side biz - real estate agent or broker?

[obi_wang]

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However, you could get your license and when someone you know is looking to buy or sell, you can refer the clients and collect 25-30% each time with minimal effort!

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This is kind of what i had in mind...

and then when i am ready to purchase for myself in the future, it would be also a big benefit to have my license and some knowledge/experience.

[PanchoVilla]

Here is my input as someone who is doing this.

You must have a flexible day job. If you can't leave for 1-2 hours when you need to to meet an inspector, or present an offer or something this will never work. So you need to be able do things like come in to work at 10 and then work late, or come in early and leave at 3pm, or take a 2 hour lunch from time to time.

You will probably not be able to handle more than two clients at the same time. If you have two clients, you will have ~0 freetime. You will be likely doing things for one or the other 5 nights a week and on both weekend days as well.

You will do far fewer transactions. You must be an extremely fast learner, and you have to have the right office situation. You will need escrow coordinator, and people you can run things by and ask lots of questions especially for the first several transactions. Several new situations come up on almost every transaction at the beginning.

I have gotten every single client from a personal referral. That is my focus, I have never done any paid advertising. Not even mailers. If you have a large local social network of people that know you and are comfortable with you level of knowledge that will be a big help.

This is not the best way to approach this business, FT is the way to go, but if you can find a place that is setup the right way then it might work. My inital plan was to do this PT for a year or so, but I think having seen the level of competition, I will likely continue PT for a couple years until my wife is more established, and we have a bit more money in the bank so I can potentially have lower income for up to 2 years. For me personally the license is useful in other ways too as I am getting started with my own RE investing as well.

Pancho

[RobertHunter]

I will share my opinions with you as someone who has been selling real estate since 1995 and a REALTOR since 1996.Selling general real estate is not something you can do very effectively if you only do it part-time. Would you use a part-time attorney? If you are interested into getting into real estate here are a couple options. You might want to look into selling new homes on-site for a builder or developer. The builder typically pays for all costs and you just receive a check at closing(or sometimes at each draw). They typically need people to work weekends so you could keep your job and sit at a model home on the weekends. When I did this in 1995 you did not need a real estate license to sell at a model home, check the laws in your state. I did this for 1 year before starting to sell general real estate at a brokerage. If you go this route make sure to get your compensation amounts put in writing, do not take their word that you will get paid "x" number of dollars for each deal, tell them to put it in writing. Another option for you to get started is to find an agent in your area that is looking for an assistant/buyers agent. They can refer buyers to you and you can work with them on the weekends and evenings. Most of your established agents typically concentrate on getting listings so it should not be that hard to find 1(or more) agents who would be happy to refer their buyers to you. It will honestly be near impossible for you to work with seller's as a part time agent. At the minimum you must be always available for your seller's and also it takes a lot of money to advertise listings. I answer my cell phone 9am-9pm 7 days a week and just 1 of my monthly full page ads cost $450. each month. I was fortunate to be able to start at the age of 25 and at the time my wife had a good 9-5 job with benefits(she is now a full-time REALTOR). Selling general real estate is a lot like poker "It is a hard way to make a good living". Oh yeah, the part about choosing your own hours really does not apply, you will have to be available whenever their is work to be done. I hope this helps and fell free to pm me if you'd like.(sorry for no paragraphs)