Get A Real Estate License or Not?

[Stephanie Ford]

First and foremost I will disclose that I am a licensed Realtor and Investor.  I have been licensed for 19 years.  For the past 9 years, my focus turned more to investing vs selling traditional real estate.  I have several new investors that contact me asking me if they should get a real estate license in order to invest in real estate.  Their reasoning is that they feel that it will make them a better investor because they will have the inside scoop so to speak.  I beg to differ on this.  I have learned more tricks of the trade from investors who have been in the game than I could ever learn from any real estate classroom.  A real estate license provides you the access to the mls which is not really a big deal as long as you know a great Realtor.  Of course you will be able to perform your own research but most investors do that anyway before they contact the Realtor.  A real estate license subjects you to licensing laws and legal requirements that an investor does not have to abide by.  Honestly as more Realtor/Investors get into the investing side they move farther and farther away from the reason they initially got their license to make a career finding homes for their customers.  Instead they are now focused on finding customers for their homes that they find or they rehab.  Do you see the difference?  The game changes.  Yes if you are licensed you are definitely at an advantage.  However in the end is it really worth it?  Only you can answer that question.  This is one person's opinion.

Stephanie J Ford AKA She-Vestor

[Nathan Grabau]

My Real Estate Agent in Iowa(I live in CO), gave me great advice on this when I talked to him about getting licenses about a year ago. He said that unless I planned on actually using it to help other people it probably did not make sense. Fast forward to BP 583 with Johnny Hoang, earlier this year where Johnny talked about doing 76m in volume helping people house hack, and I started working on my license that day. 

For me, I saw my niche, I could help young people break into investing. I had use house hacking to be able to help buy my 11 long distance doors, and now am underwriting a deal for a local STR(buying a new primary and turning mine into a STR). The story fit, as an agent I could help people do what I did, and make money doing it.

As a Realtor, my main goal is to drive value for my clients, and I would tell someone that if that is not where they are starting from, there are better uses of their time than getting licensed.