Being Your Own Real Estate Agent, Legal/Tax Implications

[Nicholas DeLouisa Jr]

Hello all,

My wife and I (and a potential partner) are starting the process of creating our business.  Along the way we are coming up against some questions that are not easily answered using Google.  In fact, I have searched on this site and cannot find information pertaining to the exact scenario we have in mind.  So we would like to ask a couple of questions, hoping someone might be able to clear up a few things for us.

We see that it is beneficial to become a licensed real estate agent.  In NY, all that is required to become licensed is the course and the exam.  Now, to my understanding of the law, if you intend to represent in a real estate deal someone other than yourself AND you intend to collect a fee, you must have a broker's license or be working under someone who does.

The implication (that admittedly I may be reading into the law, but doesn't actually exist) is that you can represent real estate that you own without a broker's license, so long as you have a salesperson's license, and you adhere to certain rules, such as public notification that you are acting as your own agent.

Do we have this correct so far?  Because our next question is based on understanding the above.

So, we are planning to rehab and flip (in the beginning; we also want to do some buy and hold in the future), and in the course of learning how to do this, we came across the idea of incorporating to protect our personal assets (such as they are) and to shelter some of our money.  It seems like the way to go for flippers is the S-Corp.  And here we have our second question.  If we decide to become an S-Corp, and our understanding of the law we mentioned above is correct, can we still represent our company's real estate deals with a salesperson's license (without the broker's license)?  If the S-Corp will, or does, own the property, can the owner of the business represent the business in its own real estate dealings?

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated!  Thanks!

-Nick and Jackie