Hello! Please allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is Courtney Smith and I am the newest team member here at Thrive. I have recently arrived back from a year-long trip overseas with my husband. I can honestly say it is so great to be back in Denver. I LOVE this city, it’s home (although I’m not a native….please don’t judge) and I truly believe it is one of the best cities in the world.
Anyways…arriving in Denver I found myself in the all too familiar space of being immersed in an unknown subject. I’m talking about real estate licensing school. Eating, sleeping, dreaming real estate has been my life for the past 2 months. And I have loved it! Really I have, but it feels great to have finished the course. It feels really great to have passed the exams…and with a better score than my bosses :). Most of all, however, it feels really really great to have some extra time and brain space!
When I signed up for classes I had no idea what to expect. I felt like a middle-schooler going to class the 1st day of the year: nervous and excited. I had four huge binders of content I knew nothing about and no idea how I would ever retain all of that information. I attended classes at Armbrust Real Estate Institute. I thought they did a great job teaching. It can be really dry stuff but they do all they can to make it interesting and learnable. We learned federal laws, state laws, systems, regulations and contracts (a lot of contracts!) – all extremely important subjects. They taught numerous hours on things that matter, things that make or break a transaction, which in turn, make or break a career.
I was lucky enough to be working at Thrive while studying through the course. It was a great advantage to experience firsthand what I was learning in class. However, it became very apparent that there is a lot more to being a great broker than passing a test: people skills, marketing knowledge, communication, tech savviness (or at least competency) – the list is long. I wasn’t completely surprised by this revelation; Armbrust made it very clear that there were many more things to learn after the test. They often stressed how important it is to your future success to pick the right agency.
So after the many hours of studying, late nights reading (and rereading), and having to say no more often than not to going out with friends, I find myself almost licensed! I am still very excited! I am excited for the next step, excited to connect with people, and very excited to be a part of this team at Thrive.
Thanks for reading!
-Courtney