Should I be my own realtor?

[Jacob Real]

When I turn 18 and go off to college should I focus on getting my real estate licences or buying my first propeity?

[Seth Nadreau]

Honestly, I'm the type of guy that believes anyone who's interested in real estate should get a real estate license... but not everyone should practice real estate. Make sense? Let me explain...

The cost to get and maintain a real estate license is rather low. Here in Florida, the total out of pocket cost to get licensed is about $300. That's $90 for the online school, $60 for fingerprints, $100 for the application, $50 for the test and boom... pass it the first time and you have your license.

Maintaining it in Florida also costs about $300 every 2 years. If you sell ONE house, it basically pays for itself until the you die.

There are other costs (dues, MLS, etc.) but these are actually optional. You can be a referral agent without paying any of that. I'll explain in a minute, but first...

About 60% of licensed agents do not renew their license because they try to jump in to the business with no other income, no leads, no real understanding of the market and no mentor. The job, quite simply, isn't as easy as TV makes it look. 

For that reason, I recommend you focus on what you want to do. Get a fallback job or a full time career or whatever it is you'd like to do other than real estate. At that point, you can make money on the side by referring client's to agents. A typical referral fee can run 25-30% of the total commission split... so you can work on doing what you do, and get paid simply for introducing John to Jack. 

At that point, if you still like real estate and don't like what you're doing... and the referral income is keeping your bills paid, chase it full time. 

Of course, if you're wanting to get in to flips or other types of real estate investment, it's not a bad idea to get the license. If you have the time for it, you can save yourself some cash over the years of flipping.