Real Estate License in Tampa

[Aaron T.]

I am looking at getting my real estate license, but had a couple questions. I have listened to the podcasts, read some other posts, but still was a little unsure how this worked when you are an investor and working full time.

- I was told what was on the test in FL was not exactly how the real world works for doing day-to-day operations. If this is the case, how do you learn as an investor to write contracts, do paperwork, etc..? I assume a agent mentor would be good at this point.

- Once you get your license, how do investors align/find themselves with a investor friendly broker?

I want a license, so i can make offers, have MLS access, run numbers to do comps, etc...

If anyone has info that would help in the Tampa market, I would love to hear about it.  

[Dave Bingham]

@Aaron T. 

Hi Aaron. You can definitely get your license even if you are working full-time and are an investor.

I can tell you what was on the test and handbook 13 years ago. The study material is primarily information dealing with FREC, legal situations, how to read metes and bounds and other forms of property identification systems, and ethics. I imagine much of it is still the same. I'd call up Bob Hogue school of real estate with specific questions.

I learned to write and read contracts from a 2 week class at my brokerage before beginning to work. Though I think you can go to Staples and pick up a Farbar contract with various addenda and read it over. If you have any contacts at a title company I'd ask for a few copies of contracts where names and addresses have been blotted out. That way you can see the dance party of all the initials when something new happens on the agreement along with the dates. Basically see how starts and how it ends up.

To find a good broker that specializes or is at least friendly with investors I'd start with Hud homes for sale. Find out who they have selected in the local market to list it. I'd also go to your bank and community banks and ask who handles their REO's. The same names will probably start popping up. You can also ask local investors on BP who their brokers are.

I found value in being a realtor with my lockbox access. It was nice not having to have my agent arrange with the sellers agent. I could just call up the sellers agent and save a lot of time, days at times. I used to have to carry around a big clunky box but now they have fancy apps. so your phone can open it.

The benefit I liked the most though was the ability to see the days on market for houses in a neighborhood, price adjustments, length of time into the listing agreement the price adjustments occurred and the amount of the price adjustment. This was great for quantifying demand for a specific neighborhood and also gives a reasonable estimate what the sellers mindset is. Are they euphoric because days on market is very low and there is hardly any price adjustments or are they optimistic but willing to capitulate to reality because days on market are long and multiple, sizeable price reductions have occurred repeatedly in the neighborhood? Are the same model of homes hot and others not? The last thing you want is to go into a neighborhood thinking it's hot when really 2 floorplans in there are and you wind up buying the bad one thinking you got a deal based solely on "comps". 

You can run comps with info available at the property appraiser website. Jump in your car, find the target area then go to google maps and write down the street names. Input the street names into the property appraisers website. Make sure you scroll down and check out floor plans to make sure you're comparing apples to apples.