Facebook
X
Pinterest
Copy Link
People have a picture of what this job is. Nice shoes, a lockbox, a sign in the yard, done by lunch. I get it. That’s what makes it onto the highlight reel.
The real version is quieter and a lot more about my car. It’s late September now, the sun’s setting around 7 and getting earlier every week, and I spent a good chunk of the last few days driving between towns that don’t look anything alike. So I figured I’d pull the curtain back and show you what a normal week actually looks like, including the parts nobody posts about.
Not because it’s glamorous. It isn’t. But because I think it helps to know who you’re actually working with before you ever call one of us.
The short version
- Most of the job is driving, listening, and answering questions, not the stuff you see online.
- Central Oregon isn’t one market. A week can take me from La Pine to Madras, and those are completely different houses and buyers.
- The hardest part isn’t finding houses. It’s telling people the honest thing when the honest thing is hard.
- A lot of my best conversations happen with people who aren’t buying or selling for another year.
So what does an agent actually do all day?
Less than you’d think, and more than it looks like. A single showing might be 40 minutes in the house and 90 minutes in the car. In between there’s the stuff that never photographs well: reading an inspection report line by line, calling a lender to double-check a timeline, counting business days on a contract deadline, and answering the same good questions a nervous first-time buyer should be asking.
A real day this week: a morning showing in Redmond, a quick loop through Tumalo to look at a place on acreage, then south to a home inspection in La Pine that ran long because the crawl space had a story to tell. By the time I got home the light was gone. That’s a pretty ordinary Tuesday around here.
Why is so much of this job driving?
Because Central Oregon is eight towns pretending to be one region, and they’re spread out. In a single week I might start in Bend, run up to Sisters, drop down to Sunriver, and end the day in La Pine, which is about half an hour and 30 miles south of my kitchen. Madras is close to 45 minutes north. Prineville’s its own haul east.
That drive time isn’t wasted, though. It’s where I actually learn a town. Which road floods, which stretch of Highway 97 backs up, how the light hits Smith Rock in October, why a house in Redmond and a house in Sisters can carry the same price tag and be nothing alike. You can’t fake thirty years of that, and you definitely can’t Google it.
What happens when a deal starts to wobble?
This is the part of the week that ages you. I’ll keep it general, because the details belong to my clients and not the internet, but here’s the shape of it. A deal looks solid, everybody’s relieved, and then something moves. An inspection turns up more than expected. An appraisal comes in under the number. A lender needs one more document on a Friday afternoon when the whole world is closing early.
My job in those moments isn’t to panic and it isn’t to pretend everything’s fine. It’s to slow it down, explain exactly what just happened and what the options really are, and then hold steady while people make a hard decision. Most deals that wobble don’t die. But some do, and the honest agent tells you that up front instead of selling you a fantasy.
How do I fit all this around a family?
Carefully, and imperfectly. I plan showings around my kid’s schedule and nobody needs the specifics. Some weeks the calendar wins and some weeks the family does, and I’ve made peace with the fact that a for-sale sign doesn’t care what day it is. Fall’s actually a little kinder on that front. Things slow down a touch after the summer rush, the larches turn gold later than everything else out here, usually well into October, and I get a few more dinners at home before the holidays scramble everything again.
The part nobody posts about
Here’s the honest stuff. A lot of this job is unpaid until it isn’t. I’ve spent full weekends with buyers who decided to wait a year, and that’s fine, that’s the deal I signed up for. There are long drives with nobody in the passenger seat, hard phone calls I’d rather not make, and the occasional deal that falls apart through no fault of anyone in it.
I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I’m telling you because the version of this job you see online is about 10 percent of the actual thing, and I’d rather you know the other 90 before you pick who to trust with the biggest purchase of your life. The agents worth hiring are the ones still standing in that 90 percent.
A few honest questions I get asked
Do you only work in Bend?
No. I work across Central Oregon: Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver, La Pine, Prineville, Tumalo, and Madras. They’re all different markets with different prices, timelines, and even different kinds of houses, so I don’t treat them as one place. If a town isn’t one I know inside and out, I’ll tell you that honestly instead of pretending.
How many houses do you show in a week?
It swings a lot. A slow week might be three or four showings. A busy week with an out-of-town buyer trying to see everything in two days can be fifteen or more. There’s no set number, which is part of why the calendar never really looks the same twice.
What’s the hardest part of the job, honestly?
Telling people things they don’t want to hear. That a house they love has a real problem, that their price is too high, that the deal might not come together. It’d be easier to just be agreeable, but that’s not actually helping anyone. The honest version is the whole point of how I work.
Do you and Erin work every deal together?
On listings, yes. Erin Lovelace and I co-manage every listing under Sold by Erin and Lacie, so a seller gets both of us on timelines and communication. On the buyer side, that’s usually me solo. Either way, nobody disappears after the offer gets accepted.
Do you work with first-time buyers and VA buyers?
Yes, and those are honestly some of my favorite clients. First-time buyers and VA buyers often have the most questions, and I like being the person who answers them plainly. A lot of that work happens in La Pine and Redmond, where the price and the loan type tend to line up.
Is it worth talking to you before I’m actually ready to buy or sell?
Yes. A lot of my best conversations happen a year or more before anyone lists or buys anything. No pressure, just real info. If you’re only trying to understand how something works or what a move here might really look like, that’s a fine reason to talk.
So that’s the real week. More miles than lockboxes, more listening than selling, and a lot of honest conversations that never show up on a feed.
If you’re somewhere in the thinking-about-it stage, whether that’s this fall or next fall, I’m always up for a no-pressure conversation about what a move here actually looks like. That’s the part of the job I like best. 🌲
