Pascack Valley Real Estate: October 2008

Back in January of 2007' I wrote a post that focused on the Success of the Husband and Wife Realtor Team. The post was all about how my husband and I have worked together to be a successful team. Recently my husband, Bob, took a fall while out for some exercise on his bicycle. The fall seemed somewhat minor and he never even mentioned the fall to me. Weeks later he ended up having surgery on what turned out to be a broken thumb. Some might think "no big deal", how bad can a broken thumb be? Normally a broken thumb might not be such a big deal except for the fact that it was his right thumb and well you guessed it - he's right handed!

Since I have received messages from other couples considering going into the Real Estate business together, I thought that a follow up to this post was in order. One of the points I listed in my old post was to determine who does what. My husband is the technical strength of our Realtor team but when he broke his thumb, working on the keyboard became very difficult and even painful. In addition to his limited keyboard access, he lost his ability to drive (doctor's orders).

Think about all the things you use your right hand for in the Real Estate business. How many hands do you shake a day? How many times do you have to juggle keys and listings while opening doors and showing homes? What about answering phones and writing down notes while talking to a customer. An exercise to try to illustrate this dilemma is to hold your right hand behind your back as you go about your business and you will see what it would be like.

The biggest point is patience with your partner and picking up the slack when they need you. Bob and I will be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary in a few weeks. Working together has been a true test of how much we really respect and care for each other. I guess that is the most important thing to consider when embarking on working together with your spouse. That's what makes for the Success of the Husband and Wife Realtor Team!