MIAMI-Visions of big commission checks and silk suits dancing through your head? Well, it's not going to happen, not in the first six months to a year in your new career. And getting over that lean time means saving like a hoarder and pushing like a freight train.

Andres del Corral is 31 now, a broker at locally based Blanca Commercial Real Estate, where the bulk of his work is in owner rep.  He did his first six belt-tightening months and lived to tell about it.

Blanca is actually del Corral's third company now. After he graduated from Boston U. with a Masters in communications and a Minor in philosophy he started working with a local Miami brokerage.

(Have a Young Professionals story to tell? Email John Salustri. And check back this afternoon for Part 2.)

He had moved on to another local firm, Rilea Group, a development company, when he met Tere Blanca, then with Cushman & Wakefield and the leasing agent for one of Rilea's buildings. Two years ago, when she decided to strike out on her own, del Corral “enthusiastically went along.” Today, he says, the

While at Rilea, del Corral earned his MBA, with a concentration in real estate, from Florida International University. With that background and time logged in the field, he's content these days on a commission-only basis.

But that's a transition that takes work and foresight, he points out: “Typically a firm will give a broker a draw that he pays back. Blanca's more progressive and gives a salary with a draw at the beginning of your career and then you transition to a commission base.” That transition occurred at the start of his second year there.

Fortunately, “by the end of six months I had deals in the pipeline and was working with a team,” he recalls. “I had assignments . I was able to pay off my draw fairly quickly.”

It's not like young brokers won't get deals in the first two or three months. “They just won't be substantial,” he says. So what to do while you're waiting for the big paydays to start rolling in? In the secound part of this story, appearing on GlobeSt.com this afternoon, del Corral shares four essential, common-sense tips. Stay tuned.