New member from Houston: How to motivate realtor?

[Vivian D.]

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie here from Houston, TX and would like to say hello as well as thank you to everyone who contributes to BP. Such an awesome place here, I am so glad I stumbled in this site.

I have a question with hope that you can point me out to some direction.

I am a stay at home mom and will continue with this wonderful full time job for at least another 3-4 years if not more. In the meantime, I would like to take advantage of the small savings my husband and I have to get ourselves into REI. We think let us start small, at least for the experience. With the mortgage on the house we are living in (our first home), we can afford something max of 50-60K (down payment + standard mortgage). We guess that small sum will make it hard to get a realtor motivated (even the one who got us the first house). Any ideas how we can make it work in this case?

Getting a license myself can be a way to go - so I can get to see/make offers to as many properties as I wish before we see a good deal. Is there any pros/cons in this?

Thank you all so much for your responds. I really do appreciate them all.