Should you get your own real estate license?

[Patrick Vos]

Hi All,

I am a general contractor in Minnesota and am looking into getting my real estate license.  What are the thoughts out there taking on both disciplines?  Do you stick to what you know and trust the agents already out there? Or do you use your own talents and pick up the extra fees?  I'm relatively new in this game but all the properties I've invested in have been found my wife on the mls.  Would be interested to see how other people feel about this.

Thanks

Pat

[Keith Linne]

@Patrick Vos I work full-time as a GC in the Twin Cities (based out of Minnetonka) and hold both my Residential Real Estate Broker license and Residential Building Contractor license. If you're even somewhat active in the purchasing/selling space, I highly recommend you obtain your Real Estate license for the following reasons:

- CE credit often overlaps and counts toward both licenses. In the event that it doesn't, a few extra hours each year is worth the direct market access a license provides.

- Knowing your market is key - what better way to learn it than to have real-time access to all current sales, pending transactions, etc? I've also found that some (certainly not all) agents are either overly busy or lazy, and don't provide real time information promptly. This makes it difficult to really get up and running knowledge-wise. It's also easy to feel guilty bugging agents with tons of beginner questions when those requests won't necessarily turn into income on their end (this also pushes your requests to the bottom of the priority list).

- As others have stated, total cost to maintain your license annually is ~$2,000 worst case, depending on your brokerage setup, etc. If you're in need of tips for low cost brokerages, please feel free to message me. In addition to over 30 business-related transactions, I've completed 3 personal residence transactions. My savings from the personal transactions alone have recouped the cost of my license for 10+ years. I also find that I typically help at least one friend/family member with a transaction each year (which will cover the maintenance costs of my license indefinitely, moving forward).

- Yes, there is increased liability; however, if you take earning your license seriously, it doesn't take much to understand what must be disclosed, how to disclose it, etc. I've never found disclosing my licenses when selling a property as a disadvantage. I also don't cut corners when remodeling either for myself or clients, and I document things very well. As such, I'm not concerned about lawsuits, etc.

- You're able to go straight to the source. I'm used to dealing with all clients directly, so there is no way I could deal with a middle-man in negotiations, etc. I did that recently for an out of town purchase, and I strongly prefer to lead my own charge, so to speak. On both sales of my past personal residences, the homes were on the market for 30+ days. After that amount of exposure, my following up and discussions with showing agents lead to multiple offer situations on both homes, netting me more on each sale.

Ultimately, it comes down to how you run your business, your follow-through, etc. Some people prefer to delegate agent duties, but I've found huge advantages to having both licenses. I hope the above information is helpful. Feel free to reach out directly if you'd like to discuss things a bit more. I'm always up for networking!