<p>I just got off the phone with our real estate agent.&#0160; </p>

<p>No, we&#39;re not selling the house we just bought - I&#39;m done with real estate posts for now.&#0160; Then again, maybe not.&#0160; You see, she called because she&#39;s been trying to get me to become a real estate agent.&#0160; She was impressed with my obsessive research (a lot of the times I knew more about the houses we looked at than she did.&#0160; I am a world-class Googler!) and my compulsion to improve listing descriptions.&#0160; I can&#39;t help it - it&#39;s the marketer in me.&#0160; </p>

<p>Once, I told a seller&#39;s agent that while the house she was showing us was not for me, she should mention the attached two-car garage &quot;which is a rarity in a 1930&#39;s colonial in this price range.&#0160; And I would advise your clients to remove the brown drapes in the living room.&#0160; We want light.&#0160; Light is good!&quot;</p>

<p>She looked at me like I was crazy.&#0160; My agent, on the other hand, started her campaign to get me to work with her.&#0160; </p>

<p>&quot;Nah,&quot;&#0160; I said.&#0160; &quot;I don&#39;t need the pressure.&quot;</p>

<p>&quot;You can work as much or as little as you like.&#0160; The money is good.&#0160; Think about it.&quot;</p>

<p>I told my husband about it that night and we had a good laugh.&#0160; I mean, I&#39;m a suburban stay-at-home mom who is <em>thisclose</em> to buying a minivan because <em>I think I want one</em>.&#0160; If I became a part-time real estate agent the logical next step in my Donna Reed transformation would be my purchase of a vacuum cleaner so that I can finally wear my pearls.&#0160; You know, while I vacuum.</p>

<p>(The scary part?&#0160; I&#39;ve been eyeing the Dyson website.&#0160; Send help.)</p>

<p>Anyways, where was I?&#0160; Oh yes, the part where my husband and I laughed about me becoming a realtor, which we did until we saw what she earned for a few hours a week looking at houses with me.&#0160; Then it wasn&#39;t funny - I could buy 50 Dysons with that kind of money.</p>

<p>When I told her that I wasn&#39;t ready to commit any time to this she told me that if I took a real estate class and helped her market some homes she would give me 25% of her commission on any homes we sold together.&#0160; That&#39;s 12 Dysons right there.&#0160; And I wouldn&#39;t even have to change out of my pyjamas because she&#39;s convinced I can do this from home.</p>

<p>People.&#0160; It&#39;s starting to sound REALLY good.</p>

<p>Somebody alert the Fed, because this is not a good sign for the housing market.</p>

<p>My timing is awful when it comes to career-related things.&#0160; When everybody was making buckets of money for playing foosball (ah, the sweet dot com days!) I decided that THAT was the perfect time to go back to school.&#0160; The genius of my strategy became evident when I graduated in 2002, right smack in the middle of the Enron/Tyco/WorldCom/Adelphia business scandals that made putting an MBA on your resume almost as attractive as saying that you have head lice.</p>

<p>So if I enter the real estate field, even half-assedly, I&#39;m afraid I may just throw the country into recession.<br /> </p>

<p>I promise to warn you if I ever decide to take one of those weekend real estate courses.</p>
