It is a nice Sunday afternoon here in South Florida, sunny around 75 degrees. I could be at the beach, or working in my garden or out in a boat but I am at my desk in the office. I am waiting for a client who just called to say they would be here not at 11 AM as we discussed earlier today but at 1 PM. Meanwhile when I arrived for that 11 AM appointment there was a broker at my office from another company, with a client who I had spent a lot of time with in the last two months and shown four or five different boats. Wrote up an offer from that guy to buy a boat, asking $1,500,000 and his offer was $1,000,000. The seller made a reasonable counter offer, the buyer would not go up a dollar. Instead of calling me back he called a different broker to show him a boat here at the boatyard that I already showed to him around Dec 1st. This is normal in my business, but I get to play with boats, go for boat trips and meet a lot of really good people, so I put up with the others. After 20 years of selling boats I expect to make enough money without paid vacations, without paid health insurance, paid holidays, paid sick days, or a pension plan. Maybe 10% commission is not enough after splitting it with the house.
But I will repeat, I get to go for boat rides, I did a trip from Lake Erie to Florida this fall, I went for a yacht ride in Italy this year, it is worth it to me.