A few days ago was Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday which resulted in the closing of post offices, banks, federal offices such as the department of motor vehicles and other businesses. The question of that morning was, do real estate agents get the holiday off?
Similar to all other holidays and similar to weekends, this holiday is just another day of the week. Real estate agents work for their clients, and on days when those clients are off from their jobs, guess what they are doing!? The ones that wish to buy homes are home shopping, and the ones that want to sell are interviewing real estate professionals or are preparing their homes for showings.
My schedule for Martin Luther King Day went something like this: I left my home at 9:15 to make it to my first showing appointment at 10:00. I showed houses to a buyer client; we saw quite a few, and finished a little after noon. Then I drove about 20 minutes to meet a rental client with the goal of seeing two homes (although they stood me up and never showed — I still spend time driving to the home, opening the door and waiting, then closing it up again). From there I drove about 1/2 hour north to participate in another buyer client’s home inspection which took a few hours and then it was back to my area to preview a home.
When agents choose to be in the real estate profession, they are embracing a career with no scheduled holidays off, or in fact, no scheduled days off of any kind. There’s no “two weeks vacation in the first year” and no “Monday-Friday 9-5 with weekends off.” On the other hand, if we desire to take a specific day off, or a few weeks off, we can take them whenever we want, with meticulous planning, communication and coverage.
So do real estate agents get holidays off? Not usually!