Starting Real Estate

Sales Lesson: Strange as it seems, but a lot of my customers don’t want choices. They come to me because I’m an expert and it’s my job to help them find what suits their needs. Complicating their lives with a million options when I know the ones best for them, would be wasting their time. A lot of people appreciate a fast, easy, and simple solution.

> my name is janice*. i am currently looking into a
> career in real estate and would like to know the
> current requirements in the state of california to
> be licensed to become a real estate salesperson & or
> broker. thank you for your time

Dear Janice,
Thanks for writing. The first thing you need to do is
take Real Estate Principles (at a JC or through an
online school). After that, if you pass the salesperson
exam you have a conditional license good for 1.5
years. During that time you need to take Real Estate
Practice and one of the allowed electives, and the
license becomes good for four years. Or you can take
the three classes before your test to go straight to
the four year license. I would really recommend taking
the class at a JC with a teacher. Having taken an
online course and an in-person course, I can tell you
in-person is the way to go.

You’ll find these useful
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ (career starts and info)
http://dre.ca.gov/ (has all the forms and requirements)

Hope that helps and best of luck,
B

*name changed to protect privacy

Properties to avoid as investments: manufactured homes, time-shares, and vacant land. Our teacher made clear to us that these are his views and others may have good reasons to disagree.

Manufactured homes are like cars, except they’re not as mobile as their name implies, but like with new cars, the moment they’re bought, at least the new ones, they depreciate in value.

While many people buy you tickets and trips to listen to their pitches on timeshares, take a moment and think about this. If they’re such a good investment, why do these guys have such trouble selling them? If you can’t sell it, is it really worth the investment? Oh, it’s for a vacation time, sure. Wouldn’t you want the ability to book your vacation when you want to, not at a preset date?

Finally vacant lots. These guy’s aren’t so bad, but they don’t bring in income and do bring many costs. This is really a rich man’s game. If a person can afford to hold through it, it may pay off, but generally the banks won’t finance it, so it’s on you, and unless there are some kind of crops there, it won’t even come close to paying off it’s monthly expenses. Furthermore development takes ages to get agreed upon, and all that time, you’re paying for it.

When my boss found out I’m studying Real Estate, he had an interesting take on it. He said it was a good field to study, a good profession, but not for him. He said the best way to go is to buy a property, fix it up, and sell it. This is what we call Russian Real Estate. Like everything, it’s not easy, it takes a while, and there’s risk. Here’s an interesting take on things:

It’s not my kind of problems. Even if it paid millions, I’m not into that. Look here’s the deal, what’s a poor man’s approach to this? He buys the land himself, builds the house himself, wasting years of his life, and spends another year trying to sell it because he’s too cheap to pay an agent. Now, what’s the next level of evolution? You hire people to do the work. You save time and most likely get better quality. It’s still your job to watch over things and make sure everything goes to plan, make sure you get the right materials, and the right people. It’s a headache and that’s why I’m not into it. True some people can make a good chunk of change doing this, maybe millions, but honestly I’m in a bigger game (he’s not exaggerating). Look what’s the next step in the evolution? If you believe that a certain market will grow or see a company that already does this successfuly, why not just invest? There’s plenty of funds and organizations that do this. It takes some research, but if you’re interested in investing, why deal with the headaches. Buy a share of the company instead of carrying all the bricks on your back. The first way you have money to your work to money. The second way you have money to other’s work to money. The final solution is money to money. This is where you want to be.

On this level there are different levels to this level as well. There are Real Estate mutual funds and there are also these things called “stock cooperatives”: where you own a share of the property, taxed under one common bill. Has anyone had experience with these? I’d like to learn more. How did you start? What’s the experience like? Any tips, rants, things to watch out for, and things to love?

(By the way, I’m still determined to learn, because although I don’t have any issue with his logic, I think it’s super important to build an understanding of property, law, and capital, and whatever field you invest in.)