You need to be at least 18 years of age, and no high school diploma is required.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce is the regulatory body that oversees Real Estate licensing. If you indicate that you have any kind of criminal history on your application, they will initiate a “bureau of criminal apprehension” check and they will make a determination as to whether you will receive a license. People who commit armed robbery, or felonious assault, have been able to get their licenses with a condition of extra supervision. So even with a criminal background, you’re still able to get a license in many situations.

We’ve actually had people complete all 3 courses in 10 days, by doing a weekend, a weekday and a night class all at the same time! But we don’t promote that because it’s exhausting. If you were to go at a reasonable pace, doing our weekday class, you would be done with your courses 1, 2, and 3 in three weeks. If you were doing our weekend class, each course is four days, so it takes two weekends to complete each course. You would be able to get licensed in seven weeks. And if you were doing our evening classes, it would take you two months for you to complete your education.

No, it is actually quite straightforward. Agencies have people at their firms who do nothing but recruiting. Real estate agencies are always seeking new talent, especially with the marketplace being so strong right now, because there’s so much demand.

The sky’s the limit. It really is! It depends on how hard you want to work. The median income is in the $75,000 range – in other words, half of the agents make under $75K, the other half make more than $75K. If you put yourself out there and you work hard, a six-figure income really is possible. We’ve had many students who’ve left us and made over $1000,000 in their first year. So it’s true that whatever you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it.

Some agencies do work on a salary-based and performance based system. So they might give you a base salary, then based upon your reviews from clients, they may give you a bonus.

But most companies aren’t like that. Instead, you’ll receive a percentage of the sale price as your commission… This would be negotiated between the company and the agent. Each company has different fee structures.

To be successful, you’ll need perseverance, tenacity, and the ability to convince somebody that you’re a trustworthy person. Real Estate is a relationship-based business. When people ask us, “Do I have the ability to be successful?”, it really comes down to the individual person. It’s one thing to know how to execute contracts and fill in the blanks on legal forms. But when actually dealing with people, your people skills are crucial. Sometimes people will disappoint you and say no. So you need the perseverance to get back up, dust yourself off and keep going!

You’ll be making lots of phone calls, sending text messages and emails. You’ll start by calling your friends and family and letting them know that you can help with their real estate transactions. You’ll ask if they know somebody who wants to buy or sell a house – all of this is referred to as “prospecting”. You’ll want to update your website, your Facebook and other social media accounts, to reflect the current status of what’s going on in the market, and remind people that you’re in real estate.

Then as you have business coming in, you’ll be going out on showings. When you’re working with a buyer, you’ll be going into properties, sometimes vacant and sometimes occupied. Once they decide on a property they want to own, you will spend a couple of hours with them executing a contract.

If you’re working with a seller, you might go out to their house, walk through it with them, telling them where they should move their furniture and, and what rooms need repainting. You’ll tell them what price they should list their house at, based on the sales in the neighborhood. And then you’ll start marketing the listing.

So it really comes down to that first step, which is the most important one: prospecting for business regularly.

An agent is a person who lists and sells houses, or helps people rent. A broker is someone who supervises those sales agents and can also do real estate transactions themselves. The agent has what is officially called a Salesperson license. You must work with an agency for three years in Minnesota as an agent. After that, you can take a broker class, take the broker’s exam, and then become your own broker. Until then, you must be supervised by a broker.

Absolutely. Most of your clients are working eight to five as well, and they want to see properties on evenings and weekends. So you can book your appointments to happen on your way home, or you can show houses over the weekends.

In Minnesota, one real estate license allows you to do residential (single family, two-, three-, and four-family housing), as well as commercial property sales and leasing (industrial sites, agricultural land, property development, property management). So one license enables you to do all types of real estate transactions, from helping someone rent a house all the way up to selling that skyscraper in downtown Minneapolis.

When you join the realtor association, the cost will be about $500 a year. MLS access is typically about $30/month. While these fees are pretty standard across the board, the brokerage fees will vary from one firm to the next, and even from one franchise to another.

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