In 1986, I became a licensed real estate agent not long after I started my real estate investing career. Before I earned my license I had to rely on a Realtor™ to get me into properties, wait for them to get me comparables and pay them a commission. The reason I had to rely on a Realtor™ was because they had access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). The MLS, in any given area in our country, is the single largest source of real estate for sale and in most areas only Realtors™ have access to it. After I purchased several homes at the beginning of my investing career, I decided I did not want to wait for or rely on a Realtor™ to buy and sell my own properties.
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As a real estate investor, becoming a Realtor™ will give you many advantages. In fact, there are no disadvantages that I know of. Investors tend to be adamant one way or the other about being a licensed Realtor™. I am definitely on the side of becoming licensed. Being licensed has been one of the best tools that I have.
Real estate commissions are a costly, but usually necessary part of buying and selling investment real estate. The average commission is 6% of the selling price of the property, split between the selling agent and the listing agent. The commission is, typically, paid by the seller. If you buy a real estate investment and then resell it a couple of years later, using a Realtor™ on both sides of the transaction, there is a total of 12% in commissions being paid on that property. If you get your license you can easily cut that number in half and add 6% to your profits. In other words, if you get your license, when you buy the property YOU will receive the 3% that goes to the selling agent and when you sell the property YOU will receive the 3% that goes to the listing agent (of course your broker will take a percentage of that). How much is that 6%? The median home price in our country right now is about $215,000. Six percent of that is $12,900!