A real estate agent license is an essential piece of business equipment for anyone who dreams of becoming rich by buying and selling houses. While some people are gifted with natural talent, most do not have this advantage. If you do, great! But there are plenty of ways to learn how to be a good real estate agent without having special talents or skills.
With that in mind, it is important to know what types of licenses exist so that you can choose the right one for you. In this article, we will talk about three different routes to get your real estate broker’s licence in the United Kingdom. These include obtaining your sales agents license, residential brokers license, and then either professional licensing as a solicitor or accountant depending on which profession you want to work within.
If you already have a job working in another field but also dream of being a wealthy property investor, you can instead consider getting your conveyancing certificate.
Find a mentor
As with any career, being able to work with others and learn from them is an integral part of success. But instead of going to college for business or marketing, you can find mentorship in real estate by becoming a licensed broker.
This will give you the opportunity to be trained directly by other brokers as well as owners who are willing to share their knowledge and experience.
Mentors usually earn their title through years of helping students succeed, so there’s no need to feel like you have to go through that process yourself before offering guidance to someone else.
Instead, look for people with lots of experiences in the field and see what they’re doing now to get more information. You could even join different real estate organizations to gain insights into how professionals do things.
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Pay a fee
The next step in becoming an agent is paying a license fee. This cost typically ranges from $1,000 to $5,000 depending on your area and state. Some states require you to pay both a agency licensing fee as well as individual licensee fees.
The individual licenses are for each of your agents that will be representing you. These can range anywhere from $250 to $2,500 per person depending on how many people they have working under them.
Become a member of the Real Estate Institute of the UK
As mentioned earlier, before you can become licensed as an agent, you will need to be members of the right organization. In the United Kingdom, that organization is The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). RICS has two main branches: General Property Agency and Residential Sales And Letting. To be officially certified as a property seller or buyer, you must belong to both!
General Property Agency does not require you to sell a minimum amount of homes per year, but rather, it focuses more on educating you about marketing, selling strategies and the basics of real estate. You are allowed to work as an agent without having this certification though it is highly recommended. It helps to have at least one of these certifications in place before trying to start your career as a professional real estate agent.
The other branch of RICS is residential sales and letting which requires you to agree to only represent one type of home sale: either a house, apartment or flat. This is helpful for people who want to focus on just one area of the market, and also, if they ever wanted to take time off from being an agent, they would still have a source of income.
Obtain and keep your insurance coverage
It is very important that before you get your license, you have adequate liability insurance and personal protection policy (PPP) cover. A lot of people are under the impression that being licensed means they do not need these policies anymore as they already have them.
This is unfortunately not the case!
You can still be liable for accidents caused due to negligence or poor safety practices. Even though there’s no longer an official title, it is definitely professional conduct to ensure that both your PPI and comprehensive liability insurance covers this.
Furthermore, even if you aren’t working at the moment, things like house fires could easily put you back into work so it makes sense to be prepared ahead of time.
Do not conduct a sale without a broker
As mentioned earlier, before you can even consider getting your license as a real estate agent, you will need to be licensed as a broker. This is only given to professional real estate agents so this step should definitely put some pressure on!
Before that happens, there are several other steps that must taken first. One of these is to gain experience by working under a broker or being hired as an agent. This is very important because it gives you the chance to learn how to do business from someone who knows the field well.
By having this, you will know what things are needed and what things work for others. These people also have contracts that work for them so you get good advice on that as well.
Getting a Broker’s Licence in the UK
There are two ways to obtain a brokers licence in the United Kingdom, either through The Royal Association of Commercial Property Directors (RACP)or via individual state regulatory bodies such as The Law Society. Both offer similar levels of licensing which take around 6 months to achieve.
Know the laws in your country
It is very important that you know what legalities exist in your country for real estate agents. Some countries do not allow individuals to sell their own property, only brokers or licensed agents can.
In some nations, there are limited numbers of licenses available so it is worth looking into early to ensure yours isn’t one of those!
Making sure you’re legally allowed to work as an agent is another way to prevent getting into trouble with the law if something does happen. There could be repercussions even beyond breaking the rules set out by your nation’s government.
There are also different levels of licensing depending on how experienced you are as an agent and whether you will be representing just yourself or someone else too.
Plan your business carefully
As mentioned before, being able to work in real estate comes with many licenses so make sure you are aware of what each one is! Not only do these licenses help you break into the field as an agent, but they also give you more power when it comes time to take action (for example, negotiating on a seller’s behalf or taking control of the sale).
As such, it is very important to be clear on what level you want to climb the ladder at the outset by knowing which license you need to start working as an agent. It’s great to dream about becoming a broker, but if you don’t have the appropriate licensing then you won’t get there!
And while brokers typically earn much higher salaries than agents, not all agents earn enough money to survive without additional sources of income.
Know your market
As mentioned before, being licensed in real estate comes down to knowing your market and having the skills to effectively promote it. If you are not familiar with the area you want to work in, then investing in some resources and educating yourself is needed.
You can take courses through universities or private institutes, visit meeting places such as restaurants and review sites for good feedback, read business books related to the field, and talk to people around you that do business in the sector. By doing these things, you’ll be able to get an idea of what areas need help and who may have recommendations for someone looking to become a broker.
In addition to this, talking to other brokers will give you insights into how they got here and any tips and tricks they know. The more information you have, the better!
Real estate agents spend a lot of time promoting their services so pick up some marketing techniques and apply them to gain knowledge about the profession.
