Bay Area man makes more money as a realtor than as a Stanford doctor

When Idean Poursham was a student at UC Davis, he rushed home to San Jose every weekend. But he didn’t spend his Saturdays and Sundays like the average college student.

“I started doing open days with my father over the weekend,” he said. “I wore a suit and tie, brought my backpack, and studied organic chemistry while people checked the house.”

About 20 years later, Pourshams is a doctor at Stanford University, and he well remembers driving home every weekend from Davis, helping his father with his real estate business, working on his grueling medicine, homework, then driving back to the campus.

At 18, while studying medicine, he received his real estate license for which he studied between classes in high school (“I graduated from Davis, then went to Oakland and took my real estate exam.”) Studied medicine at Ross University the Caribbean, where he put his real estate career on hold.

“I paid for college [as a realtor]”Then I paid my first year of medical school,” he said. He next joined a program that paid off his remaining student debt after working in the public health service for 10 years.

We in the Bay Area are all too familiar with side gigs. But Pourshams’ undeclared work as a broker is unusual, even for this expensive region. But the doctor seems to enjoy the constant switching. He currently works four and a half days a week at Stanford. In his “free time” he does real estate.

Idean Pourshams leads us through a house for sale in Menlo Park.

Patricia Chang / Special on SFGATE

Pourshams owns two cell phones – one for medical and personal life and one for real estate. Everyone has a different ringtone and text tone, so they know which hat to wear before they even look at their phones. In his round or research breaks, he answers inquiries, checks the sales status or makes an offer.

“I think I’ve always been good at dividing up,” he said. “I grew up with martial arts, so my mental strength comes from this training. They always pushed us hard and said, ‘It’s all in your head, you can control it.'”

The key, he says, is to let go of one task completely in order to focus on the other.

When I asked which job he made the most money in – medicine or real estate – Pourshams did not hesitate.

“I make more money as a broker,” he said. “It’s hilarious, I know.”

Linked to this is the urge to give something back to your region. He started a nonprofit called Mina’s Wellness that focuses on helping children make good health choices. And he recognizes the insidiousness of the cycle of debt and tenancy.

“You need an education to get a job. But then you have all this debt, so you need a home so you don’t keep paying a landlord,” he said.

He knows the cycle himself. Pourshams says he still owes nearly half a million medical school debts. At 37, he’s just starting to buy a house, but he’s been award-winning outside of the town his family lives in (Los Gatos).

In 2018, Pourshams started his own real estate company called TuuKasa. His father does most of the day-to-day business and runs the company under Pourshams’ brokerage license. “Real estate,” he says with a laugh, “is basically a hobby.”

Idean Pourshams leads us through a house for sale in Menlo Park.

Patricia Chang / Special on SFGATE

And he quickly recognizes his privilege in all of this. Without his family ties, he would never have entered the real estate industry. He finds a lot in the industry unsavory. And he can’t believe the prices most Bay Area agents charge – around 5% per sale, he says. Pourshams calculates about 2% by comparison.

Pourshams discusses the housing situation in this region with blunted clarity. He says he “hated” agents who drive Lamborghinis just for image. He detests the “Trump mentality” that some of his colleagues have.

“I know brokers are considered the best of the best who don’t pay their stagers. They owe them a debt that they will never repay. ”

“For example, when these people get a deal they tell a roofer I’ll pay you when the escrow closes,” he adds. “They don’t pay them. It’s like you have to come after me if you want your money.”

Pourshams has even more pursuits on the horizon. After all, he wants to open a gym where he can teach his patients first-hand exercises. Pourshams, of course, used to work as a personal trainer.

He is now pursuing his “smaller” goals. He studies law with his neighbor “as a hobby”. He plans to take the California Bar Examination in the fall.

“It’s not because I want to practice law or anything, I just see it as an interesting challenge,” he said.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/bay-area-man-makes-more-money-as-a-realtor-than-as-a-stanford-doctor/