Anyone have a real estate license?

[Philip J. Fry]

The RE market is going crazy right now and I’m thinking about increasing my market exposure by being an agent. You get 2.5% if a sale. Is there anyone here with a RE license in the US? How hard is it to generate income at first? How do you find leads? The course is 40 hours so the license itself would be easy to get. I just don’t want to do that and be able to only get one sale a month or so... even then, for a $500,000 house, that’s $12,500 in commission... not bad... not bad...

 

[eliquid]

RE Agents are a dime a dozen.

No different than it was back in the "flipping boom" prior.

No different that the insurance agent boom prior to that, or the RN boom before that.

It's just like a digital venture, what's gonna make you stand out/provide value? Why would people want to use you besides the 10,000 other agents in your area?

The only way you're gonna know is to put the work in. Even if you don't sell a home after the 40 hours, the lic provides a lot more value to you.. than you know right now.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'm in the middle of buying a home right now. It's bonkers out there.

There are more real estate agents in the US than there are homes for sale.

The problem being that the barrier to entry is so small it might as well be like buying a $10 domain and a $3 hosting package. It's such a low barrier that it has become (and not recently) the dummy's side hustle. They treat it like a "network marketing" thing where they get their license and spam their facebooks and instagrams and pressure their friends and family to be their clients.

In the meantime, only the real killers are getting clients at the moment, because the pressure is so high to win with your offer that you need every advantage you can get, and knowing about those advantages requires experience, and experience comes with time. There's no way I'd work with someone brand new right now, no matter how smart or upstanding of an individual they may be. None of that matters when it comes time to draft the offer, gather intelligence, schmooze the other agent, etc.

Sure, the commissions are nice. My current agent runs a company and he has about 15 agents working for him. He's telling me that almost nobody does it full time. 99% of agents have "real" jobs and are your typical elementary school teacher and other lifer's looking for a way out.

The other thing is you'll work for that $12.5k probably more than it's worth. Client calls at random times, you scheduling walk throughs and going to them all in the middle of your day, paperwork for each offer the client is going to lose. It'll go on and on. If you break it down to hourly wages, it's not that attractive, and that's if you even get a client let alone a winning offer and the client can actually close.

That's a glimpse of what I'm seeing and hearing right now while being in the midst of it. I wouldn't waste your time, honestly. I saw some figure that was like 5% of agents are doing all the deals right now: The old kingpins.

 

[Noisegen]

My primary job is in real estate development. I mostly build new construction single-family homes. About 6 years ago, I figured I would go get a real estate license, not really to sell random houses to people, but to more efficiently buy and sell my own properties.

It was during the super slow 40 hour required in-person license class that I started reading Humblesalesman's case studies on /r/entrepreneur and /r/juststart. I published the first page of my first affiliate website while sitting in that real estate class, bored out of my mind.

Multiple websites and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, I think I made the right move to focus on internet marketing.

You get a 5% or (sometimes) 6% commission on a house sale. That commission gets split between the buyer and the seller, and then the brokerage gets a portion, perhaps 1%. Sometimes you pay for marketing materials and advertising, sometimes the brokerage does.

That $12,500 commission quickly becomes under $10,000 for a sale of a $500k property. And you can clearly see the trend of the real estate commission slowly being eaten away by the likes of Zillow, Redfin, and discount brokers. I never pay over 4% commission at this point.

Really good real estate agents do extremely well, but building up a client list and reputation takes decades.

If you really want to do it, learn the zoning laws in the cities and towns you target. Be a deal maker, one who can say to a client "yes, you can buy this house and add an accessory dwelling unit" or "you have the right to put on an addition up to 20' x 40'" or whatever.

Real estate agents who will walk you through house after house without providing any useful information are a dime a dozen. But agents who can really add value to a transaction are worth their commission.

But I would still say to spend your time building another website rather than becoming an agent.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Ok. I'll pass. Seems sweet but there's a steep learning curve to getting sales, like most sales jobs. Thanks guys!

 

[AhFreshMeat]

I was a “successful” real estate agent for the past 2 years. I still have my license and while i was an agent I had offers for 3.8 mil homes in brooklyn, NY, worked rentals, sold homes, everything.

...I left it all to start a real estate website, similar to easyagentpro (tools for agents) and made what I believe to be a ton of money- more than I made as an agent.

However, thats not what you asked... you want to know if its worth becoming an agent.

The answer is its worth it if you’re someone who is okay with hustling non-stop and okay with making little to no money your first year. Great agents dont sell a home until 6-18 months in their first year.

The statistic that 90% or higher agents quit after their first year is backed by research and I believe to be very true from my personal experience. Also, the day to day is extremely stressfull and you have no boss to force you to work (its easy to get lazy). Being a real estate agent is sort of like starting a website that is aimed for affiliate/display ads:

The first year you wont generate much income (if any at all), but if you spend 10 hours a day working (for free), you’ll eventually build up a pipeline of referralls, and a system to make you a good amount of money

...even then, its very stressful and many of your clients will be ignorant people who don’t understand the market and won’t listen to your advice. Clients bail out of deals at the last moment & many deals fall apart.

You’ll need a high EQ in addition to high IQ, an insane amount of persistence and positivity, and enough money saved up to last you a year or two unemployed (unless you work part time).

I personally believe the real estate agent job is ideal for people who want to LIVE and die being an agent. (Your identity will become John smith, the real estate agent, not john smith).

I’ll stick to building affiliate/display ad websites. Less human interaction, higher ceiling of potential income (unless you’re a commercial real estate agent in NYC those guys can make millions a month.)

Ask yourself if you’re doing it just for the money and not the real estate agent lifestyle. If your an extrovert that thrives off human interaction real estate is a great choice for the entrepreneurial mindset.

Ps. this all my opinion, another agent may disagree