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Posted almost 10 years ago

Should I become a realtor?

Let me start by saying that I did get my real estate license. There are two schools of thought here.

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Method #1 - Spend your time doing what you do best. Part of me says that I am better off spending my time practicing law rather than scanning MLS. Pay the professionals to do what they do best.

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I started this way for my first year. But, here were the problems:

  1. My agent wasn't bringing me any deals. They relied on my looking on realtor.com and telling them what I wanted to see.
  2. I felt bad asking my agent to run comps on different properties on a daily basis, but I couldn't run them myself.
  3. I felt bad asking my agent to show me a bunch of low priced homes until I found the right one.
  4. Sometimes I had to wait 24 hours to get an offer submitted.
  5. I felt bad giving away an entire months rent to have a property listed for rent on MLS.
  6. When I found a hot property, it was sometimes three das before I could view the property and by the time it was gone.
  7. Last and not least, all of this cost me 3%!!!

So, I went to method #2 - Get my real estate license. Now, it looks like this:

  1. I see listings as soon as they come one the market.
  2. I can run the comps immediately to verify that they are a good deal
  3. I can see the property anytime I want,
  4. I can submit an offer before my competition.
  5. I keep the 3%
  6. I keep 1/2 months rent or more when I list properties for rent on the MLS.

Moral of the Story is that I just got my first check for $4,200 today when we closed on our third home! This goes a long way to a down payment on my fourth home!

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Cash is the limiting factor in our investing. So why not save some wherever you can.


Comments (6)

  1. Thanks for creating this post. My husband and I are new to investing and this is one of the first questions we asked ourselves. 


  2. I have contemplated obtaining my RE license for 2 years now and recently came to the conclusion you eluded to above. My RE agent is a close friend and even he said that I should get my license based on my REI business plan. I agree that there is a time and a place for allowing the professionals do their job, but time is money and I don't like wasting either.


  3. Thanks Deidra! You just inspired me to do what I thought was a good idea! Which company did you use for the course?


  4. I am in a similar spot right now too. I am looking to buy through my RE agent but she is so busy that we haven't gone out to look at houses and its been 3 weeks since I first contacted her. I am thinking to get my license as well, as this is taking too long!


  5. I have my license only for facilitating my own investing. It is ridiculously valuable to me for all the reasons you mentioned and more. I fully respect anyones decision to not get one, but the arguments I hear have never sounded the least bit compelling.


    1. Hi Shaun,

      Quick question. I read your comment surrounding yourself getting your real estate license for the purpose of MLS access and being able to do much of the research without a real estate agent. Once you have a license, can you automatically sign up for MLS or do you have to be affiliated with a broker?  I am very new to all this and am just scratching the surface of real estate and investing and am trying to gobble up all the information I can get.

      Thanks!

      Kyle