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Hey everybody! It’s Austin Solomon and welcome to The Real, Wausau Real Estate Show. Today we’re talking about if you’re thinking about become an agent, what are the steps to make that happen.
Thinking about becoming an agent? This episode is for you! If the thought has crossed your mind or you’re considering it, today’s episode is for you.
Today we’re going to talk about some common questions that you’d probably think about when you’re starting out, the specific process to obtain your license and the day-to-day life of being an agent.
Alright, so you’re thinking about becoming an agent, where do you start? Do you get your license first? What if you get your license first and then realize you don’t like the day-to-day? So, should you try it first or should you get your license? Where should you begin?
Let me talk a bit about the day-to-day to see if this will help you decide if it’s a good fit. One of the myths and one of the things that comes up is people form opinions on Realtors based on what they know. It could be TV or what they see, when actually, you don’t see what Realtors do on a day-to-day basis. You only know what you know.
Let’s talk about the day-to-day what actually happens. When you start out as an agent, the hardest thing to do is find people to help. You might know a few people that are thinking about moving or over the past few years, you may be able to recall a number of your friends who have moved and you might think, Oh, I could just help the people that I know buy or sell. A lot of times, those people might know other people and when you’re starting out people don’t just hire you because they know you. Obviously they want someone who is good and knows what they’re doing.
When you start it’s really difficult to get your feet going, so you have to do a lot of sales activities and prospecting, reaching out and trying to find more people you can help. You can’t just rely on those that you know. And you also spend a lot of time learning… You have to understand the contracts, home values, how the process works, so that’s a few things… you spend a lot of time learning early on just trying to figure everything out.
As far as generating business goes you might do open houses, you might have to make a lot of phone calls, you might do networking and you might need to chase business when you start because nothing is really handed to you.
If you start out on your own, there is no one that hands you leads on a platter, like, “Hey, here’s five people to help sell their house, or hey, here’s five people to buy a house”. You really have to generate your own inquiries and people to help.
For a full-time agent, or a more seasoned agent I should say, like for me, the day consists of following up with buyers and sellers, preparing market analyses for homes, sending homes to buyers, showing houses and the majority of the time spent in transaction management and serving the people that are in the process of buying a house and we have an accepted contract on their house, a lot of time is spent working with those people. As you get more seasoned, you spend less time finding people to help and more time actually helping people.
The summary is, when you start you have to reach out and get out there. You have to spend a lot of time trying to generate business because it’s not easy. So is it a good fit for you? That is what you have to decide. You have to understand it’s not like on the TV shows. For some people I recommend jumping in and getting started. Maybe start as a part-time agent as a place to start. The other thing you could do is sit down with an agent, sit down with me and see if it’s a good fit or something that makes sense for you.
If the answer is yes and you want to pursue this. The first step is obtaining the license. So if you go to, or at least this pertains to Wisconsin, if you got to WRA.org, hit the education tab, then go to licensing requirements to which you’ll see the requirements to obtain your license. These are a 72-hour course, you have to pass a state exam, and you’ll also submit an application to the DSPS. So, there you go! You can see what your requirements are and then go ahead and hit the education button. You’ll see online courses and exams, and you can scroll over to sales-pre-licensed.
Then if you click that, you’ll see there are two options for obtaining your license, they are both online. One is $325 that is fully online and the book is digital. The other is the $325 plus the cost of the physical book that gets shipped to you.
It’s a 72-hour course, I did just the fully online one, no books, but either is just fine. It’s 72-hours of video. If you do read the text and spend time reviewing the notes and studying, it’s going to take a bit longer than that.
I would say it’s about equivalent to a 6-hour college course, I mean a 6-credit college course, not 6-hour ha ha. It’s broken down into sections and it’s easy to follow. Once complete, you’ll go ahead and take a state test to make sure you understand the material and that you can do the job and you’re required to get 80% correct. I believe that’s what it was, 80%. It’s multiple choice, it takes a few hours to take the test.
If you understand the material, you’re comprehending it, it’s not that tricky as long as you understand and are grasping what is going on.
One other thing too about obtaining that license and doing that education. The education is centered around you being able to conduct… fill out the contracts and understand the relationships in real estate. If you’re super good at the course, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be good at real estate.
The course is just to make sure you can do the basic things to conduct your job and follow the rules.
Ok. Step #2 is once you pass that exam, you’ll get a print out that you passed your exam and at that point you can find a broker. You need a broker to operate. You can’t just operate on your own. You’ll need a broker to, what we call, “hang your license with”. That’s where you’d find, who do I want to work with, which company?
So you might talk with a few companies to see what’s the best fit. Maybe you talk to me. Well I’m not a broker but maybe you talk with me and our team and our office broker to see if that’s a good fit and then you get started.
So, that’s the process!
First is, “Hey, is the day-to-day something that’d I’d really enjoy and want to jump into?” If so, I’m going to dive in and get my license, take the test and then from there you can find a broker.
Some common questions that I get asked are – how much does it cost to start?
It’s about $500 for the licensing course as well as the test and application fee. So, it’s about $500 to get your license and then about $800 to enroll in the local multiple listing service (MLS) and then there’s probably another $250 of miscellaneous fees. So it’s about $1,500 – $2,000 to get started as an agent.
There’s obviously other things that go into it too in starting your business but the basics to get started is that $1,500 to $2,000.
Another question I get asked a lot is how much does the average Realtor make? It really varies. I’d say somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 is an average amount someone makes as an agent. As a first year agent, that number is often much less. It might be $10,000 to $15,000 that you make in your first year.
A lot of people ask, “Well how much do you make when you sell a house or when you help a buyer buy a home?”
Again, it really varies depending on the price point and other stuff but generally between $2,000 – $4,000 would be just an average. So those are some common questions.
Hopefully that helps! I get asked this a lot. “Hey Austin I’m thinking about becoming an agent, where do I start?”
Hopefully this podcast breaks it down about some things you can think about, here’s actually what the day-to-day looks like, and the specifics on what obtaining your license looks like on WRA for the Central Wisconsin area. Hopefully that helps!
Again, thanks for tuning in this week’s episode! If you do have questions about becoming an agent, feel free to reach out! If there’s any questions or things you want addressed on the show, I’d love to hear feedback or if there are any valuable topics or questions you’d like to know, I’d love to hear it.
Thanks again!
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Austin Solomon | The Solomon Group – Coldwell Banker Action – (715) 212-4693