order to follow a passion or desire for a business or businesses. The entrepreneur is the visionary, the dreamer, the energy behind an effort, the imagination that sparks the fire for the future of an idea, and the catalyst for change. They are successful in support of these ideas and passions and not out of loyalty to an employer, company, or boss.
Real estate professionals are normally self-employed or independent contractors. In either category, by nature of definition, they work for themselves, and a boss or employer can’t tell them when to come to work or how to perform their duties, within a certain legal or contractual framework. Successful real estate professionals are self-starters working for their goals, ideas, and passions just like entrepreneurs. Because of this, many entrepreneurial people eventually find a career in real estate. The risk-and-reward nature of real estate works well with the entrepreneurial mindset.
Most of the world recently entered into an official recession. Job loss is one of the unfortunate causalities of recession. Good-paying, secure jobs with benefits have long kept entrepreneurial-minded people from following their dreams, passions, and desires. When recessions take away that job that they would have never walked away from, they now have the freedom to take that chance to follow their passion. This is why many of the best companies and ideas are formed during recessionary times. This is also why we see a growth in careers in real estate during recessions or economic downturns. They tell me it was always something they wanted to do, but just couldn’t leave their current career to take the chance on real estate.
Most start as a real estate sales associate selling residential or commercial real estate. If they have a large network of personal or business contacts and don’t mind asking those people to do business with them, they can be very successful. Others find opportunities in managing property, flipping property, or investing in rental property. There are many other ways these entrepreneurial-minded people can make a living in real estate – the point is they might have never made the decision to pursue the desire for a real estate career unless a forced catalyst such as an economic recession or loss of job gave them the opportunity.
J. David Chapman is an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).