American School of Realtors is the oldest in the world. It exists for more than 100 years old – from the time when the original American sellers of immovable property joined and wrote the codex.
How to Become a Real Estate Agent?
Becoming a real estate agent is not so easy. To allow the candidate to be a property manager, the U.S. Department of Real Estate will verify the past life of the candidate. One such check costs around $ 100 and lasts 30 days. If one time he had chosen to break the law, they will refuse him. If he has lied in the profile – also. The Department doesn’t like liars and prisoners. A realtor may be a person with a high school graduate who has reached 18 years of age, from the lawless family, without supplies and identity behind the back. The candidate must live legally in the USA, have a reference number and hand over fingerprints. In some states, a license is issued only to US citizens.
Training and License
The activities of American real estate agents have to be licensed. The agent cannot work without the certification – this is fraught with fines and charges of fraud. Such a system helps to increase the security of components and accessories from incompatibility and inefficiency. In order to obtain a license, the agent must go through training for realtors, pass a state exam and go through a fully equipped immovable. Usually, it takes 1.5-2 months. The price of a course depends on the staff and form of training. As a rule, the cost is in range of 400-500 dollars for the main and 200-300 for the online format. The terms of study depend on the state and in range of 45 academic hours in California to 180 – in Texas. Licensing of a particular state is valid only on the territory of this state. If the agent has decided to move from New York to Minnesota and wants to continue to work as real estate – he must retake the exam and to get a new license.
On courses they learn the basics of working with real estate: legal framework, how to sell, draw up a contract of sale, evaluate a property, how to work with clients, also they study to understand the device at home and find problems before the co-owner reports about their incidents. Some courses can teach future agents how to promote themselves through the Internet, but this is an optional item of the learning program.
Each student of training receives a thick textbook, which must be known by heart to the exam of state. In this book, there is a lot of interesting and necessary information for the exam, but futile for work. For example, in a student’s book, there are questions of organizing a broker business or classification of mortgage loans.
After finishing the course, the future realtor will pass two exams: certification of the school and the state exam. If he had failed a school exam, he did not allow to pass a state one. If he had failed a state exam, he did not receive a license. In order to pass the exam of the state, it is necessary to accumulate a minimum of 92 points out of 120 possible. The exam is worth the money. Almost all candidates pass exams and receive a real estate agent license and after that, they can proudly add certification to resume. Licensing procedures – just a necessary minimum. The agent who has gone through the training is still not ready for the real job – real estate agents get real knowledge only from experience. The license has to be renewed in 2 years.
Real Estate Agent Salary
Real estate agents are working for a commission – a percentage of the sale of a house. An average American home costs $ 120,000. The commission is 4-6%, the owner pays it.
The commission is divided by half between the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent. If realtors sold the house for $ 120,000 and took 6% of the bargain, the commission would be $ 7,200. Every agent will earn $ 3600. The broker will take a commission of this money: from a beginner, they will keep 50%, from an experienced agent – 10-20%.
Beginning realtors can not earn much: the broker takes half of the income, they suffer from the lack of clients and experience. A rare newcomer lives only on the money from the sale of houses – usually, they barely cover the costs. Most agents combine real estate activities with the main work.