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How to Get a California Real Estate License (Step-by-Step Guide)
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Clients can't hire an agent they can't find. Before anyone calls or texts you, they search your name, read your reviews, and compare you against other agents in town, all on sites you don't own.
This guide walks you through every real estate agent directory worth claiming in 2026, plus a checklist that gets you listed in one afternoon. A real estate agent directory is a site where buyers and sellers look up agents by name or area, like Zillow or Realtor.com. These profiles are Layer 3, "presence," in the USRT Agent Brand Stack. Lock in your name, headshot, and brand basics first, then copy them onto every directory below.
Nine profiles cover where buyers and sellers look for agents in 2026: Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, Trulia, Homes.com, Google Business Profile, Yelp, your brokerage page, and your local MLS or association roster.
Three notes on the big portals. Trulia belongs to Zillow, so your Zillow profile feeds it, and you only need to confirm the details carried over. Redfin staffs its own agents, so outside agents appear through its referral partner program. Homes.com, backed by CoStar, has pushed hard into agent profiles, so claim yours before your competitors do.
What about Facebook? A business page still earns reviews and referrals in local groups, so keep yours accurate. Treat it as a bonus, not a core directory.
Reviews carry every profile on this list. A blank profile reads like a dark storefront, so make asking clients for testimonials part of your closing routine, while the win is fresh.
You claim your agent profiles by opening a free account on each site, verifying your license, and filling every field from one master info sheet. Here's the order that works:
Directory profiles help you rank for name searches and local map results, though not for the reason the old playbook claimed. The 2019 version of this article told agents that directory backlinks raise your domain authority. That advice aged badly. Most directory links carry a nofollow tag, which tells Google to pass little or no ranking credit.
Here's what the profiles do instead. Each one acts as a citation, a public record of your name, address, and phone number. Google cross-checks those details across the web. When they match everywhere, word for word and digit for digit, Google gains confidence in your listing and shows it more often in local results. That matching act has a name: NAP consistency, short for name, address, and phone.
Two more wins. First, reviews. Ratings on Google, Zillow, and Yelp shape both your local visibility and whether a searcher picks you over the agent listed next to you. Second, AI answers. When someone asks an AI assistant for agents in their town, it draws on the same public profiles and reviews it can read. Complete, consistent profiles make you easy to cite.
One warning before you build. You rent every one of these pages. The portal decides what ads run beside your reviews and which competing agents appear one click away. Treat directories as signs that point home, and make home a website you own.
Yellow Pages still operates as YP.com, but buyers and sellers no longer shortlist agents there. The original version of this post recommended Yelp, Google My Business, Facebook, and Yellow Pages. That list aged. Google renamed Google My Business to Google Business Profile in 2021, and Yellow Pages settled into a general local directory better suited to plumbers than agents. Yelp still earns its spot, Facebook remains a useful extra, and the real estate portals took over the rest.
Claim the nine profiles, copy the same details onto each one, and ask every client for a review while the closing glow lasts. Do that and you show up when someone searches your name, searches your city, or asks an AI which agent to call.
Profiles get you found. Skill gets you hired. When you want training that turns those profiles into closed deals and five-star reviews, Explore US Realty Training's career courses.
Selling a home is a formidable process for homeowners. To them, there’s too many unknowns. There’s things they don’t know that they don’t know. What they do know is they want to sell or buy a house. Either they want to sell the home they built memories in or purchase a home to build heartfelt memories in. This house is irreplaceable to them. It means the world to them.
So, imagine hiring a real estate agent to help you on your home-memory-building journey. Finding the right agent is not just important to finding the best house, but important to helping you feel confident in your purchase. This means the first impression is make or break. The first time you meet your new real estate agent, you see someone dressed down, difficult to talk to, and doesn’t know too much about the industry let alone their career. Not only that, but they seem kinda sketchy. How would you feel trusting this agent with the future of your home?
For some, this is a reality. Bad real estate agents hurt everyone. They don’t just have sloppy presentation, but they waste the time of their clients, service partners, and other real estate agents by being a bad real estate agent. Agents should always strive to embody professionalism in their business. Doing so instills trust and security in the client’s eyes.
That’s why you should always avoid the bad habits of unprofessional real estate agents. There’s plenty of signs that make a real estate agent a bad one, and the most jarring are also the most common. that’s good news for you, the reader, because they’re easy to spot so you can avoid them in the future.
Before you read on, why don’t you send this to the real estate agent who’s just starting out? It’ll help them more than you know.
So much of a real estate agent’s career is built on productive communication. It’s the cornerstone of your success when you’re representing a client, collaborating with services, and working as a member of your brokerage. Communication skills will make people gravitate to you, both in your personal and professional life. That’s why having them in your career will help you become a successful real estate agent.
When you communicate clearly and thoroughly, you will create a sense of trust with your client. This small characteristic has monumental benefits on your career. One of them being the confidence you earn from working with your client. When they feel like the experience with you is productive and valuable, they will feel inclined to recommend you to their network. This includes family members and friends.
Learning how to communicate gives your client peace of mind that they can trust you as a real estate agent. Unfortunately for you lazy communicators, the way you communicate can send your client into a spiral of worry. They will distrust you and feel like this home selling process was a major oversight. This can be easily remedied by practicing great communication skills with your client.
Lazy communication can exist everywhere. You can spot it in interpersonal interactions, responding to your client’s inquiries in a timely manner (such as a lingering email or a frantic phone call), or even representing the client in the transaction process. Being accessible to talk through your client’s concerns is one way you can be a proactive communicator.
The “secret agent” lifestyle is glorified by films as thrilling and adventurous, filled with high-tech gadgets, and intercontinental love stories. In real estate, “secret agent” is a colloquial term used to describe an agent who doesn’t market their services.
Their presence in the industry goes unseen and unheard which denotes the title of “secret agent.” They are literally a secret because they don’t produce any noise in the public. Therefore, people, agents, and service providers, won’t know if an agent is active or not.
This is a sign of an unprofessional real estate agent. Marketing your services is vital to the success of your career. If you can’t promote your services as a real estate agent, you’re not truly embodying the presence of the agent. You appear uncommitted to your profession. Moreover, you will not generate any leads or land a single client, because “secret agents” can’t be found.
To avoid becoming an industry mystery, you should always promote your services and presence as a real estate agent. You could always market your services online. But, taking a digital approach to marketing isn’t the only way to spread word about your services. You can use testimonials and word-of-mouth to help build your network and develop buzz about your new career. There’s no need to keep your professionalism and wonderful services a secret.
As a homeowner or a prospective homebuyer, nothing will ruin your enthusiasm like seeing your real estate agent step through the door wearing sweatpants, a sweater, and a head full of disheveled hair. Turns out you have a difficult time earning trust when you look like you just got out of bed. We all love sleeping, but waking up helps you stay alert and help your client. That’s why it’s important to stay conscious about your appearance as a real estate agent.
First impressions are a major part to building trust and credibility with your client. You can create client reassurance by dressing for the job with a business professional wardrobe. Don’t forget to use a comb to take out the knots, tangles, and disheveled look in your hair.
Dressing for the job shows the client you’re making them a commitment even during the first impression. This is the best visual way to avoid looking like a sloppy, unprofessional real estate agent.
You don’t have to be a professional real estate agent. Really – nobody is telling you how to function at work. The unfortunate part of being an unprofessional real estate agent is that you will be at higher risk of repercussions.
Working with a bad real estate agent is challenging for others because they can be unreliable. Agents who are unreliable build bad communication habits and are aloof when conducting business. In real estate, having someone who is engaged and interested in conducting business will turn any challenging project into a delight.
People won’t have any desire to do business with those who make work difficult with their lack of professionalism. That’s why conducting yourself in a professional manner and doing everything you can to ensure a standard quality of work is imperative to your success.
Building a successful career will be a difficult if you’re balancing a lawsuit. Which will happen to some real estate agents who have a poor quality of work. If a client thinks you’re not meeting their needs, they could hire a lawyer to help pursue charges against your services. However, becoming a professional who practices a high quality of work will help avoid lawsuits altogether.
Some common reasons why agents will get sued are:
The very least, this could result in getting reported to the Department of Real Estate (DRE).
Become a real estate agent requires hard work and dedication to the to the job. There’s a commitment you must make to your client if you want to perform well in your career. Some people have large expectations for themselves when they become agents. This backfires when they lack professional development. The good news, becoming a professional can be done by anyone. If you’ve noticed you have unprofessional habits, it’s okay. All you have to do is be honest with your professionalism, and choose to make a change in yourself.
Okay – we want to hear your horror stories. What’s been a time you dealt with an unprofessional real estate agent?
You don't need a real estate license to invest in real estate. But plenty of serious investors get one anyway, and the math is the reason why.
This guide lays out the honest case for and against. You'll see the real advantages a license gives an investor, what it actually costs to keep one active, whether to get licensed before you start buying, and how to decide if it's worth it for you.
No. You don't need a real estate license to invest in real estate. You can buy, sell, rent, and flip property without one.
A real estate license is the state-issued credential that lets someone legally represent buyers and sellers for pay. Investing is a different activity. You're acting for your own account, not for a client, so the law doesn't require you to be licensed. That means the real question isn't whether you need a license. It's whether the perks of having one beat the cost and effort of keeping it active.
Real estate investors should get a license if they buy or sell often enough that the saved commissions, direct data access, and industry knowledge outweigh the fees and upkeep of staying active.
For an investor doing a deal or two a year, that case is easy to make. For someone who buys one rental a decade, it usually isn't. The rest of this guide walks through each benefit and each cost so you can run the numbers for your own situation.
A license gives investors three things that are hard to get any other way: a shot at the commission on their own deals, direct MLS access, and a working knowledge of the business.
You can earn or save the commission on your own deals. When you buy or sell, the agents involved earn a commission, and that commission is always negotiable. There's no standard or legally set rate, and the National Association of Realtors' 2024 settlement changed how buyer-agent pay is offered and disclosed, so those fees are negotiated more openly now. A licensed investor can act as the agent on their own purchase or sale, which means the commission that would have gone to an outside agent can land in their pocket or lower their cost to buy. Investors transact more often than the average homeowner, so that saved money adds up fast. For the current rules, see how real estate commissions work now, and for the details on acting as your own agent, read can real estate agents represent themselves.
You get direct access to the MLS. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is the network of regional databases that agents use to list and find properties for sale. It's the most complete, most current source of listing data in the country, and a license is your way in. Investors use it to pull live listings, check comparable sales, and read a neighborhood's pricing pulse before anyone else does. Public sites pull from the MLS, but they lag behind it. If you want the source, you can learn more in our explainer on what the MLS is in real estate.
You learn the business and build a network. Getting licensed forces you to learn contracts, financing, disclosures, and the transaction process step by step. You also meet the brokers, agents, and lenders who send deals and solve problems. That knowledge and that network reduce the costly mistakes new investors tend to make.
Keeping a license active costs both money and time, and an inactive license gives you none of the perks above. To stay active, you hang your license with a brokerage, pay ongoing fees, and complete continuing education on a set cycle.
Budget for the pre-licensing course and state exam up front, then recurring costs once you're licensed: brokerage fees or commission splits, association and MLS dues, errors and omissions (E&O) insurance, and continuing education (CE) to renew. An active license is one you keep current with a brokerage so you can legally represent and access the MLS, while an inactive license sits on the shelf and does neither. For a full breakdown of the upfront and ongoing numbers, see our guide to the costs to become a real estate agent. The honest takeaway: if you won't stay active and use the license, the dues quietly eat the commissions you were trying to save.
Getting licensed before you invest is a smart move if you want to learn the business and build a capital cushion first. A few years as an agent teaches you the market and lets you bank part of every commission toward your first property.
You walk into your first investment already knowing how deals close, what good financing looks like, and which neighborhoods are moving. House flippers in particular gain an edge here, which we break down in should house flippers get a real estate license. The license becomes both a learning ground and a funding source for the portfolio you're about to build.
A real estate license is worth it for investors who transact often and will keep it active, and it's overkill for someone who buys a single property every few years. The dividing line is how much you'll actually use it.
If you'll close deals regularly, represent yourself, and tap the MLS every week, the commissions you keep and the data you gain will clear the cost of staying licensed with room to spare. If you'll let it go inactive, skip it. Be honest with yourself about the upkeep before you enroll, because the license only pays off when you put it to work.
A license can only help an investor who uses it, and it quietly drains one who doesn't. Add up how often you'll buy or sell, weigh the commissions and MLS access against the dues and the time, and decide based on your own plan, not the hype. If the numbers point to yes, your next step is getting licensed in your state.
If you've run the math and a license makes sense for your investing, start where every agent starts. Our state-by-state pre-license course takes you from zero to exam-ready online, at your own pace, so you can earn the credential, represent yourself, and get full MLS access. Start your pre-license course. Pick your state and begin today.
Careers in real estate don’t always follow a traditional path, from different salaries to working hours, and having no fixed office. This doesn’t mean your resume should suffer though, and you should always keep it in great shape and frequently updated. Here are some suggestions for having an effective real estate agent resume.
Real estate brokers already know why you want a job, but it’s your job to convince them why they should hire you. By having a professional profile and avoiding a career objective, you’ll show them that it’s worth reading through your entire resume. A professional profile will have in the first line the most critical information: that you are licensed and experienced.
By putting this from the very start, you’re setting yourself apart and above beginners exploring the market, and you’ve also indicated the types of sales you have experience in. This means that you should also only be applying for sales positions that fit your interest and experience. After this line, add some information about what your strengths are, your skills, and notable achievements and awards.
Your resume should be using active verbs to show strength and determination and self-confidence. Using a passive voice will not draw in potential employers and they will overlook your resume for more self-assured options. Use verbs like advise, conduct, evaluate, close, negotiate, sell, generate, and more. These denote action and shows that you are a go-getter in the industry.
A real estate agent is at their core a salesperson, and what they’re good at is making deals. As a real estate agent, the expectation is that you will close deals and earn your company some money, and the best way you can showcase that on your resume is by providing actual numbers. This includes using quantitative information like “closed on average 20 transactions every year”, and it means you’re giving your potential employer an idea of your abilities.
You can also use numbers to show more than completed transactions but also how you maximize earnings for the firm. According to George MacLennan, a recruiter at Academized and Ox Essays, “this can include raw data showing by what percentage you increased average selling prices from the initial appraisal, for example. Quantitative data should also include all of the training, leadership and mentorship you were a part of, such as the frequency of training sessions you organized, or how many seminars your firm entrusted you to lead to train new agents.”
Even though you mentioned that you are licensed at the beginning of your professional profile, the additional skills section should indicate where you’re licensed and when you received it. You should also include here all notable clubs or organizations that you are a member of. This is also the place to indicate any relevant skills that you have, like computer applications for research, or marketing certifications. A lot of your time is spent communicating, marketing, and researching with your buyers and sellers, so these are critical things to indicate.
Additionally, you should have many skills and traits listed that real estate employers will look for, such as the ability to negotiate, interpersonal communication, math skills, knowledge of real estate laws, marketing techniques, customer service experience, flexibility, trustworthiness, resourcefulness, and good networking skills. You should also show that you’re actively involved in the real estate community so you can demonstrate your dedication to the industry.
Your resume should be brief, kept to one page if possible. You only need to list the last two or three positions as anything older is not relevant. Use bullet points to make the information more readable and concise. If you need some help with the drafting, consult these online tools:
It may be evident, but it’s worth mentioning that your name and contact information should be very visible so they remember your name. Time and again, resumes will have this information only in small font at the top, but you should choose a large, attractive font for this information at the top of the resume. Use a different color for your name, something subtle that will draw the eye to it, and prospective employers will be sure to remember it.
By following these tips, you’re sure to make your resume stand out from others in the real estate industry.
Most agents don't quit content because it fails. They quit because they never built a system around it.
This guide gives you a real estate content marketing system you can run in three to five hours a week. Pick three or four content pillars, film one short video, and repurpose it into clips, a blog post, an email, and social posts. That's the whole machine. Here's how to build each piece.
Real estate content marketing is the practice of publishing helpful content, like videos, posts, and emails, that answers client questions so people know and trust you before they call. Ads rent attention. Content earns it and keeps working months after you hit publish.
Look at how clients choose an agent now. They watch your videos, read your posts, and check your proof before they reply to anything. Your content runs the first meeting without you in the room. That's why content marketing builds the presence and proof layers of the USRT Agent Brand Stack.
One honest note before you start. Content compounds, but it compounds slowly. Plan on six to 12 months of steady publishing before leads feel predictable, and treat anything faster as a bonus.
Want the brand groundwork first? Watch our video How to Create a Real Estate Agent Brand Without Any Experience before you film anything.
Short-form video is the highest-return content type for agents in 2026, backed by a blog, an email list, and steady social posts. Video builds trust fastest because clients see your face and hear how you explain things. Every other format in your system can be cut from it.
The data supports putting social video first. According to NAR's 2025 Technology Survey, social media is Realtors' top lead-generating technology at 39%.
Here's how the main formats stack up for a solo agent:
Don't read that table as five separate jobs. It's one video feeding four channels. The blog version works Google and AI search, the clips work social, and your real estate email marketing sends the same lesson to the people closest to hiring you.
Pick three or four content pillars by matching the questions your niche clients ask most with topics you can talk about for years. Pillars kill the blank-screen problem. Every piece you make falls under one of them.
Here's the process:
Those buckets become your table of contents for the next year of content.
You turn one video into a week of content by filming one client question, then cutting the answer into clips, a post, an email, and captions. Repurposing is the engine of this system. You create once and distribute all week.
The workflow:
One hour of filming becomes six or seven pieces of content. That's how a solo agent keeps pace with teams that have a media budget.
A realistic weekly cadence for a working agent is one filmed video, two or three clips, one email, and a few social posts. On the calendar, it looks like this:
Batch when work gets heavy. Film two or three videos in one sitting and the system runs through escrows and vacations. If distribution is the new habit, start with these real estate social media marketing tips and add platforms once the routine holds.
Expect the first 90 days to feel thankless. Views come before comments, and comments come before calls. The agents who win are the ones still publishing in month eight.
Start with one pillar, one video, and one platform. Film an answer to the question you heard most this month, post it, and cut one clip from it. Repeat next week. The system grows one habit at a time, not all at once.
You learned contracts and disclosures through structured training, and marketing is no different. Explore US Realty Training's career courses to build the skills that turn content into closings.
Getting your broker license is how you stop working for a brokerage and start running one. It means more independence, a higher earning ceiling, and the option to build a business with agents working under you.
The catch is that becoming a real estate broker takes more than one more exam. Every state sets its own rules, but the path looks the same everywhere. Here's how to do it, wherever you're licensed.
This guide covers what a broker is, the four steps to get licensed, how long it takes, what it costs, what brokers earn, and how to pass the broker exam. Requirements vary by state, so I'll flag where to confirm the details for yours.
A real estate broker is a licensed agent who has earned the advanced credential needed to work on their own and oversee other agents. A real estate broker is a licensed professional who has met higher education and experience requirements, which lets them work independently, own a brokerage, and supervise the agents who work under them.
That last part is the key difference. An agent always hangs their license with a broker. A broker answers to the state and to their clients, and they take on legal responsibility for the deals their agents close. If you want the full breakdown, here's the difference between an agent, a REALTOR, and a broker.
To become a real estate broker, you need experience as a licensed agent, additional broker-level coursework, a passing score on your state's broker exam, and an approved application with your state real estate commission. The four steps below hold true in every state. The specifics behind each one are what vary.
Because the experience, coursework, and fee rules differ from state to state, confirm the current requirements with your state real estate commission before you start.
Most agents earn a broker license in three to six months once they meet the experience requirement, depending on how fast they finish the coursework and how quickly their state processes the application.
The experience requirement is the long pole. If your state asks for two years as an agent and you're in year one, that's your real timeline. Once you qualify, you can often move through the coursework and exam in a few months. To speed things up, finish your broker courses at your own pace online and have your application documents ready to file the day you pass.
A broker license usually costs a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars in total. The biggest line item is broker coursework, followed by the exam fee, the license application fee, and a fingerprint or background-check fee.
Exact amounts vary widely by state, and your course provider sets its own tuition. Build your budget around four buckets: coursework, exam, application, and fingerprinting. Your state real estate commission publishes its current fee schedule, so check there for the fixed costs before you enroll.
Becoming a broker is worth it if you want a higher earning ceiling, the freedom to run your own brokerage, and more control over your career. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for real estate brokers was $72,280 in 2024, the latest data available, and the top 10% earned more than $166,730. By comparison, the median for sales agents was $56,320. For a fuller look at the money, here's how real estate income and commissions work.
The upside is real, and so is the trade-off. As a broker you take on more responsibility: legal liability for your agents' transactions, the work of running a business, and the upfront time and money to qualify. It's a strong move for agents with an entrepreneurial streak and a few years of deals behind them. It's a harder fit if you'd rather sell homes than manage people and paperwork.
Real estate brokers guide clients through buying, selling, and transferring property, and they supervise the agents who work under them. Day to day, a broker's job goes well beyond showings.
Brokers typically handle:
That supervisory role is why the license matters. The state holds the broker accountable for the brokerage's transactions, which is also why the bar to earn the license is higher.
The broker exam is harder than the salesperson exam. It's longer, asks more questions, and digs into advanced material like brokerage operations, trust-account handling, and contract law. The pass rate is lower than the agent exam in most states, so it rewards real preparation.
The good news is that it's beatable with a plan. Give yourself steady study time over a few weeks instead of cramming, drill practice questions until the formats feel routine, and focus hardest on the math and the law. Here are proven strategies for passing the real estate exam that apply at the broker level too.
Becoming a real estate broker is the clearest way to raise your ceiling in this business. You trade more responsibility for more independence, more income potential, and the option to build something of your own. The path is consistent everywhere: get your experience, finish the coursework, pass the exam, and file your application.
Your next step is to confirm your state's experience requirement, then start your broker coursework so you're ready to file the day you qualify.
Ready to level up? US Realty Training offers state-approved broker license courses built to move you from licensed agent to broker. Explore broker license courses and start on your own timeline.
When looking for real estate, most buyers tend to first look online rather than anywhere else. This means that the better your listing looks, the more chances you have for them to get interested. One of the most important parts of your real estate listing is the description, which is actually not that difficult to write!
Here are eight steps that will help you make your real estate listing creative and appealing.
Your number one priority must always be accuracy. You should remember to describe everything accurately and include only the details that are true for your real estate. If you don't, you might look like a liar and that would only show you in a bad light to your potential buyers.
Don't set unrealistic expectations for the buyer. If your home has many flaws, try to focus on its benefits sides. In fact, you should try to turn your home's flaws into positives. But, of course, don't lie about anything as it won't work well for you in the end.
While writing your listing, it is important to choose the right words for your sentences. For instance, too many adjectives will distract your readers from important information. Once again, don't use words that don't reflect reality. Keep in mind that some words and phrases mean other things (e.g. "cozy" is associated with "small space").
To help you in writing your real estate listing, here are some tools and services:
WOWgrade: This is another online writing service that will write your listing for you.
Another important linguistic feature is a number of words that can be dangerous for your real estate listing. You mustn't use words and phrases that signal as red flags.
At the same time, some words may affect your final selling price. For example, "TLC and "cosmetic" are both words that will make your real estate lose value.
This is quite simple, isn't it? Instead of using dangerous words, use the ones that add value and are the opposite of red flags. Some words such as "luxurious" and "landscaped" can help your listing.
In addition to the previous tools and service to help you, here are a few others: Google Docs (an online equivalent of Microsoft Office Word that is great for teams), Studicus (an online writing service that can write your listing), Thesaurus (an online thesaurus to aid you in writing), and Best Essay Education (another online writing service).
In order to stand out of the crowd, you have to show that your home is different from others. Mention features that give your home a voice. Ask yourself whether your home has special characteristics that others don't. Maybe it's a fireplace that could be used in winters. Maybe there is a balcony that could be used in summers. These are just some examples, but special characteristics can be anything as small as a royal-size bed and as big as a medieval-themed design of your home.
It's funny how bad sellers are with punctuation when it comes to writing a proper real estate listing for their home. Just look at most of the listings and you will notice a tendency: a lot of them have chaotic punctuation marks.
First of all, use proper punctuation. Second of all, don't put an exclamation mark at the end of each sentence! If you emphasize every single piece of information, none of it will be important anymore.
This may come as a surprise to some sellers, but including the basic information about your real estate is pointless. That is if it appears elsewhere in your listing.
Usually, real estate websites provide you with a form to fill out. This form has blanks for different details and a separate one for the main body text. The details you enter in these blanks don't need to be repeated in the main body text. Rather than writing about the basic information, focus on the juicy details.
Last but not least, don't forget to include high-quality photos. Your listing can be beautifully written and you may be the best writer in the world, but nothing can beat good pictures. After all, an image speaks a thousand words.
Try to take photos of the highest quality you can. If you don't have a good camera, borrow one from a friend or hire a professional photographer. A good idea would be to take pictures from different angles in order to show the size of the apartment properly. If you only make pictures from one side, it may give the wrong impression to potential buyers.
Ideally, you would want to take photos in daylight so that everything is properly lit, but if you notice that your images got the wrong colors, you can edit them with the help of one of these programs:
All in all, writing a creative real estate listing is not that difficult once you follow several basic rules. Carefully review this article before sitting down to write your listing and then you will be all set to start.
Your social followers live on rented land. The algorithm decides who sees your posts, and it changes without warning. Your email list is different: you own it, and it moves with you from brokerage to brokerage.
This guide gives you a real estate email marketing plan you can run in about an hour a month. You'll build a list from people who already know you, send a newsletter they open, set up a drip campaign for new leads, and follow the email rules the FTC enforces.
Real estate email marketing is the practice of sending scheduled, permission-based emails to your leads, sphere, and past clients so you stay top of mind until they're ready to buy, sell, or refer.
Social media still matters for getting discovered. According to NAR's 2025 Technology Survey, social media is Realtors' top lead-generating technology at 39%. But social finds people, and email keeps them. A platform can throttle your reach tomorrow. Your list goes where you go.
Email is also the most durable layer of the USRT Agent Brand Stack. Every send puts your name, your face, and your market knowledge in front of people who already said yes to hearing from you.
You build a real estate email list by asking people who already know you for permission to show up in their inbox. Start close to home:
Never buy a list. Cold, purchased addresses damage your sender reputation and fill your reports with people who will never work with you.
A strong real estate newsletter uses a three-part formula: one local market stat, one useful answer, and one listing or client win. That fits in 200 to 300 words.
One local market stat. Median sold price in your farm area, days on market, or the count of new listings this month. Readers can get national headlines anywhere. They keep you for the ZIP-code view.
One useful answer. Take a question a client asked you this week and answer it in three sentences. If you need more real estate newsletter ideas, your sent folder and your content marketing library are full of them.
One listing or win. A new listing, a closed deal, or a client story shared with permission. This is proof you're active, not a brag sheet.
Subject lines decide whether any of it gets read. Write them like a neighbor, not a brand: six words or fewer, one local detail, no all caps. "Culver City sold prices, June edition" beats "Your monthly real estate update!"
Most agents need both a newsletter and a drip campaign because they do different jobs. The newsletter keeps your whole list warm for years. A real estate drip campaign warms up each new lead during the first few weeks after signup.
A basic drip looks like this: a welcome email the same day someone signs up, a few emails that answer the questions buyers or sellers ask most, and a final email that invites a phone call. Write the series once, save it, and let your platform send it. Good email templates for real estate agents get reused for years, so one afternoon of writing pays off every month.
When the series ends, the lead joins your newsletter and stays warm from there.
CAN-SPAM requires honest sender information, a truthful subject line, your valid physical mailing address in every email, and an unsubscribe option you honor fast. The FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide spells out the rules and puts the penalty at up to $53,088 per violating email.
Three habits keep you clean:
The law covers any commercial email, including a one-off note promoting your services. Set up the footer once and you're covered on every send.
These are the four questions new agents ask most once they start emailing.
Email marketing for realtors comes down to one habit: show up in the inbox on schedule with something worth reading. Build the list from people who know you, send the three-part newsletter every two weeks or monthly, let a short drip work each new lead, and keep the footer legal. Most agents stop after two sends, so the agent who keeps showing up wins the inbox by default.
A steady follow-up system fills your pipeline, and sharper skills close what it fills. Explore US Realty Training's career courses to build the sales side of your business.
Buyers and sellers vet you online before they ever call you. Your real estate agent branding decides what they find, and whether they remember you a week later.
This guide gives you the whole system: what a brand is, the four layers that build one, and a 90-day plan to launch yours. Each section links to a deeper guide, so you can go as far as you need on any piece.
Real estate agent branding is the consistent identity that makes clients remember, trust, and choose you: your niche, your look, your voice, and your reputation working together. A personal brand is the impression people have of you before and after they meet you. It's not a logo. The logo is one visible piece of a system.
Branding pays off because the first contact is now digital. According to NAR's 2025 Technology Survey, 39% of Realtors name social media their best source of quality leads, more than any other technology, and those leads all saw a profile before they sent a message. A consistent brand is what turns that first glance into a saved contact.
The USRT Agent Brand Stack builds your brand in four layers, in order: foundation, identity, presence, and proof. Skipping a layer is why most agent brands feel random. Work them top to bottom.
Your foundation is one sentence: who you help, where, and how they should feel about it. Write your mission ("I help first-time buyers in Cleveland stop renting"), name your values, and pick a niche you'd enjoy owning for years. Our guide on how to pick your niche in real estate walks through the decision.
Then picture one or two ideal clients and write to them. A nervous first-time buyer and a downsizing empty-nester need different content, and a brand that speaks to everyone sticks with no one. Your voice follows from your reader: upbeat and casual, or calm and reassuring. Pick one and keep it everywhere.
Your visual identity is five decisions: name, logo, fonts, colors, and headshot. Make them once, write them down, and reuse them on everything you print and post.
Use your own name unless a team name serves your niche better, and add a tagline that states your promise plainly. For the mark itself, our guide to real estate logo ideas covers 15 starting points by style, and the 5 best real estate fonts guide pairs typefaces and brand colors to each style. Test every choice with the USRT Sign Test: readable at business-card size, from 30 feet, and on a phone screen.
Round out the layer with a current professional headshot and business cards that carry the same fonts and colors. Guides on headshots, bios, taglines, and business cards are coming to this series. (Editor: link each as it publishes — see section 6.)
Presence means a complete, matching profile everywhere a client might search your name. Claim and finish your profiles on Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, Trulia, and Homes.com, plus your Google Business Profile, your brokerage page, and the MLS. Same headshot, same name format, same brand everywhere. Our guide to online directories for real estate agents covers the full claim list.
Your website is the one profile you own outright. Keep it simple: about page, services, listings or home search, testimonials, and a contact form. The interview on building your initial real estate website shows what to prioritize first.
Social media is where presence compounds. Pick one platform, post consistently, and lead with short-form video. The full playbook is in our real estate social media marketing tips.
Proof is the layer that closes: reviews, testimonials, and referrals doing your selling for you. After every closing, ask for a review with a direct link, get permission to share it, and repurpose it across your website and social. Tools like RateMyAgent and RealSatisfied automate the asking.
Client stories beat self-promotion on every platform, so treat each closing like content: the keys photo, the one-line review, the moving-day clip. Our guide on using your real estate client testimonials shows how to collect and deploy them. Referrals get the personal touch: a handwritten thank-you beats an automated email every time.
Launch your brand with the USRT 90-Day Brand Launch: foundation in month one, identity and presence in month two, content and proof in month three.
Days 1–30: foundation
Days 31–60: identity and presence
Days 61–90: content and proof
New agents can run the whole plan before their first listing. Every step works without a single sale on the board.
Established agents refresh a brand by auditing it against the same four layers instead of starting over. The five-point audit:
Fix what fails, in layer order. A refresh usually takes a weekend, not a quarter.
Work the four layers in order, run the 90-day plan, and let consistency do the compounding. The agents who feel "everywhere" in their market aren't posting more than you. They decided once and repeated it.
A brand gets you the conversation. Winning the client takes consultation skills, listing presentations, and follow-up systems, and that's what our career courses teach, taught by top-producing agents. Explore US Realty Training's career courses and build the business your brand promises.
The commission is the heart of how almost every real estate agent gets paid — and after the 2024 National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) settlement, the rules around who pays it have changed. Whether you're selling a home and want to know what you'll owe, or you're considering a real estate career and want to understand the income, this guide breaks down current commission rates, who pays them now, how the money is split, and what agents actually take home.
Quick answer: In 2026, the average total real estate commission in the U.S. is about 5.7% of the home's sale price — roughly 2.9% to the listing agent and 2.8% to the buyer's agent. In California it averages closer to 5.47%. There is no legal or "standard" rate: every commission is negotiable.
A real estate commission is a percentage of a home's final sale price that's paid to the agents involved when the deal closes. It isn't an hourly wage or a salary — agents earn nothing on a deal until it successfully closes. The total commission is typically split first between the listing (seller's) side and the buyer's side, and then split again between each agent and their brokerage.
According to Clever Real Estate's February 2026 survey of agents, the national average total commission is 5.70% — about 2.88% to the listing agent and 2.82% to the buyer's agent. On the U.S. median home price of roughly $370,320, that works out to about $21,108 in total commission.
Rates vary by state, largely because home prices do. In higher-priced markets like California, the percentage tends to run a little lower — around 5.47% on average — because a smaller slice of a larger price still adds up to a healthy commission.
Remember: these are averages, not rules. Commission rates are 100% negotiable, and there has never been a legally mandated "standard" rate. For the bigger earnings picture, see our guide to real estate agent salary.
Because commission is a percentage of the sale price, the dollar amount climbs quickly as home values rise. Here's what a 5.70% total commission looks like at several price points — the total, each side's share, and one agent's take-home after a common 70/30 brokerage split (before taxes and business expenses).
So how much does a realtor make on a $500,000 sale? At a 5.70% total commission, the deal generates $28,500. One side — say the buyer's agent — earns $14,250, and after a 70/30 split with their broker that agent's gross is about $9,975, before taxes, fees, and business expenses come out.
For decades, sellers typically paid the entire commission, and the listing broker shared part of it with the buyer's agent through the MLS. The NAR antitrust settlement changed that. Here's where things stand.
These changes resolved antitrust lawsuits that began with a 2023 jury verdict against NAR; as part of the settlement, NAR agreed to pay $418 million to affected home sellers.
Bottom line for sellers: plan on potentially paying the full ~5.7% and price accordingly, but know that every dollar is negotiable.
A single commission can be divided up to four ways: first between the two brokerages (listing and buyer's side), then between each agent and their own broker.
Brokerages take a share of each agent's commission to cover marketing, training, office space, and support. Common structures include:
Where you hang your license has a big effect on take-home pay. See how to choose a brokerage and our look at 100% commission brokerages.
On a $500,000 sale at 5.70%, the buyer's side earns $14,250. If that buyer's agent is on a 70/30 split, they keep $9,975 and the brokerage keeps $4,275 — before taxes and expenses.
Yes. A higher split is negotiated much like a raise: experience, production, and competing offers from other brokerages are the leverage. High producers often move to 85/15, 90/10, or capped/100% arrangements over time.
Commission rates can look large until you account for splits, fees, taxes, and expenses. A few realities from industry data:
The takeaway: commission income is uncapped and can be excellent, but it's earned, not guaranteed — and your brokerage split and deal volume matter as much as the headline rate.
In California — and in 41 states overall — an agent may rebate or share part of their commission with a buyer or seller who is a principal in the deal, often as an incentive to win or keep the client. Commission rebates are prohibited in nine states: Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Tennessee. In California, if a buyer receives a rebate from a seller-paid commission, it must be disclosed to the seller.
When one agent represents both the buyer and the seller, it's called dual agency. It's legal in most states with written disclosure, but banned in several — including Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Oklahoma, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming — which require a separate buyer's agent. Because the two parties' interests can conflict, dual agency is handled carefully even where it's allowed.
California's high home values mean even an average-percentage commission produces large dollar figures. With a statewide median sale price around $830,370 (California Association of REALTORS®, early 2026) and an average commission near 5.47%, a typical single-family sale generates roughly $45,400 in total commission before any splits. For agents, that's the upside of a high-price market: the same effort yields a larger check. If you're working toward it, here's how to get your California real estate license and what to expect on the California real estate exam.
Commission is why real estate income has no ceiling — your earnings track your sales, not a salary band. It also means your first priorities are closing deals and choosing the right brokerage split. If you're weighing the career, start with our honest look at the pros and cons of being a real estate agent, then prepare to pass with a California exam crash course.
What is the standard real estate commission rate?There is no legally standard rate — commission is fully negotiable. In 2026, the national average total commission is about 5.7% of the sale price (around 5.47% in California), typically split between the listing and buyer's agents.
Who pays the buyer's agent after the 2024 NAR settlement?Buyers are contractually responsible for their own agent under a written buyer-broker agreement, but sellers can still agree to pay the buyer's agent through a "concession" negotiated outside the MLS. Who pays is now decided on every deal.
How much does a realtor make on a $500,000 sale?At a 5.7% total commission, the sale generates $28,500. One agent's side is about $14,250, and after a typical 70/30 brokerage split that agent's gross is roughly $9,975 — before taxes and expenses.
What's a typical commission split for a new agent?Many new agents start somewhere between 50/50 and 70/30 with their brokerage, with the agent's share improving as they gain experience and production. Capped and 100% commission models are also common.
Are commission rates set by law?No. Setting a fixed "standard" rate would violate antitrust law. Every commission is negotiable between the client and their agent.
Can I negotiate a lower commission as a seller?Yes — rates are negotiable, especially for higher-priced homes, repeat clients, or hot markets. Just weigh the services and marketing you'd be giving up.
A real estate commission is simply a negotiated percentage of the sale price, paid at closing and split among the brokerages and agents involved. The headline number — around 5.7% nationally, 5.47% in California — is just a starting point: rates are negotiable, who pays the buyer's agent is now decided deal by deal, and what an agent keeps depends on their split. Understand those three levers and you understand how the business really pays.
Thinking about a real estate career? US Realty Training takes you from licensing to your first commission check. Explore California pre-licensing and exam prep.
Thinking about a career in real estate? Before you list a single home, you have to finish real estate school. Here's what it costs, how long it takes, and how to pick a program that won't waste your time or money.
This guide covers the whole picture: what real estate school is, what you'll pay, how long it runs, whether you can do it online, and how to spot a program your state approves. By the end, you'll know exactly what your first step looks like.
Real estate school is the state-approved coursework you must complete before you can take your state's real estate license exam.
Real estate school is a pre-license education program that teaches the principles, laws, and ethics a new agent needs to pass the state exam and practice legally. The coursework covers real estate principles, property law, contracts, finance, and ethics. Most schools offer the material in person or online, so you can match it to your schedule.
It isn't a trade school in the traditional sense. Trade schools teach hands-on skills like plumbing or electrical work. Real estate school focuses on legal knowledge, market basics, and exam readiness. Once you finish, you're eligible to sit for the exam, and passing it is how you officially get into real estate.
Most real estate school pre-license courses cost between $100 and $500, with online programs often landing at the lower end.
Your price depends on three things: your state, whether you choose online or in-person classes, and what's bundled in. Online courses tend to run $100 to $250 because there's no classroom overhead. Packages that include study materials and exam prep cost more upfront but save you from buying those pieces separately later.
In California, pre-license packages generally fall in that same $100 to $500 range. US Realty Training's online courses bundle exam prep into the package and offer video add-ons of our trainers teaching in a live classroom, so you learn from a real person instead of a slide deck.
Real estate school usually takes 2 to 6 months, depending on how many course hours your state requires and how fast you study.
Required hours are set by each state's real estate commission, and they vary widely. Some states require around 40 hours. Texas requires 180. Most fall somewhere in between.
According to the California Department of Real Estate, California requires 135 hours of pre-license coursework, made up of three 45-hour college-level courses: Real Estate Principles, Real Estate Practice, and one approved elective. California also caps how fast you can move, so the quickest realistic finish is roughly 54 days even if you study full time. If you want the step-by-step version, here's how to get a real estate license in California.
Real estate school is manageable for most people. The material is new, not advanced, and a steady study routine matters more than any background in the field.
You'll cover law, contracts, a little math, and ethics, plus a lot of new vocabulary. None of it requires a special degree. The people who struggle are usually the ones who try to cram. The people who pass treat it like a part-time class and study a little most days. For a fuller look at the workload, see how hard it is to become a real estate agent.
Yes, you can take real estate school online in most states, and online courses cover the same state-approved material as in-person classes.
Online programs let you study at your own pace, which is why they're popular with people working a full-time job while they switch careers. US Realty Training offers online courses, live webinar classes, and in-person options, so you can pick the format that fits how you learn.
Most states require a high school diploma or GED to get a real estate license, but a few, including California, only require that you be 18 or older.
If you're early in your education, the requirement is worth checking before you enroll. We break down the education side in more detail in our guide on whether you need a college degree for real estate. Per the California Department of Real Estate, the state asks only that salesperson applicants be at least 18, be honest and truthful, and finish the required courses.
A real estate school is legitimate if it's approved by your state's real estate commission or licensing authority, which publishes the list of approved schools on its official website.
Start there. You can also look for an endorsement from the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO), a national body that vets education providers. If you're unsure, call the school and ask directly. US Realty Training is ARELLO-endorsed and approved as a real estate school across the states it serves.
After real estate school, you take your state's licensing exam, and passing it lets the state issue your real estate license.
The exam usually has a national portion and a state-specific portion. Good prep is what separates a one-and-done test day from repeat attempts, so don't skip it. Our guide to passing the real estate exam on your first try walks through exactly how to study. Once you pass and the state issues your license, you hang it with a broker and start working with clients.
Real estate school is the first real step toward a license, and it's a smaller hurdle than most people expect. Pick a state-approved program, give the coursework a few focused weeks, and you'll be ready to sit for the exam.
Ready to start? US Realty Training's state-approved pre-license courses bundle the coursework and exam prep into one package, online and at your own pace. Find your state's pre-license course and enroll today.
Real estate lead generating websites are powerful resources for attracting more potential clients to your services.
It all comes down to leads. Success in real estate hinges on how many leads you can get and convert into sales.
Many people ask, “What’s the best way to get leads?” There are various ways to generate leads—networking, tapping into your sphere of influence, and buying them.
One effective method to buy leads is through lead generating websites.
In this article, we will discuss some of the top real estate lead generating websites and how they work. Let’s dive into Real Geeks, Ylopo, Zillow Premier Agent, SmartZip, and Market Leader to explore how each platform can support your real estate business.
Real Geeks is a popular lead generation platform for real estate agents.
Real Geeks uses an all-in-one system that includes lead generation, website management, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools. The platform helps agents create IDX websites, run targeted Facebook and Google Ads, and capture leads through customized landing pages. Real Geeks also provides tools for lead nurturing, making it easier to convert prospects into clients.
Real Geeks’ pricing starts at around $299 per month, and this includes tools for lead generation and follow-up. With its comprehensive features, it is an excellent choice for agents who want an all-in-one lead generation solution.
Ylopo is a digital marketing and lead generation platform specifically designed for real estate agents.
Ylopo leverages digital marketing tools, such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and retargeting, to attract buyer and seller leads. The platform also features dynamic remarketing campaigns that help you stay top-of-mind with potential clients. Ylopo integrates with multiple CRMs, providing an efficient way to nurture leads over time.
Ylopo also includes “Ylopo Stars”—a lead nurturing system that uses AI to monitor and evaluate lead behavior. This helps agents determine the best time to reach out and follow up with prospects. Ylopo's pricing varies depending on the package you choose.
Zillow Premier Agent is one of the most well-known lead generation options for real estate agents.
Zillow Premier Agent allows agents to buy leads and boost their visibility on Zillow's platform. Agents become "Premier Agents," and their contact information appears next to listings. This helps agents attract leads from buyers and sellers who are actively searching for properties on Zillow.
The cost of Zillow Premier Agent varies depending on the zip code and the number of impressions you purchase. Pricing can range anywhere from $0.02 to $0.30 per impression, depending on the market.
SmartZip is a lead generation platform that uses predictive analytics to target likely sellers.
SmartZip focuses on predictive marketing and seller targeting. The platform analyzes data to determine which homeowners are most likely to sell soon, allowing agents to target those leads with marketing campaigns. It also offers a variety of direct marketing tools, such as automated email campaigns, to help agents reach potential sellers effectively.
By targeting likely sellers, SmartZip helps agents find high-quality leads and focus their marketing efforts on the right audience. The pricing for SmartZip is tailored based on the level of services selected and the specific market area.
Market Leader offers an integrated system for generating leads and managing client relationships.
Market Leader provides agents with buyer and seller leads, along with a customizable IDX website and a powerful CRM to manage leads effectively. The platform allows agents to purchase exclusive leads in specific geographic areas, ensuring there is less competition for those leads.
The CRM offered by Market Leader helps agents track lead activity, automate follow-up, and organize contact information. The cost of using Market Leader varies depending on the lead volume and market area.
Real estate lead generating websites can be used at any stage of an agent’s career.
Starting early with lead generation websites helps real estate agents build momentum over time. New agents should take advantage of these platforms to establish their presence and grow their client base. By combining lead generating websites with other prospecting strategies, agents can lay the foundation for a successful career.
Spending time generating leads is the best way to grow your business. It’s also one of the hardest things to do. Lead generating websites are valuable tools that make this process easier, providing agents with passive opportunities to attract clients and increase conversion rates.
Lead generation is the lifeline of any real estate agent’s career. By using as many lead generating websites and tools as possible, agents can make their business more efficient and productive.
While traditional methods like door knocking and cold calling are effective, they can only yield so many leads. Lead generating websites help passively attract clients and provide the additional support needed to build a successful career.
What is a Virtual Home Tour, and how is it different from an in-person property tour? A Virtual Home Tour is an online experience that can be accessed from a computer, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.
Prospective buyers can view all the features of a property without needing to set up an appointment—they can do it whenever, wherever, and with whomever they want.
In this article, we'll explore how Virtual Home Tours can benefit real estate agents, the best platforms to use, and the reasons why this technology is a must-have in today's market.
Virtual Home Tours can save real estate agents a significant amount of time and effort.
Imagine you are an agent trying to show 10 potential properties to a client. Instead of filling up your car with gas, picking up the client, driving all over town, dealing with parking, and visiting each of the 10 properties, you could send your client the links to the Virtual Home Tours first.
This allows clients to easily view all the properties and narrow down their options to the top 2 or 3 they are truly interested in seeing in person. Virtual Home Tours can reduce the number of wasted viewings by up to 40%, saving agents a massive amount of time and energy.
If you are the listing agent, there are many tools available to help you create a Virtual Home Tour for your property. From professional services to easy-to-use apps, here are some of the top Virtual Home Tour platforms to consider.
Matterport is one of the most well-known Virtual Home Tour companies for real estate agents. Using 3D photography, Matterport creates a digital version of the property that allows viewers to "walk" through each room.
The resulting immersive experience can be published on popular home search sites and your agent-branded website. Agents can either use a 360 camera to create the Virtual Tour themselves or hire Matterport to handle everything. Pricing can range from $0 to $300+, depending on the features needed.
RealtyTours offers real estate agents a professional solution for creating Virtual Home Tours. This platform provides high-quality visuals, easy sharing options, and the ability to brand the tours. RealtyTours makes it simple to create engaging content that attracts potential buyers.
Invision Studio is a virtual tour platform that offers advanced photography and video services. It provides agents with stunning 360° virtual tours, which can be highly effective in attracting buyers. Invision Studio's services are ideal for those looking to create high-quality, immersive experiences that stand out.
LA360VR specializes in creating Virtual Home Tours for luxury listings and high-end properties. With professional 360° videos and virtual reality capabilities, LA360VR helps showcase properties in an immersive way that attracts affluent buyers looking for their dream homes.
Virtuance is known for its high-quality photography and Virtual Home Tours that help listings stand out. The platform combines stunning images with easy-to-navigate virtual tours, providing an engaging way for buyers to view properties online. Virtuance offers agents a way to create polished and professional virtual content without the need for specialized equipment.
Vizit.co is another platform that offers Virtual Home Tour solutions, allowing agents to create visually appealing 3D tours. This platform also integrates with other marketing tools, making it easy to share and promote your listings across various channels.
Real5D allows real estate agents to create interactive virtual tours that are both engaging and easy to navigate. With Real5D, prospective buyers can explore properties in detail, making it a great tool for providing an immersive experience and helping clients visualize their future homes.
Virtual Home Tours are here to stay, and there are three important reasons why they are a must-have tool for real estate agents.
More people are using the internet to search for homes than ever before. Having a strong online presence is essential to ensure that potential buyers can find you.
Google reported a 253% increase in real estate-related searches between 2013 and 2017, and in 2019, 32% of buyers found their home online.
By posting Virtual Home Tours online, you provide an easy way for potential buyers to engage with your listings.
Listings with Virtual Home Tours receive 40% more views than those without. The simple addition of a Virtual Tour can make your listing stand out among the many available properties, increasing exposure and interest from prospective buyers.
Potential clients are more likely to engage with an agent who appears tech-savvy and uses the latest technology. Using Virtual Home Tours helps position you as an agent who is current and knowledgeable, gaining the confidence of buyers and potentially leading to more clients.
With the trend of online home searches on the rise, Virtual Home Tours are here to stay. They offer convenience, save time, and make the home buying process easier for both buyers and agents.
Virtual Home Tours increase engagement, boost listing reach, and help you generate more leads, ultimately leading to increased revenue.
If you are looking to grow your real estate business, investing in Virtual Home Tours is a smart move that will set you apart from the competition.
What is a short sale? In simple terms, a short sale is when the borrower or homeowner sells a property for less than what they owe on it. They’re “short” on the amount to be repaid to the bank. You may have heard the term but passed over it because you didn’t know much about it.
There’s plenty to learn about a short sale because of it’s legal and economic influence on the real estate industry. So, let’s first discuss the factors that may lead to a short sale.
When we fall into a recession, it causes an overall slowdown in economic growth and job growth. Many people can lose their jobs and find it difficult to make their mortgage payments.
Even a two-income household may struggle to make payments if one person is no longer employed. This would now become a financial hardship.
We saw evidence of these factors in 2006 when the residential housing boom came to an end, and the subprime mortgage crisis was in effect. Many found themselves victims of predatory lending and in need to sell their homes for less than what they were worth.
People who can’t keep up with their mortgage payments may decide to sell their home. The problem is, their home may not have appreciated and is now worth less than what they owe the bank.
So, if the homeowner paid–let’s say–$1,000,000 and their home is now worth $600,000, that’s not enough to settle the remaining $400,000 they would owe the bank. This is the issue that homeowners run into when short sales become the only viable option.
The homeowner no longer has to pay the remaining $400,000 on their loan. But, the collateral was their home. This is an unfortunate way to forgive the loan debt and could be the only effective way to settle the debt.
But, what would happen if the homeowners didn’t settle for less and instead chose foreclosure? That becomes a different story with different consequences.
People have the option of letting the home go into foreclosure, but why let it get that far? The foreclosure process has extreme ramifications on your credit, it could have tax implications, and foreclosure may make finding a new home harder since most banks will consider you a higher lending risk.
If at all possible, it’s best to avoid foreclosure because of the long term negative effects it has on your personal record.
Let’s play out the scenario with all the factors in place. So, let’s say the economy changes, you unfortunately lose your job, and now you can’t make your payments. Your property is worth less than what you owe and the bank has agreed to a short sale. Remember, that’s the key. The bank has to approve a short sale.
The short sale process isn’t simple but it’s very beneficial to the borrower. If the bank approves a short sale, they forgive the difference owed to them on the property. In some instances, the amount can be upwards of a million dollars. So you get to sell the house for what it’s worth and the difference of what you owe is gone.
It’s important to know ahead of time that the short sale process can take months or maybe years from start to finish, so have patience. This will not be the usual timeline of a traditional listing where it takes about 30 to 45 days to sell.
You move forward in the process. Now, what happens? The bank will require you to fill out and submit a number of documents and may request other information as well. It may be challenging on all sides but the real estate agent is there to facilitate all this between the client and the bank.
Now you have to find a buyer that is willing to purchase a short sale home. Most buyers are not prepared for the additional paperwork, meeting the qualifications, or waiting the additional time to acquire a short sale home. Most find the process too challenging or frustrating and won’t even consider it.
The time frames for a short sale will differ from a traditional sale. Once you have an accepted offer, it will go to the lender/seller to accept and approve. The average timeline is about 60 to 90 days. That means 30 days to sell + 60 days for approval + 30 days to close escrow = 4 months, on average.
In a perfect world, the economy is stable, properties will always appreciate, and, when it’s time to sell, you get over asking price. But, we all know that’s not reality and complications in life will arise. In the real world, things happen, people lose their jobs, and sometimes you just need a second chance.
Thankfully, in the real estate world, the short sale is the second chance. You may lose your home but you don’t end up in debt.
By the way, if you're studying for the real estate exam, we have an exam prep and crash course to help you. Studying for the exam is easy and we can make it easy for you.
Click the button below to find out how.
Steering in real estate is illegal, and most agents who commit it never meant to. That's what makes it dangerous. A well-intentioned assumption about where a client will "feel comfortable" can violate federal law.
This guide gives you the plain-English definition, real examples, the penalties, and the habits that keep you clear of it. If you're studying for the state exam, steering is one of the most testable fair housing topics on the list.
Steering is the illegal practice of guiding buyers or renters toward or away from specific neighborhoods based on a protected characteristic instead of their own stated criteria. A protected characteristic is a trait, like race or religion, that federal law shields from housing discrimination.
The federal Fair Housing Act protects seven classes: race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. HUD's Fair Housing Act regulations (24 CFR 100.70) expressly ban steering by name, and the rule covers both sales and rentals.
Here's the part agents miss. Steering doesn't require bad intent. If you filter what a client sees based on who they are rather than what they asked for, you're steering. The law judges the action, not the motive.
Steering is illegal because it takes away a buyer's freedom to choose where to live, which is exactly what the Fair Housing Act was written to protect. When an agent narrows the map based on demographics, the client never sees the options they were denied.
The law has deep roots. Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 as part of the Civil Rights Act, banning discrimination in the sale, rental, financing, and brokering of housing. Sex became a protected class in 1974. The Fair Housing Amendments Act added familial status and disability in 1988.
Many states go further and add protected classes like age, marital status, or source of income. Age is not a federal Fair Housing Act protected class, but it may be protected where you practice. Know your state's list before you take your exam, and before you take a client.
Steering can be as blunt as refusing to show homes in a neighborhood or as subtle as a comment about where a client would "fit in." These five scenarios all count:
Notice that three of these five involve no ill will at all. That's the trap.
Steering, blockbusting, and redlining are three separate fair housing violations, and the exam expects you to tell them apart. The fastest memory hook: steering targets buyers, blockbusting targets sellers, and redlining comes from lenders.
All three practices violate the Fair Housing Act. Steering and blockbusting are committed by licensees. Redlining is committed by lenders, and it's the reason fair lending laws sit alongside fair housing laws on your exam.
A first steering violation can cost an agent up to $26,262 in HUD civil penalties, and repeat violations climb to $131,308. Those figures come from HUD's current penalty schedule (24 CFR 180.671, effective July 2025): $26,262 with no prior violations, $65,653 with one prior violation in five years, and $131,308 with two or more priors in seven years.
The federal fine is only the start:
Fair housing violations sit alongside other license-killers like commingling client funds and taking kickbacks. The difference is that steering also carries six-figure federal exposure.
Yes, and testers are watching for it. Newsday's 2019 "Long Island Divided" investigation sent paired testers to 93 agents and found minority buyers received unequal treatment 49% of the time for Black testers, 39% for Hispanic testers, and 19% for Asian testers.
The industry responded. According to the National Association of Realtors, every Realtor must now complete 2 hours of fair housing training every 3 years, with the first cycle running January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2027.
Fair housing groups and government agencies still run paired testing, where two similar clients of different races approach the same agent. The practical takeaway: treat every client as if their twin of a different race walked in yesterday and asked for the same thing.
The safest way to avoid steering is to let the client's property criteria, not your assumptions about people, drive every showing. We teach this as the USRT Property-First Rule: if a preference isn't about the property, it doesn't shape the search.
Where a client lives is their call. Your job is to widen their options, not quietly narrow them. Master the definition, know the difference between steering, blockbusting, and redlining, and run every search through the Property-First Rule.
Steering is near-guaranteed exam material, and it rarely shows up alone. Brush up on the rest with our 99 real estate vocabulary terms, then drill fair housing questions until they're easy points. Start with the US Realty Training exam prep program and walk into test day ready.
What are liquidated damages? Most real estate transactions follow the same structured procedure to meet the needs of the home seller and the homebuyer. If everything goes well, both parties walk away happy.
However, there are instances where something erupts in the transaction causing disparity between the parties and damage could be dealt. The good thing is, real estate agents and the real estate transaction process has procedures in place to compensate for damages dealt to a party.
In this article, we explore the power of liquidated damages and the role they play in the real estate transaction.
A liquidated damages clause is a contract provision where the buyer and seller agree in advance to a specific dollar amount (or a cap) that may be owed if one party breaches the contract—especially when the actual financial impact could be difficult to calculate. In many real estate transactions, this is commonly tied to the buyer’s earnest money deposit (the money placed into escrow to show good faith).
So, now that we know what liquidated damages are, let’s explore when and how liquidated damages come into play during a real estate transaction.
When a real estate offer is made and accepted by both parties, the seller will require the buyer to make a deposit (often called an earnest money deposit, and the amount varies by market, contract, and state) into an escrow account as financial security.
In California, you’ll often hear “up to 3%” discussed in residential transactions because California law creates a framework around liquidated damages for certain 1–4 unit residential purchases (and the enforceability can depend on how the agreement is written and initialed). This is not a universal nationwide rule, but it is a common California reference point.
At first glance, the damages caused with backing out of a deal might be hard to discover. But, let’s dig deeper to see the full picture and how these expenses add up for the home seller.
So, why is the liquidated damages clause important? Let’s lay out a scenario. A buyer and seller have entered a contract on the sale of a one million dollar home. As part of the contract, the buyer deposits $30,000 dollars into an escrow account.
While waiting for the deal to close, the buyer requests some repairs on the property. The seller deems the requests reasonable and performs the repairs. In the meantime, the seller is preparing to vacate the property (scheduling moving services, making large purchases, etc). At some point in the process, the buyer calls off the deal.
What happens now?
The seller has already spent money making expensive repairs and preparing to close the sale. At this point, all of the contingencies have cleared. The seller has jumped through all the hoops. Does the seller just lose out on all the money promised in the sale?
This is where the liquidated damages clause comes in.
Depending on the contract terms and the facts, the seller may seek to keep some or all of the buyer’s deposit as liquidated damages (often as compensation for taking the property off the market and other losses that are hard to measure). Liquidated damages are generally a pre-agreed amount/cap, not automatically “the exact amount of damage caused.
However, it’s not a simple process.
Neither party is automatically entitled to the money in the escrow account. The buyer and seller must negotiate and agree on what to do with the money. Sometimes, the two parties can’t come to an agreement. What happens at this point?
In many disputes, the escrow holder can’t release funds without mutual written instructions or a legal direction (such as a court order). Depending on the contract, the path forward might involve mediation, arbitration, or litigation
Liquidated damages clauses can be an important protection tool in a real estate contract, but whether they should be used (and how they’re enforced) depends on the property type, the state, and the specific contract language. In many common scenarios, if a buyer defaults after key deadlines/contingencies are removed, a seller may try to claim the deposit as liquidated damages—often as a streamlined remedy that avoids proving every dollar of loss.
What is Mello-Roos?
For those who have never heard of this real estate term, Mello-Roos is an additional special tax in California that shows up on a property’s annual tax bill, separate from the base property tax rate. Who is subject to Mello-Roos? What are the taxes used for? How is it beneficial to homeowners? Let’s explore this fascinating tax and how it affects the way you interact with clients.
Quick Answer (2026): Mello-Roos is a Community Facilities District (CFD) special tax created under the Community Facilities District Act of 1982 to help fund public infrastructure and services (often by paying off bonds).
Some communities are brand new or rather new. These communities might have Mello-Roos or that additional tax or special assessment.
When these districts were first built (or expanded), they needed their own fire stations, schools, roadways, and other services. They would need people in these new communities to help pay for them. How? Many districts finance these improvements through bonds and repay them using the CFD (Mello-Roos) special tax.
This bond would usually last anywhere between 20–40 years (terms vary by district), although not all districts handle costs the same way and some may continue a smaller charge for ongoing services.
Paying more taxes to live in a neighborhood might sound like a turn off but this could be a preferred feature for some people.
This is what buyers search most often—because Mello-Roos can change affordability.
On the surface, you wouldn’t think that people would want to pay more in taxes or on anything else for that matter. But in a way, Mello-Roos comes with some advantages and benefits.
Think of Mello-Roos as investing in a seat upgrade on a plane flight. Everyone on the flight will get to the destination but your upgrade to 1st class just made everything a little better. A larger seat, more legroom, better food, and free drinks make it worth spending a little more on the ticket.
Now, let’s think about what that means in the new community you just moved into. Mello-Roos allows for better schools, new roads, perhaps more police and other government services. That being said, as a buyer you have to ask yourself if you are willing to pay that extra Mello-Roos to live in a district where you’ll get those benefits.
The answer to the question “Is Mello-Roos Worth it?” lies with the individual buyer and what’s most important to them in their new home.
In some cases, buyers are more than willing to pay the Mello-Roos tax for that perfect property—especially if it gets them in a community that may be more modern, well maintained, or in an exclusive area. They could see the benefits that a Mello-Roos brings to the community and see it as a worthy investment for themselves or–potentially–their family.
For some, the answer is clearly no. For example, let’s say the buyer is single and a new school district is not the driving force for where they would like to purchase a home. Perhaps for them, the overall benefits of Mello-Roos aren’t enough to justify paying the extra taxes. In this case, the homebuyer would be interested in a different neighborhood that meets their wants.
How does Mello-Roos affect you as a REALTOR®️? Let’s say you have a buyer with a budget of one million dollars. The lender has approved your buyer and the maximum monthly payment your buyer can afford is $5,000. You’re able to find the perfect property within the budget and your client is excited. But then you find out the house has Mello-Roos.
So now your client’s payment has gone from their maximum $5,000 to–let’s say–$6,000. Now we’re beyond what they can afford. So they no longer qualify for this house because Mello-Roos has tipped the scale over their maximum allowed by the lender.
As a Real Estate Agent, it’s important to understand what Mello-Roos is so that you can better serve your clients and prevent any unnecessary drama. Before showing properties to your buyer, find out ahead of time if any of your listings are subjected to the neighborhood tax. You can often check the tax bill/parcel lookup or confirm by contacting a local title representative. If they are, your buyer may not qualify, and you will know that going in.
Pro tip for clarity: Convert Mello-Roos to a monthly number when you explain it (annual CFD ÷ 12). That makes it easy for buyers to understand how it affects their total payment.
How long does Mello-Roos last?
Many CFD taxes are tied to bond repayment and often run about 20–40 years, but it depends on the district.
Can it increase?
Some districts allow increases (often with caps), so buyers should confirm the district’s rules rather than assume it stays flat.
Can a buyer prepay it?
Some CFDs allow payoff/prepayment, but terms vary by district—confirm through the CFD/tax collector or title.
Is Mello-Roos tax deductible?
It depends. Some special assessments/fees may not be deductible like standard “ad valorem” property taxes. Buyers should ask a tax professional.
Taxing is an effective method for newly formed communities or districts to finance improvements to create an appealing area for homebuyers. Oftentimes, the money goes to fund schools, hospitals, police stations, road construction, and sewer maintenance. As a result, these amenities help attract families or individuals who can not only afford to pay the Mello-Roos but actively seek out these characteristics.
A Mello-Roos tax can pose a potential issue for some home buyers. If the additional tax is high enough, it could make the property unaffordable for the buyer. That’s why it’s important to know what your homebuyer wants in a property. The last thing you want to do is to pull the rug from under their feet with the Mello-Roos tax when they find their dream home but can’t afford the tax.
Overall, it’s important to know the pros and cons of this tax before searching for a home. This will allow the buyer to make the best decision for their lifestyle and finances.
Landing your very first real-estate client is a milestone, not just a transaction. It’s the moment that proves, “Yes—I can do this.” New agents everywhere ask the same question: How do I secure that first client, fast? Think of it as the launchpad for your entire career—the deal that sets everything else in motion.
Most new agents have the same realization at the start of their career. They realize they don’t know how or even where to start to get their first real estate client. If you have been an agent for several months and still have not gotten a client, don’t panic.
It is normal for most new real estate agents to go long periods of time at the start of their careers without a client. That’s why the first year is the hardest.
There’s good news. You can practice the fundamental methods of getting your first real estate client. These methods are not flashy or revolutionary. They are the fundamentals that, when put into practice, are proven actions you can do right now to get your first real estate client.
Prospecting is a necessary part to growing your business–especially when you are a new real estate agent. At first, these methods are hard. They put you, the new agent, into a vulnerable position because you will experience failure through rejection.
Coping with rejection is hard. Moreover, the fear of rejection keeps us from action. But, overcoming this fear is paramount to building a successful career.
So, let’s get started. Here are the top 5 most effective ways you can get your first real estate client:
Prospecting does not get more fundamental than this. Door knocking is the oldest prospecting method in the book. Every real estate agent has been told, at some point in their career, to practice door knocking. Door knocking involves knocking on homeowners’ doors to see if they would like to sell their home or buy a new home.
Door knocking is a common prospecting method because it is an effective way to find new leads in a targeted neighborhood.
Surprisingly, most new real estate agents door knock ineffectively because they miss one important ingredient. They should always bring value. When you give value, the interaction becomes worthwhile even when they are not interested in your service.
Contrastingly, if you do not offer value, the homeowner will not have gained anything from the interaction if they are not interested in your service.
Value can be anything that will benefit the homeowner’s well-being. One effective gift you can provide is the gift of knowledge. You can show homeowners what their home is worth. This might not convince anyone to make the decision to list their home in the moment. However, this knowledge can incentivize them to list in the future.
At the very least, the lead will now have a document that tells them how much money they can earn. Therefore, they will contact you when they are ready to list.
Oftentimes, homeowners are surprised to see how much money they can make from selling their home. They might be in the midst of thinking about upgrading houses or downsizing to a smaller house. That is why giving them the gift of knowledge can inspire them to take action.
Cold calling is like door knocking but done over the phone. It involves contacting leads, often without a rapport (hence the term “cold”). The goal is to see if they would like to sell their home or buy a new home. Cold calling can be done from your home, office, or your favorite coffee shop.
Note: Verify prospects against the National & State DNC lists and secure 1-to-1 written consent before any automated dialing or prerecorded message
Just like door knocking, cold calling is quantity driven. The more people you call, the more likely you will find a prospective first real estate client. Cold calling is a common method to discover clients from a list of leads. The reason why this is common, just like door knocking, is because it is an effective method to find interested home buyers and home sellers.
Similar to door knocking, the chances of building a rapport increases when you give value. Value piques the interest of the lead. You contact leads cold and without warning. Therefore, you should give value to warm up to the conversation. You giving the contact value–in the form of a gift–is a great way to incentivize them to list. This value being the gift of knowledge.
The contact will know how much their house is worth and how much money they can make, therefore incentivizing to sell their home. The contact might not sell their home right away, but they will have your contact information when they are ready.
However, you might get lucky. You could contact someone who is already thinking of selling their home and this gift is the extra encouragement for them to sell their home or buy a new one.
Your sphere of influence is another fundamental method of finding your first real estate client. Most agents recognize this term because your sphere of influence has a high success rate. So, what is the sphere of influence and how does it work?
The sphere of influence is your immediate network of people you know. You might think “I don’t have a network–I’m new!” This is a common fallacy. Everyone has a sphere of influence, but not everyone knows what it looks like.
Your sphere of influence consists of family members, friends, people in your volunteer group, people who you are acquaintances with, etc. Every person you know can be in your sphere of influence. Therefore, you already have an advantage to work with them when they need a real estate professional’s opinion or help.
When someone in your sphere of influence needs help selling their home or they are looking to buy a new home, you have a warm connection to them. This connection increases their likelihood of hiring you.
Here is an example of using your sphere of influence. You contact acquaintances, friends, and family members to tell them that you are a real estate agent working at the local brokerage. When an acquaintance hears your career update, they inform you that they want to sell their house and buy a new one. You offer your services and they sign with you.
This is just one example of how the sphere of influence can work in your favor. You never know what people in your sphere of influence need until you put yourself out there. When you do, you may find that some people in your sphere are interested in listing or buying a home.
In an interview with Richard Schulman, Keller Williams real estate agent and top producing KW agent in the country, he explained “as humans, it’s our natural instinct to work with someone we trust.”
He continued to explain, top producing agents will always lose business to their client’s friend, no matter their qualifications. The people in your network will have more trust with you than someone they don’t know. Therefore, you can use this advantage to bridge a connection with them.
That’s what makes the sphere of influence such a powerful way to prospect for new leads.
If you want to learn how to get more real estate clients, close more deals, and earn bigger commissions, then learn more about our real estate training program, From Rookie to Rockstar.
This is an online video program designed for new real estate agents. It helps them learn fundamental components of being a real estate agent and how to get their very first client.
Creating a digital presence helps agents find their first real estate client passively. A digital presence creates familiarity and a sense of connection through content distributed on social media. Such social media channels include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and their own personal website.
Some agents discredit the importance of having a strong digital presence. They think a better investment of your time is to interfacing with leads face-to-face. Interfacing examples include door knocking or cold calling. Interfacing with leads is always effective. However, they overlook the power of social media ads and creating a digital connection.
Using social-media advertising is a smart way to get in front of home buyers and sellers. It’s the digital equivalent of spotting a local agent’s ad in the Sunday paper—only now one tap can drop their contact info straight into your CRM.
Because housing is a protected category, every U.S. real-estate campaign must be created under Meta’s Special Ad Category → Housing. When you check that box Meta automatically:
With precision targeting gone, your creative has to carry the day. Short reels of a just-sold home, selfie testimonials, or quick neighborhood spotlights will stop the scroll. Point each ad to a Meta Lead Form or Messenger button so the platform can auto-fill the prospect’s name, email, and phone.
Informing the user that you can help them sell their home or find a new home to purchase. Coincidentally this has been on their mind. Because of their need, they can click on the ad and have their contact information forwarded to you. This creates a warm lead that you can contact in the future.
Therein lies the power of social media advertising that people overlook. Taking time to focus on developing a strong funnel system for warm leads increases your lead to client conversion rate.
A digital presence is a creative approach to booking more clientele. The result of creating a digital presence is brand recognition and credibility in your sector. At the core of creating a digital presence, real estate agents are simply building a personal connection with their sphere of influence.
You can maintain your sphere of influence by interacting with people on social media. The simple idea behind this is an earnest one. Social media makes communication easy. When your goal is to make new friends and be a good friend, retaining clients no longer becomes a concern. People will naturally work with you when they need an agent.
You can take social media a step further by building a brand around your name. This is an effective way of letting your sphere of influence know about your career, achievement, and progress without contacting them one at a time.
Additionally, this will remind people in your sphere of influence that you are a real estate agent doing great things with your career. When they need an agent, they will think of you because they will associate anything real estate related with you.
Let’s discuss the power of content marketing. The reason why YouTube and real estate agent celebrities are closely connected is because celebrities know the influence of creating content. Creating content increase your reach and influence to people who are outside of your sphere of influence. When the content created is high quality, people will share it. This is how your reach and influence grows.
Let’s see an example of this in the real world. Ryan Serhant is a popular name among real estate agents because he’s a known celebrity. Part of his following includes people inside and outside of the real estate industry. There are thousands of people who know this specific real estate agent because of the content he creates.
The reason why so many people know about Ryan Serhant is because he has created copious amounts of content. He has done this with videos, television interviews, broadcast shows, social media posts, tweets, instagram posts, and more. He has attracted more people to his brand and style, which is evident in everything he creates. Therefore, he has created a reputation, also known as a brand name.
So, how does this translate to finding new leads? Content marketing will help you build an audience of people. A few of these people will seek out your services. This is passive lead generation.
People who see your content will seek you out because they are in need of a real estate agent. They saw your content and turned to you for professional help. Again, when they think of real estate, they will think of you.
Although attaining celebrity status is unlikely, you can build local recognition through content marketing.
Agents can use lead generating websites and online directories to passively find their first real estate client. The great part about using websites and directories to market your services is that it does not require extraneous attention. Lead capturing websites and online directories passively give you leads. In other words, they exist as a funnel to your website or lead capture.
Lead generating websites can exist in many forms. Websites such as Trulia, Redfin, and BoldLeads let you set up your presence online with little effort. Each offer a different advantage for agents. These websites are widely accepted as a method of lead generation because digital prospecting is a necessity for agents.
Online directories are a passive way to find leads online. Directories such as Google Business Profile (GBP) or Yelp serve as a review aggregator. In other words, people review your business.
The more high quality review, the easier you are to find online and the more likely people will work with you. Although using online directories effectively will be hard when finding your first real estate client, they serve as a powerful tool to grow your business over time.
You should encourage clients and to review you online after working with you. The earlier you start, the greater the growth.
Artificial-intelligence tools are the new Swiss-army knife for rookie agents, but they work best when paired with human judgment and strict compliance.
Handled thoughtfully, AI becomes your tireless assistant: writing first drafts, qualifying leads while you sleep, and freeing you to do what bots can’t—build trust face-to-face.
Now, more than ever, people are turning to the internet and social media to find services. A lack of digital presence or lead generation is neglecting a fundamental of finding your first real estate client.
At first, prospecting may seem daunting because it has such a low success rate. The great part about prospecting is you will not run out of leads. Therefore, the low success rate translates to a few clients over a large pool lead.
The hardest part of prospecting is not the act of prospecting. It is more subtle. The hardest part of prospecting is surmounting self-doubt. Most new real estate agents experience self-doubt when they encounter constant rejection.
This feeling festers and manifests into phrases like, “this won’t work…” or “why don’t I try another career” or even “I’ll never find a client.”
To ward off these negative thoughts, new real estate agents should develop a sense of awareness. This is to identify hurtful thoughts that could sew doubt. You will prevent thought spirals from festering when you reinforce your attitude with healthy self talk. This prevents the creation of mental barriers that hold you back from success.
Also, always remember one simple thing: you have to keep prospecting to find your first real estate client. The good news, if you keep doing it, you will find them. Every rejection gets you closer to the one client that will work with you.
Finding that first real estate client is hard. That's why we created our program, From Rookie to Rockstar. This is an online video training program to help you earn more clients, close more deals, and make bigger commissions.
When you join the program, you get 6+ hours of video content, an eBook guide that comes with scripts, and 20+ years of insights from a top-producing agent.
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Escrow is commonly associated with real estate but it’s not exclusive to it. Escrow is a neutral third party used to hold and distribute money or property once contractual obligations are met. Escrow is used across many fields of business such as banking, the buying and selling of intellectual property, and in mergers and acquisitions of large companies. But let’s talk more about how it’s used in real estate.
Now maybe you have heard the term but you’re not exactly sure what escrow does in a real estate transaction. In simple terms, escrow in real estate is a neutral third party that protects the integrity of the transaction.
Important note: The exact closing process can vary by state. In some states, an escrow company commonly handles closing. In others, a title company and/or a real estate attorney may run the closing (sometimes still referred to as “escrow” or “settlement”). Either way, the core purpose is the same: a neutral party helps ensure the agreed-upon terms are completed and funds/documents are handled properly.
So what does this mean? Let’s explore how escrow in real estate plays a part in that.
It starts with you as a real estate agent getting a buyer and a seller together. That can be to either acquire or sell a property depending on who you are representing. When everyone is happy and in agreement, both parties will enter into a legal and binding purchase agreement (this may be called different names depending on your state—such as the RPA (Residential Purchase Agreement) in California).
The purchase agreement is integral to the transaction because it covers all the terms, conditions, and stipulations that have to be met according to what the buyer and seller have agreed upon. It acts as the blueprint for escrow (or the closing/settlement team) to carry out.
When you have a fully executed contract that’s when escrow steps in. A “fully executed” contract means that the buyer, seller, and their respective agents have all signed off the purchase agreement as well as any other addendums or amendments that include the conditions of the sale.
The main purpose of the escrow/closing team is to now take the contract and make sure that all the conditions are met in the transaction. As a matter of fact, escrow will not close until that happens. Not only will they make sure that all the stipulations are met, but they are also responsible for keeping everything on schedule and accounting for every penny.
In most transactions, the buyer submits an earnest money deposit shortly after the contract is accepted. Those funds are typically held in an escrow account (or trust account) by the escrow holder, title company, or attorney—depending on the state and local custom—until the deal closes or the contract is canceled according to the terms.
So what happens if you’re going through escrow and a condition has not been met? What happens then? Does escrow still close? As we just discussed it’s escrow’s responsibility to make sure that all conditions are met. Let’s talk about how escrow handles the situation when they aren’t.
So, let’s say we have opened escrow and so far everything has been on schedule. All items have been accounted for, we’re nearing the close and everyone is happy. Escrow is reviewing their final paperwork to make sure all stipulations have been met and they happen to notice that the seller agreed to give the buyer a termite report (or another required inspection/disclosure). It was never ordered.
Or do we?
A missing report could be considered a minor issue. This is not an expensive report and can be obtained fairly easily. Should escrow worry about it or just close the deal?
Knowing what you do up to this point, what do you think needs to happen? If you said, “Get the report done,” then you are right! Why? Because it’s in the contract. So even though you may have been near the end, everything has to stop. It’s a stipulation and all stipulations need to be met before escrow can close.
Remember, escrow will uphold the integrity of the transaction regardless of whether the stipulation or condition is small or large. This is escrow’s primary purpose. So what else is escrow responsible for?
Let’s talk about the other aspects that escrow is responsible for in a transaction. Aside from the stipulations that have to be met, they are involved with other areas of the transaction such as:
What is the property title? The property title is the transfer of ownership from the seller to the buyer. Escrow is in communication with the title/closing side of the transaction to get the property information and to make sure that all the information is accurate.
The deed is the document used to transfer ownership from the seller to the buyer. The exact type of deed can vary by state (for example, a grant deed or warranty deed may be common depending on location). The closing team coordinates preparation and signing of the deed, and at close, they ensure it is properly recorded according to local requirements.
During escrow, they will receive and hold funds related to the transaction and coordinate with the buyer’s lender to ensure everything with the loan is on track. This also allows escrow to be aware of any issues that may arise to prevent the closing of escrow.
They prepare the final closing/settlement statements for the buyer and seller. This is an accounting of funds to the seller (including proceeds) and to the buyer (costs and credits). This is prepared before the transaction formally closes and the closing funds are distributed.
Escrow is an excellent resource for both you and your client. All you have to do is reach out to your escrow officer (or closing/settlement contact) and they can let you know everything they can do for you.
As you can see, escrow is a vital part of the real estate process. Because they are a neutral third party, you can be assured that everything is on the up and up in the transaction. Escrow makes sure that everything in the contract is honored and frees up the real estate agent to do what they do best: getting more deals!
Addendum vs amendment–what’s the difference?
The addendum and amendment are two important tools related to the Residential Purchase Agreement (RPA). Use an addendum to add or clarify terms that weren’t in the original contract. Use an amendment to change terms that are already part of the signed agreement.
We’ll cover what each does and when to use them.
They are similar but knowing the difference between an addendum vs amendment will help you to use them correctly.
Let’s start with the contract also known as the Residential Purchase Agreement. The Residential Purchase Agreement is used to create a legally binding agreement between the buyer and the seller. Within the RPA are all the terms, conditions, and stipulations agreed upon by all parties in the transaction.
Occasionally, these terms may have to be changed or modified. Sometimes the negotiation of terms will continue even after you have a fully executed contract and have opened escrow. This is when the addendum and amendment come into play. Let’s get a little more detailed about what these terms mean and when you would use them.
In some cases, you are adding conditions to the contract. When the contract exists and we add something new to the terms, we want to use the addendum. This addition could be the inclusion of real property or the addition of an inspection or report. Just remember, when we ADD to the contract, we use the ADDendum.
For example, let’s say during the escrow process there’s some damage to the carpets done by the pet or child of the seller. The seller agrees to then add a $5,000 credit for new carpet at the close of escrow. Because you’re introducing a new seller credit, document it in writing. If it affects price or net proceeds, many brokerages (especially in California) record it on an amendment; some use an addendum for truly new clauses. Follow your broker’s practice.
Other times, you may be amending terms within the contract. Amend means to change or modify. Let’s talk about the RPA again. So we’re starting with the agreement of terms and conditions. Now you want to take something out or change something within the terms. In this case, we’re going to use the amendment.
So, a good example of when to use an amendment would be if you wanted to take something out of the agreed terms. Maybe the seller originally agreed to include the living room furniture in the purchase. The original agreement included the sofa, coffee table, love seat, and recliner. But, now, the seller has second thoughts about the recliner for sentimental reasons. You would then use an amendment to change the terms omitting the chair.
California note: Use C.A.R. Form ADM (Addendum) when adding terms, and C.A.R. Form AEA (Amendment of Existing Agreement Terms) when modifying terms in a signed agreement. Your brokerage may have specific guidance—follow that.
There may be situations where you may not be sure whether to use the addendum vs amendment. There could be times where you’re both adding as well as changing conditions that already exist. How do you categorize this? It seems to get tricky at this point.
What form do you use?
Use an addendum when you need to add or clarify terms that weren’t in the original agreement (it supplements the contract). Use an amendment when you’re changing terms that are already part of the signed agreement—like price, dates, included items, or contingencies (it modifies the contract). If your change both adds and modifies, document the modifications with an amendment and, if needed, add a short addendum for truly new clauses.
Use an addendum to list new inclusions or exclusions that weren’t addressed in the original agreement (for example, adding a home-warranty clause or specifying personal property that wasn’t mentioned).
If you need to remove or change something the parties already agreed to—like taking out an item that was included—use an amendment. Being specific avoids misunderstandings.
Simply writing in, “Buyer wants all the real property in the home” is too vague. This could cause potential issues between parties so get specific and clearly outline all the buyer wants.
For instance:
As you can see, this is clear and more detailed leaving no doubt what the buyer is requesting from the seller.
Now that we know more about the differences between the addendum vs amendment and how to use them, what do we do with these changes?
Escrow implements signed written instructions. If you’re changing the purchase agreement, memorialize those changes on a contract amendment and have all parties sign. Escrow may also prepare amended escrow instructions, but those changes are effective only when all principals sign.
After the amendment or addendum is fully executed, provide it to escrow so the file reflects the updated agreement and instructions.
The addendum and amendment are great sidekicks to the Residential Purchase Agreement. In real estate, you never know what’s going to happen during a transaction and the most well-written contract may need to be changed or modified. Even the Constitution has amendments!
So, remember that when you add to the contract, use the addendum. When you’re removing from or changing the contract, use the amendment.
When you’re not sure which document applies, confirm with your broker or a real-estate attorney—don’t default to one or the other. Escrow will follow signed instructions once the correct form is executed.
As an agent, what’s the most creative item you’ve had to put on an addendum in a transaction? Share it with us!
Your buyer's termite report just came back with Section 1 items in the kitchen and a list of Section 2 notes. Before anyone panics, you need to know what those labels mean, because one of them can hold up the loan and the other one can't.
This guide explains how a California termite inspection works, what each section of the report means, who pays for what, what lenders require, and what it costs.
A termite inspection is an examination of a home by a licensed structural pest control inspector who looks for termites, dry rot, fungus, and other wood-destroying organisms. A wood-destroying organism, or WDO, is any pest or fungus that eats or breaks down the wood structure of a building.
The inspector checks the interior, exterior, attic, and crawl space, then files a written report that sorts every finding into one of three sections. In California, those reports are filed with the Structural Pest Control Board, and anyone can look up a property's inspection history on the board's website.
The inspection usually happens early in escrow, alongside the buyer's home inspection. In a wood-and-stucco state like California, skipping it is a gamble no agent should let a client take.
Section 1 means the inspector found an active infestation or existing damage, like live termites, dry rot, or fungus that's already in the wood. This is the part of the report that can affect the loan.
A clear Section 1 report is called a termite clearance, the document showing the property is free of active infestation and untreated damage. In California, a clearance letter is treated as current for 90 days. If escrow runs past that window, the lender will usually order a quick re-inspection.
Section 2 means the inspector found conditions that could lead to infestation or damage if nobody fixes them. Nothing is actively wrong yet. These are the hotspots.
Picture wood siding that a sprinkler head soaks every morning. The wood still has its structural integrity, but left alone, that moisture invites dry rot. The inspector flags it as Section 2. If it's ignored long enough, it graduates to Section 1.
Section 2 items rarely block a deal, but your buyer should know about every one of them. Each item is a future repair bill with a date nobody knows yet.
Section 3 flags areas the inspector couldn't fully examine, like a crawl space blocked by stored boxes, an attic buried under insulation, or heavy vegetation against a rear wall. No problem has been confirmed there, but no problem has been ruled out either.
The usual fix is access. The seller clears the obstruction, the pest company returns, and the finding moves to wherever it belongs: a new infestation becomes Section 1, and a conducive condition becomes Section 2. Clearing Section 3 items early keeps the deal on schedule, because lenders want their Section 1 clearance after the hidden areas are checked, not before.
Who pays for a termite inspection is negotiable and gets decided in the purchase agreement, not by California law. There's no statute that assigns the bill.
That said, custom carries weight. In much of California, sellers customarily pay for Section 1 repairs because the lender requires that work for the buyer's loan to fund. Section 2 items are wide open to negotiation, and buyers often accept them as-is or ask for credits. The inspection fee itself runs either way depending on county custom and how the offer was written.
One loan-type exception worth knowing: on VA loans, the VA's Circular 26-22-11 (June 2022) allows the veteran buyer to pay the pest inspection fee, which used to be prohibited.
Whatever the split, write it into the contract. Sellers should also remember their disclosure obligations: a known infestation is a material fact whether or not a new report exists.
Lenders require a termite inspection only when the loan program or the appraisal calls for one, and the rules differ by loan type:
The pattern: Section 1 is the lender's concern. No lender holds up funding over a Section 2 sprinkler note.
A real estate termite inspection in California typically costs $100 to $200, with the official clearance letter for escrow adding roughly $75 to $100 on top. Size, location, and competition drive the spread.
Metro pricing trends lower in Los Angeles and Orange County thanks to heavy competition, while coastal and rural Northern California counties often start closer to $150.
Section 1 is now, Section 2 is later, and Section 3 is unknown. If you can explain those three words to a nervous buyer in one sentence each, you'll keep deals calm that other agents let spiral.
Termite sections, clearances, and contingencies all show up in exam questions and in week one of real practice. Get the US Realty Training exam prep package for unlimited practice exams that drill exactly this kind of material.
Real estate is not just the business of buying and selling homes—it's a business of dealing with people.
As a real estate agent, you will work with many different personalities throughout your career, and eventually, you will come across an indecisive client. So how do you help someone who struggles to make decisions?
In this article, we'll discuss several tactics and strategies to help you effectively work with indecisive buyers.
Indecisive buyers struggle with making decisions throughout the home buying process. Buying a home is one of the biggest investments a person can make, and while it is often an exciting time, it can also be overwhelming, confusing, and emotional. This combination of emotions can lead to indecisiveness, making it essential for agents to use effective strategies to help their clients navigate the process.
Indecisiveness can be caused by doubts, fear of commitment, or discomfort with the unknowns. Understanding the underlying causes of your client's indecision is crucial to guiding them through the process. Your role as a real estate agent is to help alleviate these concerns by offering support, clear information, and patience.
Patience is key when working with indecisive clients.
You might feel that part of your role as a real estate agent is to help your client make decisions more quickly, but pressuring them can have the opposite effect. It can deter them from making any decision at all. Instead, take a step back and allow your clients to move at their own pace. Buying a home should be an enjoyable experience—like savoring a fine dining experience rather than being rushed by a waiter. Let your clients take the time they need to feel confident.
Active listening is one of the most important skills for a real estate agent.
Being an active listener will help you better understand what your client is truly looking for in a home. Pay attention not only to what they say they want, but also to the underlying needs that may not be explicitly stated. For example, if your client changes their preference from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom home, it may indicate they need flexible space—such as a loft or bonus room. Learning to read between the lines can help you offer options that meet their needs.
Indecision may also stem from fear or doubt. By actively listening, you can pick up on these emotions and address them directly. Invite your clients to ask questions, and offer thorough explanations to empower them with information. This will help alleviate anxiety and build confidence.
Clear explanations can help indecisive clients feel more comfortable with the home buying process.
One of the most effective ways to help an indecisive client is to explain the entire process in detail. Fear often comes from the unknown, and the more your clients understand, the less intimidating it will be. Address any questions they have and provide information on the steps involved in purchasing a home.
If financial concerns are contributing to your client's indecision, involve their lender in the conversation. Having the lender explain details about the loan process, payments, interest, taxes, and insurance can help alleviate some of the uncertainty. The more informed your clients are, the more comfortable they will feel moving forward.
When working with indecisive clients, too many choices can lead to overwhelm.
After listening carefully to your client, narrow down the properties that best meet their needs. When it comes time to show homes, limit the number of options. Presenting a smaller, curated selection of properties makes it easier for your client to make a decision. For someone who already struggles with decision-making, focusing on quality rather than quantity will help simplify the process.
Indecisive buyers are simply clients who need a bit more guidance. As a real estate professional, your knowledge and patience can help empower them to make decisions confidently. By being patient, listening actively, explaining the process, and limiting options, you can help your clients overcome indecision and enjoy the journey of buying a home.
In review, the following tactics can help with indecisive clients as well as all of your clients: be patient, be an active listener, explain the process clearly, and limit options.
If we think of a smooth, uneventful real estate transaction as a sunny day, then anything that hinders the effortless transfer of title, would be deemed a cloud. “Clouds” are any claims, unreleased liens, or documents that appear on a property’s title record.
Property buyers prefer clear titles and clouds make property title transfer more difficult. Additionally, clouds can create doubt about ownership or make a title difficult to insure or transfer until the issue is resolved. A clear title is a record that does not have material defects or adverse claims that would discourage a buyer or lender. (Note: many properties still have recorded items like easements/CC&Rs—those don’t automatically mean the title is “cloudy” if they’re expected and disclosed.)
The presence of clouds diminishes the value of the home. In many cases, clouds may deter potential buyers. Some clouds involve liens that must be satisfied or released; others are not “debts” at all (like clerical errors, boundary disputes, or unknown heirs).
Some common clouds on title records are as follows:
property is misfiled, misplaced, or omitted. For example, mechanic’s liens are common liens that are filed against a property’s title.
If a contractor is hired to complete work on a property, and they are not paid in full upon completion of the project, contractors can file a mechanic’s lien on a property through the county recorder’s office (rules vary by state). This lien allows the contractor to recover the unpaid balance.
Recent update: in addition to “classic” clouds, more real estate professionals are watching for deed/title fraud (forged deeds, seller impersonation, quitclaim deed fraud). These scams can create serious title problems that take time and legal work to unwind.
Clouds get discovered during a property title search. This generally occurs after accepting a real estate offer. Title companies will search many sources for documents related to a property. Examples include deeds, county land records, divorce cases, and bankruptcy records. This search will show all unresolved claims and encumbrances on the property title.
Title companies check that the seller has the legal right to transfer a property’s title. It is also a necessary step to determine the title company’s ability to insure the transaction.
Important clarification: there are two common title insurance policies—lender’s title insurance (protects the lender) and owner’s title insurance (protects the buyer/owner). Lender’s coverage is usually required with a mortgage, but it does not protect the buyer’s equity the same way an owner’s policy can.
Title insurance generally covers covered losses up to the policy amount for certain pre-existing title defects—coverage depends on the policy and its terms.
Properties with cloudy title records may not be insurable until the issues are cured, or the title insurer may require the issue to be resolved before issuing coverage. Additionally, mortgage lenders will halt the lending process until the title issues are resolved.
There are a few things property owners can do to avoid future clouds on title.
First, buyers should consider purchasing separate owner’s title insurance. During the closing process, lenders need buyers to purchase title insurance for the property. But, these policies usually protect the lender’s financial investment. If a title claim is successful in court, the owner, without an owner’s title insurance policy, could lose their down payment and accrued equity.
Additionally, an owner’s policy may help cover costs associated with resolving certain past title issues that weren’t discovered through the title search (depending on the policy terms). Real estate agents should encourage their buyers to buy a separate policy to protect their assets.
Property owners can enjoy creating detailed project contracts with contractors. Outlining project timelines, payment schedules, and payment records give both parties a clear paper trail of the agreement. This can reduce the occurrence of missed payments and mechanic’s liens.
Finally, property owners can avoid surprises on their titles. Checking the title record at the county recorder’s office keeps owners up-to-date on their status. This allows them to catch and resolve title defects as issues arise. (Some counties also offer deed/recording notification programs—worth enrolling if available.)
The process of removing a cloud on the title varies. Some are easier to remove than others. For example, to resolve a mechanic’s lien, the homeowner must contact the contractor to pay their balance. Then, the lien must be released (and typically recorded) so the public record reflects that it was satisfied. Similar liens, such as mortgage and tax liens, can be resolved this way.
Real estate agents need to be proactive when working with homes that have clouds on the title. For buyer’s agents, be sure to address the clouds on the title. Leverage this as a negotiation strategy.
For example, informing the seller, “I have a buyer who is interested in your home but they noticed there are clouds on the title. If they are removed, I have a buyer for you!” may motivate them to clear the home’s title in order to secure the sale.
For seller agents, be proactive and take a look at your client’s title report early on in the process. It is possible that the owner is not aware that their property has clouds. Therefore, checking with the title company is very helpful. If there are clouds on the title, agents can work with sellers to make a list of the fixable clouds. Together, they can come up with a strategy to resolve them.
Clouds on title are any unresolved issues that appear on a property’s title record. There are many types of clouds and their presence can make it more difficult to sell the property. That's because it can impair marketability or create doubt about ownership until resolved.
Title companies play an important role at this stage of the real estate process. They conduct title searches to ensure that the property in question has a clear title.
There are ways that property owners can avoid clouds on title. They can create clear worker contracts, check title records, and buy owner’s title insurance. Resolving clouds on title can be as simple as paying taxes or costly and time-consuming. Agents review the title record of a property with clients to help them make informed choices.
Quick answer: Becoming a real estate agent in California costs $622–$885 to get licensed, $600–$900/year to stay active, and $6,830–$12,880/year in business expenses once you're working full-time. License renewal runs about $422 every four years. All fees are tax deductible as business expenses.
The fees to become a real estate agent stack up. If you don't pay attention, the costs and fees will get away from you and burn a hole through your debit card. This article is meant to prepare you for your future real estate career — and at the end, you'll find 3 plans to help you afford these fees.
The cost of a real estate license varies from state to state. This is an estimate for California. There are 4 main fees to get licensed, totaling between $622 and $885.
Real estate school is a pre-licensing program that gives students the required educational material to take the real estate license exam. California has many pre-licensing courses. So, the cost of these programs vary. Online programs may cost less than in-person programs. But, they both come with different perks. To know which program to choose, ask yourself what you need to excel.
When you graduate from an accredited real estate school, you must apply to take the state exam. A real estate exam application fee is the cost to schedule your exam. In the state of California, this cost is $100. This fee will vary from state-to-state. So, check the Department of Real Estate’s website to know your state’s application fee.
Live‑Scan fingerprinting: $49 state processing fee + $20‑$30 provider fee
One requirement for the State Exam is a fingerprint live scan, also known as a background check. People with a criminal history will have trouble passing the background check. Always be honest and clear when asked about your criminal history. As the saying goes, honesty is the best policy.
The real estate license fee is the final payment to get your license. This final fee may seem hefty, but the cost of a real estate license pales in comparison to the money you will make as an agent. After this payment, you will have your license in your pocket for whenever you want to use it.
Real estate agents pay annual costs to keep their active status. These fees come from two main sources: brokerages and membership dues. They give you tools, resources, and — with some brokerages — training. Expect to pay $600–$900 per year to stay active.
Brokerage fees, also known as desk fees, are the costs to hang your license at a brokerage. The reason why brokerages charge fees are because they give resources, tools, and training to agents. This includes insurance, legal resources, office supplies, internet, training, leads, and even coffee. Desk fees can vary based on your location. They can become more costly in populated areas.
A big part of your annual fees will go to your local real estate board. So, you might be wondering, “what is the purpose of the local real estate board?” This is where you get access to tools, resources, and other perks to doing your job well.
This includes membership into the National Association of REALTORS® and your state’s association of REALTORS®. You will also have access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Finally, you get invitations to holiday parties and social events to expand your network. Your local real estate board connects you with the world of agents.
NAR membership costs approximately $201 per year ($156/year + $45 assessment). When you join, you adopt the designation of REALTOR®, showing clients that you are committed to a code of ethics and a higher standard of professionalism. If you do the full local-state-national package in CA, the combined fee is often $800–$900/year.
MLS access costs $500–$1,000 per year and is a vital resource when learning about and researching properties. The Multiple Listing Service is a data-driven database containing shared information from agents and brokerages about real estate listings across your market.
Business expenses vary from agent to agent — nobody knows how much you should spend on your business better than you. To calculate your total expenses, create a business plan to identify where your budget should go. The costs below are derived from the average agent's expenditures, totaling $6,830–$12,880 per year.
Advertisements come in different shapes and forms. They can be ads on social media, newspapers, and search results. Advertisements are effective. They can boost your leads with speed and ease. Because of that, they can be expensive. Weigh your options and understand your market, because they can be a worthwhile investment when used right.
From starting your website to the occasional maintenance cost, your website can come with a hefty price tag. Not all websites need complexities. You will realize the more intricate your site is, the more expensive it is. Some agents can do a lot with little. Before you make a website, know what you want and build around this.
Business cards are how people remember your services after a meeting. The classic card stock is cheaper in comparison to a ritzy gloss stock. So, when it comes to deciding on business cards, know the message you want to send. Business cards help people remember you, so the style, design, and integrity of the card should compliment you.
One unspoken cost for real estate agents is the travel. Agents drive a lot. So, they will have to afford car insurance, gas, and car maintenance. If they don’t own a car, then they have public transit expenses. Additionally, there are plane tickets or other modes of transportation for national events, if applicable.
Open house expenses include signs, drinks, snacks, and other nice amenities. This budget category can be wide or small depending on what scene you want to set for open house visitors. Consider the cost of signs, though. Signage can burn a hole in your budget because of their unexpected price.
If you turn your house into your private office, then expect to pay office expenses. These vary from the internet bill to folder dividers depending on your office (and organization skills.) Some agents can avoid the recurring office expenses by working from their brokerage. Offices and work areas are sometimes provided to agents through their desk fee payments.
Every 4 years in California, you must renew your real estate license by completing a continuing education course and paying the renewal fee. This is because practices change in real estate — the renewal requirement keeps agents current with the industry. Total renewal cost is approximately $422.
A real estate agent continuing education course is required to renew your license. The curriculum requirements are 45-hours of studying and you must pass the online quizzes and final exams. CA Realty Training offers an online continuing education course that you can complete in as little as 6 days. Other programs vary in their accessibility, cost, and program.
To renew your license, you must provide proof of completing the continuing education course and pay the $350 fee for salesperson in California. Afterward, you don’t have to think about renewal for another 4-years. If you are late for the renewal, you could have your license suspended and the fee will increase. The late renewal fee is $525.
Without business expenses, the immediate fees to become a real estate agent in California range from approximately $1,486 to $2,099. Here is the full breakdown:
The cost of entry in real estate is a challenge for some people — jobs don't usually expect you to pay thousands of dollars to work. But this price tag pales compared to how much you can earn. With California's 2025 median home price around $786,107 (Zillow), an agent earning a 2.5% commission makes approximately $19,653 on a single transaction — more than enough to recoup all startup costs.
There are several ways you can finance the costs and fees to become a real estate agent. The real estate licensing charges is a small price to pay for the money you will earn as a real estate agent.
One reassurance is that these costs and fees are tax deductible. These fees will also pay for themselves within the first transaction you make. Also, you can supplement your income with a part-time job or you can save up the money working another job. Here are the way you can afford the fees to be a real estate agent:
As a real estate agent, you run your own business. You are an independent contractor. In other words, you are the CEO of yourself. So, the expenses you accrue to help you do business become business expenses.
Oftentimes, you can offset the fees and costs to be a real estate agent during tax season. Your business expenses become tax write-offs. They do not exist as expenses you financed once and forgot.
So, what qualifies these tax write-offs? They can be your pre-licensing education, brokerage fees, and business expenses.
The money you earn from your first commission check will make up for the money spent to become an agent. According to Zillow.com, the average home price in California for 2025 is $786,107. An agent, who earns a side 2.5% commission, will make $19,653.
The first transaction will finance the entry costs and then some. You can also put that money towards the business expenses that you start to accrue. The more real estate deals you close, the more your finances compound.
Learn more about how a real estate agent commission works.
Supplementing your income with a part-time job is a common way people become real estate agents. People who work as a part-time real estate agent have a guarantee of income. When you are a full-time agent, your only income stream is your ability to close deals. So, you can lessen the burden and the entry costs with another job.
The downfall of this is the time investment. As a part-time agent, you will have to focus on the quality of your hours over the quantity of your hours. In other words, you have to make the most of your time.
Now that you know the cost to be a real estate agent, you can make a savings goal. Anytime you make money, you can tuck away a bit as a nest egg. This will let you “go all in” on your education and career.
But, if you plan on working full-time, you should save money before pursing a real estate license. The recommended amount to save is at least 3-months worth of living expenses in addition to finance the fees to be a real estate agent. This will give you a healthy cushion that will finance your lifestyle in case you do not find a deal right away.
Money is a big conversation topic. The entry cost to be a real estate agent is high and the cost of a real estate license is only the start. From the outside looking in, it can seem the cards are stacked against you. The best thing to do is take it slow and be smart.
How you manage your money will determine your success. You can make this job work–even as a part-time agent. Be honest with yourself and make a business plan.
Now that you know the fees to be a real estate agent, the only thing left to do is to become one.
How much does it cost to get a real estate license in California?
Plan on about $622–$885 total: $150–$400 for pre-licensing school, $100 for the state exam application, $69–$79 for Live-Scan fingerprinting, and a $350 four-year license fee.
What are the yearly costs to keep a real estate license active?
Expect roughly $600–$900 per year — around $100 in brokerage desk fees plus $500–$800 for combined local board, state association, NAR dues, and MLS access.
How often do I renew my real estate license and what does it cost?
California salesperson licenses renew every four years. Budget about $422: a 45-hour continuing education course (~$72) and a $350 renewal fee. Late renewal costs $525.
Are real estate licensing fees and business expenses tax deductible?
Yes. As an independent contractor you can generally deduct pre-licensing education, exam and license fees, dues, marketing, travel, and other ordinary business expenses on your tax return.
How much should I budget for real estate business expenses in my first year?
Full-time agents often allocate $6,830–$12,880 for marketing, website, travel, open-house staging, and home-office costs, though actual amounts depend heavily on your individual business plan and market.
Will my first commission check cover the startup costs?
Very likely. With California's 2025 median home price around $786,000, a 2.5% commission yields about $19,650 — easily offsetting all initial fees and funding your future marketing budget.
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