The most common question asked during the licensing exam is how many questions there are in total for the test. This article will go into detail about what happens within the testing window, and how many questions you have to pass before being allowed to register as an agent or broker.
There are two separate tests that determine your license level: the Written Examination and the Verbal Questionnaire (or VQ). Each of these has 25 questions, for a total of 50 questions across both exams. These questions are all related to real estate, so they are not random topics.
The Written Examination lasts three hours and covers five content areas: General Principles of Law, Property, Business Transactions, Ethics, and Money Laundering. It is one hour per topic, with around 30 minutes break between each section.
The Verbal Questionnaire is also one hour long and is made up of seven different, randomly assigned, practical cases along with 10-15 minute case studies attached to them. These cases focus on issues such as conflict of interest, business ethics, negotiating skills, etc.
Marketing and advertising your property
As we mentioned earlier, being present in the community is an important part of marketing any real estate agent’s house. If you don’t have anyone to tell about what you have to offer, no one will!
By having active membership groups on social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, your agents will be promoting you for it constantly.
Agents spend lots of time working on their listings, but very little time promoting themselves, so this can get pretty frustrating.
If you are ever feeling overwhelmed or tired of helping them find new followers, there is another way to promote yourself.
You can start creating content to advertise for your business and then share that content using all of the aforementioned social media channels. This will help others recognize who you are and what services you offer while also boosting your own profile.
Making your property attractive
The other major part of the exam is looking at pictures and properties to determine if you know how to assess the condition of a house, what features are important for it to function as intended, and whether or not they are working.
This includes checking outside to see if there are signs that things have been neglected or repaired poorly before (such as bad paint jobs or cracked windows). It also means assessing the interior to make sure nothing looks overly worn out or dirty.
Interior decorations such as paintings, statues, or framed documents should be verified through sources like Google Images or by having someone who knows about such art evaluate them so that you know they aren’t fake.
By using these resources, you can tell if something has been altered or replaced improperly which would affect the value of the piece.
Conducting a showing
As mentioned earlier, you will be conducting at least one show per agent per week, typically more depending on how many agents they have listed as references for them.
It is very important to remember that this not only includes going to their house, but also to their office, where most Realtors work with clients.
Not only should you pay attention to what types of properties they talk about during the conversation, but also if they seem nervous or distracted while talking about these houses. This could indicate something was bothering them, such as if their next door neighbor’s dog had just attacked theirs.
Another thing to look out for are things like if they mention an area frequently, or whether they sound excited about it. An agent who doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic about the market can sometimes feel pressured into making a sale, so try to relax and have fun chatting! They would probably agree.
Marketing your property
As mentioned earlier, being present in the community is an important way to market your home! If you want to keep up with the most savvy real estate agents, take some time to look into what other professionals are doing to promote their properties.
You can create a Facebook business page or profile, put up fliers, hold open houses, do direct mail campaigns — anything that gets exposure for your house!
And don’t forget about online listings like Realtor.com and Zillow – even if it isn’t totally professional, going onto those sites and taking good pictures can help push yours ahead of the competition!
Another tip is to only represent one agent at a time. This helps prevent any hard feelings from people who feel like they were overlooked because another agent represents someone else’s house now.
It also ensures that anyone looking to work with you will have to go through you, not your competitor, so there are more opportunities to close deals.
Understanding the market
As we have seen, there is a total of four questions asked every time you take the exam! This includes one question about the current state of the housing market, one about the types of houses and neighborhoods that are overpriced, one about what factors contribute to an area being overvalued, and one about which areas in your own personal real estate portfolio are undervalued or even close to worth nothing.
The last two questions focus more heavily on how to best position yourself for success in the future by investing in undervaluated properties or buying at or below their estimated value. These are great opportunities if you are just starting out as a real estate investor!
If you’re looking to move up the ladder quickly, however, I wouldn’t recommend going after expensive homes with little equity unless you can afford a large down payment and don’t mind paying top dollar for your house (and potentially losing money). That said, it’s not impossible to earn enough income fast to make it back on investment property!
We discussed before why this isn’t the ideal way to invest for long-term growth, but let me give you some numbers to emphasize this. If you were to spend $200,000 on a home that costs $300,000, you would only net around $80,000 after taxes and fees.
Finding your dream home
While it sounds crazy, you don’t have to live in a big city like San Francisco or Los Angeles to find your dream house. In fact, there are many great areas with low housing costs that offer up enough space for you to feel comfortable.
A lot of people talk about how expensive real estate is, but what they fail to realize is that most homes cost less than we think! And while some houses can be very pricey, just because something is expensive doesn’t mean it’s a bad investment.
There are several ways to determine if a house is the right fit for you and will help you achieve your dreams. For example, buying a house with a large backyard may be more important to you than living close to all the action.
And although price is an important factor when looking to invest in a home, it isn’t the only one. Find a house that makes you happy every time you visit it and that feels like home, and you’ll know it’s the best investment you ever made.
Making a good offer
When you are offering to purchase a home, you need to know what is expected of you. This article will go into more detail about this. There are three main things that determine how much you should be willing to pay for a house-location, price, and condition.
Location is an important factor in buying a house. You have to like the area enough to live there long term and invest in local schools for your children. If you don’t like the surroundings, you can’t expect to feel happy living there.
On the other hand, if you love the location, then you may want to consider paying less than the asking price. Property owners typically accept lower offers because they want to get rid of their property quickly and make a profit.
If you think you could afford a house in this area, then you should give it a try!
Price is clearly one of the biggest factors when buying a house. Unfortunately, no two houses are the same so people usually place a higher value on ones with similar features.
This makes it difficult to compare prices easily. Luckily, though, we have a way to figure out a homes “market value.”
Market value is defined as how much someone would probably pay for a house like mine. Because we already learned how many questions there are on the real estate exam, today we will review some basic concepts related to market values.
Tenant screening
Like most state examinations, the real estate license requires that you are able to answer at least ten questions about tenants, landlords, and business relationships. These questions have nothing to do with your house or your property, they focus more on how you would handle someone else’s home or rental unit as if it were yours.
The ten question test is made up of three sets of issues, each set containing two questions. Each issue contains a topic and a question related to that topic. You will be asked one question per set. The order in which you are given these questions does not matter as long as you are able to give an adequate response.
You will be allowed twenty minutes to prepare for this examination. This time can be used in any way you want, but we recommend doing some research and practicing your answers before going into the exam.
