For years, I put off getting my real estate license UNTIL NOW!
I am happy to announce that I am now a licensed real estate agent with Waters Edge Realty.
However, this was not necessarily an easy choice, and I know that many real estate investors wrestle with whether or not to get their real estate licenses, so I thought I would explain my decision.
Why?
Let’s start with the obvious question–why did I do this?
It was ultimately a financial decision for our company, Duratus Properties. Because we do many transactions every year, it became increasingly apparent how many thousands of dollars we were “giving away” every year in broker commissions. So, it made the most financial sense for our company to have an agent “in-house” because it would save us THOUSANDS (probably hundreds of thousands) of dollars.
Additionally, as an investor, having access to the MLS will give me more control over lead generation and analysis for our company.
Finally, this will be one more way for me to help more people get into real estate investing, which is a passion of mine.
Of note, having an agent on our Duratus team and eventually having an in-house brokerage has been part of our business plan from Day 1, but it took several years to come to fruition.
Why Now?
6.5 years into the real estate industry, why did I decide to do this now?
The short answer is that there has been A LOT going on over the past 6.5 years, and the timing did not work until now.
Here’s a quick recap of some of the things I’ve been working on for the past 6.5 years:
- 2017 - Left the Active Duty Marine Corps
- 2017 - Started Graduate School at Georgetown (studying real estate)
- 2018 - Started Duratus Properties
- 2019 - Co-founded Freedom Ventures Property Management
- 2020 - Completed Graduate Degree in Real Estate
- 2021 - Had my first baby
- 2022 - Had my second baby
- 2023 - Surviving as a new mom and business owner
- 2024 - Finally, have the time and headspace to take the course, pass the test, and become a licensed real estate agent
What’s your plan?
My main objective for becoming a real estate agent is to be able to buy and sell all of our own deals for Duratus Properties (obviously).
However, I AM open to taking other listings and helping as many people as possible get into real estate.
Whether you want to own your own home or become an investor, real estate should be part of everyone’s portfolio, and I would love to help in any way I can.
My team and I have done well over 200 transactions over the past 6.5 years, so I am confident that we have probably personally faced many of the issues and challenges that can come along with real estate transactions. And if we haven’t, we certainly know who to call.
Are you worried about anything?
As a real estate agent, you have a fiduciary responsibility to your clients and must disclose pretty much everything. I was slightly worried about this before I began the process of actually becoming an agent.
However, after completing all my coursework, I am no longer concerned about this. I will always need to disclose when I am representing my company for a purchase or sale, but I stand firmly behind my company and all of our work, so I am not worried about it anymore.
In fact, I am interested to see if this disclosure matters to people or not. I will keep you posted….
Should you get YOUR license?
I’m too new to this role to provide an informed answer yet, so I will write an update in 6 months about how things are going.
However, I suspect the answer will be “it depends.”
As you know, real estate has been my full-time gig for the past 6.5 years. Luckily, I have a team around me, so I don’t feel that this added responsibility will be too heavy for me right now.
However, it might not be worth it if you are not a full-time investor or real estate professional. You need to put a substantial investment of time and money (there are about a million fees to become and remain a realtor) into becoming an agent, so it might make sense if you plan on doing a lot of transactions. However, if you are only doing 1-2 transactions per year, it might not make as much sense from a time and money perspective.
I will give my more informed opinion in 6 months.
In the meantime, start sending me your referrals ;)