I’ve been a commercial real estate agent for 5 years now and for the first 4 years it was going fine. However, as many of you know, commercial real estate loans are going bad, and along with it, many banks are not lending. My brokerage is a very specialized brokerage. It is a car wash brokerage. Many commercial real estate brokers specialize in hotels, office buildings, apartments, etc. My business partner and I specialize in car washes. Unfortunately for us, most banks will not lend money on a car wash. They are still much more lenient on apartments, hotels, offices, but car washes have been very very bad investments for banks coming out of the real estate boom. As a result, I do not see my brokerage doing ANY deals this year, or in the near future. In the meantime I’m running out of cash and fast.What should I do? Since I’m technically self employed I have plenty of time to search for a job, but the reality is that if I was truly serious about leaving this career now, I would simply quit and start a new career asap. I’m 29 years old and started doing this right out of college. I feel confident that I can take a pay cut and start a new career somewhere else. At this point it seems almost inevitable that I’m going to have quit soon. My question, therefore, is does it make a difference if I search for a job only part time, or should I quit now and put all my effort into finding a job now while I still can afford to pay 3 more months rent, and still have some money for food?
I appreciate the optimism guys but at this point a change in course is highly unlikely for me. My business partner just started our new marketing campaign and we are indeed headed in a new direction: apartments. However, I have about 4 months left before I’m broke, and since we are untested in the apartment market I think it would be prudent to either (a) jump ship now or (b) get a new career.

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