Any NC licensed real estate brokers on here?

[panther4life]

I’m currently enrolled at Superior Real estate school and keep hearing how hard the School test and the NC exam are. Anyone taken the test recently and any advice on ensuring success come test time?

[ladypanther]

Good luck

[yasuhara2241]

I am. Biggest thing when I took the exam  (2012)  was the math part. People who understood and got the math passed.  I'm sure the course is different now but good luck and study!!

[thefuzz]

18 hours ago, panther4life said:

I’m currently enrolled at Superior Real estate school and keep hearing how hard the School test and the NC exam are. Anyone taken the test recently and any advice on ensuring success come test time?

Class test was harder than the state.

It's been a LONG time since I got mine, but I asked how many total questions were on the HUD portion and was told 4.  So 4 points out of 100 for something that took a lot of time.  I chose to breeze over the HUD, and work on it after I was satisfied with the rest of the state portion.

I passed both the class and state my first attempt, but many do not.  I have a couple of acquaintances that have failed the class test 3 times (took the whole class 3 times) before he gave up...smart kid too, just didn't get it.

What is your plan after you have gotten your license?

[panther4life]

4 minutes ago, thefuzz said:

Class test was harder than the state.

It's been a LONG time since I got mine, but I asked how many total questions were on the HUD portion and was told 4.  So 4 points out of 100 for something that took a lot of time.  I chose to breeze over the HUD, and work on it after I was satisfied with the rest of the state portion.

I passed both the class and state my first attempt, but many do not.  I have a couple of acquaintances that have failed the class test 3 times (took the whole class 3 times) before he gave up...smart kid too, just didn't get it.

What is your plan after you have gotten your license?

I plan to make a full time career out of it on the residential side.

Ive heard from many the class test and the state test are very tough. Trying to utilize all of my free time now to study. Taking a 9-5 class Thursday-Friday now. Runs a total of 5 weeks with class test being on September 12th.

Assuming all goes well I hope to land with a good brokerage firm who will provide good support, training and some sort of lead acquisition with a decent split. 

‘There’s a small brokerage here that starts you out at 80% split and moves you to 85% once you complete post license courses. They teach the post license in house. There’s no cap so will always max out at 85%, plus $130/month in desk fees and an initial fee of $350 to join I believe. 

I like them a little more than Keller Williams who I’ve also met with that has a 64% spit and a cap that allows you to earn 100% but haven’t nailed down the cap amount yet.

[panther4life]

@thefuzz, I have enough savings to sustain for a few months and can/will supplement income by driving Uber until I can get the ball rolling and start having some checks coming in. 

Would love to hear and appreciate any advice you have to share.

[thefuzz]

3 minutes ago, panther4life said:

I plan to make a full time career out of it on the residential side.

Ive heard from many the class test and the state test are very tough. Trying to utilize all of my free time now to study. Taking a 9-5 class Thursday-Friday now. Runs a total of 5 weeks with class test being on September 12th.

Assuming all goes well I hope to land with a good brokerage firm who will provide good support, training and some sort of lead acquisition with a decent split. 

‘There’s a small brokerage here that starts you out at 80% split and moves you to 85% once you complete post license courses. They teach the post license in house. There’s no cap so will always max out at 85%, plus $130/month in desk fees and an initial fee of $350 to join I believe. 

I like them a little more than Keller Williams who I’ve also met with that has a 64% spit and a cap that allows you to earn 100% but haven’t nailed down the cap amount yet.

Gotcha.  A few tips.

The first year, and maybe two are going to be tough.  Even in a good market, you may not make very much.

Keep your expenses low.  You don't need a shiny new car to make sales or get listings.

Consider joining a well established team that can provide some leads for you.  Lead generation is one of the hardest parts of the biz.

If you aren't interested in a team, I would advise against going with the smaller brokerage.  Go with a more established brokerage that offers more classes, open houses to help with, more locations for phone/floor duty, etc.....At the end of the day an 85% split means crap if you aren't making any money.  Once established and you have full book of clients, then you can ease over to the place that will allow you to keep more of your money.

You will have your eyes opened when it comes to taxes.  Save at least 40% of everything you bring in...that portion isn't yours.

Ask for help.  Ride along with other realtors, ask if you can tag along at the open house, or listing appointments, you need to learn how to sell yourself, your brokerage, and your clients....RE school doesn't teach any of those things.

Know your inventory.  This one is more important than you can ever imagine.

Learn about construction, get a rolodex of trades that know you and you can trust.  Plumber, electrician, odor removal, landscapers, etc....this will likely take years.

This job isn't easy, don't let anyone tell you it is.

You will find out just how little people know about the real estate industry, but are 100% convinced that they know all about it.  They don't.

Repeat after me.....learn new construction, sell new homes, you will thank me later.  Most realtors are scared to death of new homes because they feel as though they "aren't in control".  Who cares.  They aren't "your buyers"...get that out of your head immediately.

Learn the contracts inside and out.  Know what every word, paragraph, sentence, etc....means on there and be able to explain it to anyone who asks.

 

[thefuzz]

13 minutes ago, panther4life said:

@thefuzz, I have enough savings to sustain for a few months and can/will supplement income by driving Uber until I can get the ball rolling and start having some checks coming in. 

Would love to hear and appreciate any advice you have to share.

See above.  And feel free to ask anything.  I will try my best to help you.

 

[panther4life]

12 minutes ago, thefuzz said:

See above.  And feel free to ask anything.  I will try my best to help you.

 

Thank you, as I learn more, I’ll know more questions to ask but at this point I’m in the very early stages of learning all that I can. 

[hepcat]

I know nothing about being a realtor but I feel like it might not be the greatest profession to get into since everything a realtor does is being replaced by Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, etc, and the market value for the work is going to go down. It feels like it might be going the way of the travel agent but again, what do I know?

I wouldn't hire a realtor if I was selling my house because I live in such a hot market and I could easily sell my house on my own. I can post to these websites and get a cash offer without even having someone look at my house because of where I live. I could probably get some Chinese investor to pay me cash over asking price because they're trying and tank the American housing market but that's a different story.

[thefuzz]

10 minutes ago, hepcat said:

I know nothing about being a realtor but I feel like it might not be the greatest profession to get into since everything a realtor does is being replaced by Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, etc, and the market value for the work is going to go down. It feels like it might be going the way of the travel agent but again, what do I know?

I wouldn't hire a realtor if I was selling my house because I live in such a hot market and I could easily sell my house on my own. I can post to these websites and get a cash offer without even having someone look at my house because of where I live. I could probably get some Chinese investor to pay me cash over asking price because they're trying and tank the American housing market but that's a different story.

I do not agree with much of this, but that's neither here nor there.

Agents won't just go away...it's just now how it will go down.  What's happening is the industry is being asked to do different things, but not go away completely.  Most people just don't have enough knowledge or experience to take a home from you living in it, to you at the closing table....just too many forks in the road along the way.

Sometimes this isn't the case, but for most it is.

Back to the agents disappearing...who is going to weed out the tire kickers before letting them into your home?  Who is going to follow them around to make sure they aren't leaving a window open?  Walking out with the pills from the bathroom cabinet?  Casing your joint to be hit as soon as you are at work the next day?

 

Like I said in an earlier post.  "You will find out just how little people know about the real estate industry, but are 100% convinced that they know all about it.  They don't."

 

Not picking on you hep....just saying it's not as simple as you made it out to be....but things rarely are.

[LinvilleGorge]

Maybe I just had a truly horrific realtor (both on the buyer side and seller side) and maybe it was also a side effect of a really hot real estate market, but I honestly couldn't tell you what a realtor actually does. I only saw the seller's agent when he showed up at closing to collect his check. The mortgage broker and the inspector are the crucial players in my experience. My mortgage officer basically had to rewrite our deal after we were under contract. Luckily, the seller agreed to everything because it was just moving dates around. 

[thefuzz]

12 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Maybe I just had a truly horrific realtor (both on the buyer side and seller side) and maybe it was also a side effect of a really hot real estate market, but I honestly couldn't tell you what a realtor actually does. I only saw the seller's agent when he showed up at closing to collect his check. The mortgage broker and the inspector are the crucial players in my experience. My mortgage officer basically had to rewrite our deal after we were under contract. Luckily, the seller agreed to everything because it was just moving dates around. 

How did you find your buyers agent?

You should really never see, or have any contact with the sellers agent to be honest.

[Zaximus]

Every single person I know that has tried to handle buying or selling without an agent ended up regretting it.    It's just not smart.     There is so much more involved and so much work that people have no idea about.    I mean of course there will be bad ones, that's any profession, but a good buyers agent for instance will know what you can afford, what you want, and should put you in the best situation for long-term when buying something.    It takes time to weed out all that stuff.     There is all kinds of work before you even make an offer, and THEN you get into negotiating and making sure everything goes fine from then on.     You need someone representing YOU because I won't lie, there are some shady people out there doing this.