WHEN I HAD spoken to Victoria on the phone the previous week, she’d said, “I have some big clients that we’ll be prospecting for, so it’s a great week for you to join me.”
There was no way that I could have fully grasped what she meant by “big” until Monday afternoon when we walked into our first open house in Beverly Hills—a mansion listed at over $13 million. It had a movie theater and a two-story den with a fireplace, a library, and a pool table. Outside was a waterfall that spilled into the beautiful pool with a large deck. In one of its wings there was a fully licensed nightclub complete with stage, dance floor, and grand piano. A very different reality from mine. I was happy to be scraping by on the $1,000 a month that NiceJob gave me for travel expenses.
Fortunately, each week I’d been able to stay at my employers’ houses, or with a new friend who contacted me through the website. With the money I saved on accommodations, I was able to put that toward flights, buses, and food. My hosts had also been incredibly generous to me, at times offering to pay for travel, and often welcoming me at their dinner tables.
After spending the day prospecting million-dollar homes in the Hills (the cheapest one we checked out was $4.5 million), Ian and I went back to our temporary home for the week—our high school friend Mike’s three-hundred-square-foot bachelor apartment. Mike is a drummer attending music school in Hollywood; Ian and I slept on the floor next to his bed and drum kit—a cozy weeklong slumber party.
Victoria became a real estate agent by accident. Like many in Los Angeles, she had wanted to be an actor. She had spent some time doing voice-over work for cartoons when a guy she was dating happened to buy a house. “I found that I really liked the process and so decided to pursue it. Sometimes I work sixteen-hour days, sometimes I work five-hour days, but I love all of it.” Being a real estate agent requires a lot of self-motivation. Victoria told me that when the market is slow, she will often go door to door to try and sign up new clients. “We’re supported by the branch with referrals and training seminars,” she said. “But ultimately it’s up to us to make the sale.”
Victoria was a spunky, attractive thirty-seven-year-old going on twenty-five. We spent as much time talking about her love life and giving her dating advice as we spent talking about the real estate industry. At lunch one day, Ian and I came up with a variation of One-Week Job for Victoria to meet guys. She’d date a new guy each week, then blog about her experience: “One-Week Stand: Searching for some action, not a relationship.”
She loved it.
The job of a real estate agent appealed to me. I liked the entrepreneurial spirit and the idea of connecting a family with their future home. The ultimate goal is to help someone complete what is, for the majority of us, the biggest financial transaction that we’ll make in our lives. It’s a huge decision, and people can become somewhat emotional about it. As a result, Victoria often takes on a therapist role as she coaches clients through the process.
“It’s important to take the time to know the clients and what they’re looking for in a home,” she said. Once she does that, the payoff is the best part. “The most rewarding thing is when I walk into a house and I know that it’s the perfect house for someone, that they’ll raise their family and have memories there.”