March 28th, 2011 
Vijaianand Many of friends were puzzled after hearing my recent action about passing yet another exam. That’s right, I took the Real estate Salesperson license exam and passed with flying colors last weekend. Being an IT guy, they know that I already went out of the league to clear the CFP exam inthe first attempt and now Real estate license exam. What’s going with this guy? Is he going crazy by just taking exam after another?
I did answer few of them but decided to post this blog so it might also help others out there who is thinking about making a career change or add more feathers to their hat to take a part time career when it gets tough in these hard economic times.
Real Estate Investing
I started my real estate venture in 2007 when I bought my first rental property. I am well experienced as an investor and part time rental property owner by taking on all sorts of issues with my property staring from fixing problems, hiring handymands to evicting the tenants. After all that, I bought my another property last year and currently both of them are paying themselves with few issues now and then.
With this rental propert experience, I been encouraging and mentoring few of my friends to invest on rental property. Few of them already invested and reaping the rewards of the current good real estate investors market.
Why do I need Real estate license?
With this sound background in real estate and CFP knowlege, I thought why don’t I start putting the dots and dots together. That way I can help out people in setting their financial house in order and also assist them buying their new home or invest in the rental properties to include in their portfolio.
In order to do that, I felt it’s better to have the real estate license so I can legitimately help the clients on their home search, negotiate offers for them and also get into property management in the future. Depending on the clients risk tolerance, I am planning to offer different strategies in real estate so it won’t be burden for them. That’s the whole idea behind getting yet another license so I will have flexibility to help people by doing things in the right way possible.
What are other benefits of having Real Estate Salesperson license?
At the same time, I figured there are other added benefits in having the real estate license.
1. When I buy another property for investing, as buyer’s agent I will save time sending offers quickly instead of depending another agent. Also I even get 3% buyers agent commission which can help with my closing.
2. I can also help friends and families by giving commission rebate who are either planning to buy new home or resale home . It is allowed in Texas if disclosed in papers. That might help with their closing as well.
3. Finally, I can also able to earn some commission out on purchasing investment properties for the clients even after giving some commission rebate.
It seems like lot of advantage to have the real estate license. As always there are two sides to a coin and so far I talked about the good things. But I didn’t talk about the other side. I came to know about expenses and other hassles related in getting and carrying a valid license which I will discuss in the later post.
BTW, I came to know if I need to practice my CFP before getting CFP certification as a independent planner I need to have Security 65 license. I also need to be registered with State and FINRA which is lot of paper work and more fees. So I havn’t decided about going through that route or find a way out. Don’t be surprised if you hear I am preparing for another exam.
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