I think I’ve always known I would be in real estate, even long before I knew what it was called.

Some of my earliest memories are about neighborhoods, houses, floor plans, etc.

I remember the street my grandparent’s lived on.  It was mostly built in the 1940s.  There were a lot of Tudor looking houses with dramatic roof pitches.  Most had asbestos tile siding.  There were a few brick ranches from the 50s/60s.  I always wondered why those houses were different.

A kid named Chris lived across the street.  His backyard was a hill.  I always liked the better view he had over my grandparents house but I did like the flat yard and privacy my grandparent’s had.

We lived in an apartment complex for a while.  I really liked the design of the buildings.  Our unit faced an open field that was great for playing.  I had a friend who lived across the parking lot.  His building was sort of built into a hillside.  There were lot of steps and turns you had to take to get to his front door.  I remember thinking I liked our easier access and view better, but I thought it was cool how getting to his front door was more eventful and intriguing.

Then I lived in a house sitting up on a hill.  The house right next door was the mirror image of our house.  I remember noticing that we had the only “Ditto” houses on the street and wondered how that happened?

Next was a fairly new house in a neighborhood still under construction.  We had a vacant lot behind us.  When a house was built, it ruined the backyard for me.  It sat higher than our house and that bothered me.  It was like the house was casting a shadow on our house.  We had some drainage problems too.

All of this and I wasn’t even 10 years old yet.

Now nearly 40 years later, it is still hard for me to believe that I have made a living out of telling people what I think about houses, neighborhoods and floor plans.

It’s been really good!