As a Real Estate Investor should I get my Real Estate Agent License?

All real estate investors seem to consider getting their real estate agent license at some point. There is obviously a lot of benefits of being an agent along with an investor, but you should first determine what area of real estate you want to be most focused on.

There are plenty of benefits of being both and my guess is investors think they can save money by just listing their own properties. Here are three-key questions to ask yourself?

1) How much money do I save for listing my own property? (Its usually pretty minimal if you are paying a buyers agent to help bring the buyer)

2) Am I missing out on any additional opportunities while spending time selling this property?

2) Is there a better Realtor to list my property that has more time to devote to it, knows the area better or is just a better Realtor than I am?

Other benefits of being both an agent and investor are:

- Having access to more Realtors

- Having access to more investors

- More contacts to grow your circle and sphere of influence

- Access to service providers on both sides

- MLS access

- Understanding, learning and having agent and investor skill sets.

I know investors who market on a regular basis to try to buy properties or list properties, and if they can’t help that client, they try to flip it to the other side of the business.

For instance, if you do a direct mail campaign to try to buy a property, and you can’t buy it at the numbers that you want, maybe there is an opportunity for you to list the property for sale. And on the other side as a real estate agent looking to list a property that is having a hard time selling because it needs too much work maybe you decide to buy instead. *** Full Disclosure: I’m not an attorney or a licensed Realtor, so do your own do diligence and talk to your brokerage about that, this is just what I’ve heard from people. I do believe its different state by state and important laws need to be followed.

I personally think that you should concentrate on one or the other. Either be an Investor, or be a Realtor. If you want to overlap services, sure, why not? Like I said earlier, you have access to MLS, you’re in the agent circles and the investor circles, that’s all great. But in my opinion, you should focus your time and energy to mastering one or the other, and create your business based on what you are passionate about, what you feel you have the most traits for, and what you enjoy doing everyday.