I grew up surrounded by real estate. But I wasn’t sure it was the right fit for me. It took years of tripping down the wrong path to recognize that the right one had been in my own backyard all along.

It started with the farm. My parents had both dreamed of having a hobby farm to raise their family on. They didn’t have much financially. My dad worked at an airport. It meant a bit of travel as a kid, but it wasn’t much for a whole family to live off of. Still, they saved and scrimped and pinched until they had enough for that farm.

In their minds, the process of buying the property they’d been dreaming of for so long would be an exciting one! They just needed to find a real estate agent to guide them through the process.

It did not go as they imagined. The service was terrible. They felt lost, and the agent did little to ease their anxieties. When they finally managed to buy the farm, my dad thought, Well, I could be a better agent than the one we worked with!

And he set out to prove that he was. He worked part-time until he was doing well enough that he could quit his job at the airport. Meanwhile, my mom was picking up a lot from watching him work. She decided she also wanted to get into real estate. Just like that, it was a family business.

So I grew up in that world. I helped my parents out from a young age, everything from construction to handing out flyers. I got my license when I was still a senior in high school and sold six houses by graduation.

But I believed that, at heart, I was a science geek and that my future lay in that direction. I went to college for electrical engineering. Real estate was the work I did to pay for school. I longed for every new gadget that came out and was crazy about computers. I believed that studying engineering would open new doors and present me with the opportunities I’d been hoping for.

The courses got more intense, as I expected. I realized that my class size was dwindling. By the time I reached my last year of college, there were only 90 electrical engineering students in the whole school… And I was beginning to understand why.

As fun as technology was, the work wasn’t what I expected, and my classmates—the people who would have become my colleagues—couldn’t have been more different than me. I signed up for a career that would amount to sitting at a desk 40 hours a week. Plus overtime. The people I worked with would be nice enough but withdrawn and introverted. It slowly dawned on me...this wasn’t what I wanted at all!

It was the beginning of the end of my electrical engineering dream. I wanted a job where I wouldn’t be constrained to a desk, a job where I could meet new people and interact with them. I realized I was describing a sales job. More specifically, I was describing the job I’d already been doing in real estate!

I left college a semester short of graduating. It would have been a waste of time. I didn’t need an electrical engineering degree, and I was excited to return to real estate now that I realized what it meant to me. It turns out my parents were thrilled at the prospect of me working for the company and becoming a part of their team. After all, I learned from the best. Having family in this industry has shown me the impact of working hard, being empathetic, and bringing families into their new homes. Now I get to do that for you!

My favorite parts of the job are the ones where I get to interact with my clients. Showings are always fun. Pointing out the unique features of a home and recognizing that glint in their eye when I’ve found them the exact property they were looking for. I also enjoy the initial consultation and getting to learn so much about a person.

I’ve walked with people through their most troubling experiences as well as their triumphs. People are drawn to me because I’m very social and open to giving them information. I believe that part of my job is to be an educator for my clients, give them the proper expectations, and understand their reason for moving.

My clients know they can come to me for creative solutions, and I won’t give up on them, even if I need to go to great lengths. I’ve worked with children and even grandchildren of former clients, who know that the Ott Team understands and cares about family. And we’ll take care of them. We’ll take care of you too.

Sincerely,

Tom Ott
REALTOR®