CA Real Estate License Guide

Before we begin, I just want to let you know that I understand where you are at right now with regard to a CA real estate license. You want to start earning a part time or full time income, but you don’t know exactly what you have to do in order to get a license. Well, you’ve come to the right place. I have my license now, and I can help you all the way through the process.

Let me take a moment to give you a little background on my own situation.

I had aspirations of being a real estate investor. You don’t have to have a license to invest, but what I found out was that hiring a real estate agent was extremely expensive. In fact, on some deals, the agent fees pushed the deal into the negative, and I couldn’t make any money. So I got interested in getting my real estate license, but there were a lot of steps involved to get. But lucky for you, I have put them all down right here on this website.

Once you have your license, there are several benefits that you are going to receive. First off, the cost savings of being able to write your own contracts and you taking the commission instead of an agent is extremely significant. Think about buying an investment property for just $180,000. If you had to pay a real estate agent, you would be looking at a payout of about $10,800!

Do you think you could do some repairs on the property for that amount of money?

You bet you could!

Another great benefit to becoming a CA real estate agent, is the fact that you will be able to browse the full MLS (multiple listing service) yourself. This will allow you to instantly know when new properties come up for sale, and to be able to do comparative analysis on deals that you are looking do, or properties that you are looking to help others buy or sell.

You’ll be way ahead of others that don’t have their license.

And lastly, one more very nice thing. Kind of like the icing on the cake.

You can write off all your CA real estate license education and state fees from your federal income taxes!

I love that part. I don’t want the government to get any more than is absolutely necessary. Don’t you feel the same way?

I know you are wanting to get your license, so I took the time to write down all of the CA real estate license requirements here. There are definitely several things that you are going to have to do before you can get your license, but just keep in mind the excellent living you’ll be able to make once you get it done. I make several hundred dollars part time just doing some property management, and you can easily do this too.

So first off, let’s look at the general requirements:

1. You have to be 18 years old.
2. You have to be a US citizen.
3. You have to be honest. Criminal convictions can result in denial of license. And failure to disclose any criminal violation or disciplinary action for your entire history could result in a denial of license.

After you meet the general requirements, you’ll need to meet some specific requirements:

You will have to complete a minimum of three college level courses to qualify for a CA real estate salesperson license. These course are:

1. Real Estate Principles
2. Real Estate Practice
3. And you can choose from these:

• Real Estate Appraisal
• Property Management
• Real Estate Finance
• Real Estate Economics
• Legal Aspects of Real Estate
• Real Estate Office Administration
• General Accounting
• Business Law
• Escrows
• Mortgage Loan Brokering and Lending
• Computer Applications in Real Estate
• Common Interest Developments

If you happen to be an attorney, you can provide DRE with proof, like a front and back copy of your CA State Bar Membership Card, and you can be released from the education requirements.

Also, if you have some college already, you can send in your transcript for consideration of the education requirements. If not, then you should check out this pre-qualified CA real estate license school. I definitely would go with online training verses offline training due to the fact that you can go through the coursework at your own pace, you can do it at home (on the couch if you want!), and you don’t even have to dress up for it. You would be joining others that have done the same thing, I myself did my required real estate education online.

When you are looking to get your license, and you are looking for a CA real estate school, you’ll want to take a minute and think about a few things.

First off, you’ll want to determine if you want to take classes online or offline (classroom setting). When I was getting my license, I decided to go the online route. I wanted to be able to do them after work, at home where it is comfortable, and go through them as fast as possible.

But you may not be that type of person. You might thrive in the classroom environment. Going that route is a little more of a hassle, due to having to enroll in local college or trade school, but it can still be done.

After you have decided which form of learning fits you best, you’ll want to be sure that the particular school you want to go to is DRE approved. If you are considering going to school online, then I would check out this qualified California real estate school. There wouldn’t much that is more discouraging then taking all the required courses, and then finding out that DRE won’t accept the credits.

Lastly, and probably most important to you is the cost of the education. Online definitely tends to run cheaper than offline, because they can deliver the content without having to print any material, or hire any teachers, etc. So if you are price sensitive, and can handle learning via the computer, then you’ll probably want to go the online route. If you are OK with spending a little more money, then check with a local college or trade school and enroll with them.

Bottom line, just figure out the direction you want to go, and then get started. The worst enemy of success is never getting started! Don’t let that happen to you.