It's not as futile an idea as one might think...

So in an effort to not be a lay-about and keep busy, the Bob, husband/father extraordinaire, has reactivated his real estate license. He got it some years ago, during another layoff period. He has joined a Century 21 office in Newton MA, and is ready to become a real estate mogul.

In the greater Boston area houses still sell, so this is not as futile a job prospect as one might think in this economy. In our neighborhood houses used to sell the week they went on the market. They take a little longer now, maybe a month or so, but they still sell pretty quickly and for close to asking price. The problem with our particular neighborhood is Hans. He is a Coldwell Banker realtor who lives in the neighborhood and pretty much has a lock on all the business. Not everyone uses him, but most do. If I am not mistaken, in the last 6 or 7 years he has sold the house behind us three times. Each time he made at least 3% but more like 6% on each sale I am sure. That house alone could have meant around $80,000 in income to him over three sales.

Even if Bob found a software engineer job tomorrow, I think he will still do the real estate thing on the side. Why not? Having more than one revenue stream is never a bad thing. We have any number of things we should be actively saving for, like a college fund, retirement, a new table and chair set for the deck. Seriously, we need a new set. The one we have I bought at the grocery store 4 years ago. It was a good buy, but now the chairs are falling apart. It is on the short list of things we would like to purchase once we are out of layoff hell.

But who knows. Bob is a pretty self motivated and directed person, and if anyone can be successful at this I think he can. So maybe this will be his new career.

In Cooper news, he has been obsessed with his harmonica. He has insisted on taking it to school with him, but I only let him as long as he puts it in his cubby once we get inside, so he is not annoying the heck out of everyone, or worse, he loses the thing. The other day I picked him up and they were playing outside for the 10 minutes it wasn't raining. So after I went in and got his stuff and he retrieved his harmonica, we went back outside through the playground to leave. He came out onto the playground playing his harmonica, and in about 5 seconds he had at least 5 kids gathered around him, staring at him with big smiles on their faces. He has FANS already and he can't even play a real song. I think he realized how cool it was that they were staring at him in awe. My kid, the rock star.