John A. Yoegel - Real Estate License Exams For Dummies with Online Practice Tests

Real Estate License Exams For Dummies, 3rd Edition

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934015

ISBN 978-1-119-37065-9 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-37067-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-37066-6 (ebk)

So you want to become a real estate agent? Welcome to the book thats going to help you become one. Being a real estate agent is an extremely attractive career for many people. If you like looking at houses and other kinds of property and enjoy meeting and working with people, this job may be for you. Add to that having a flexible work schedule, essentially running your own business, and being rewarded for working hard and smart, and youve pretty much described a career in real estate sales.

Somewhere along the line, however, you discovered that real estate sales is a licensed occupation. Dont worry, though; I wrote this book specifically to help you get that license. Ready for the full scoop? Read on, you soon-to-be real estate agent.

Every state requires real estate agents to have a license to practice their occupation. Every state, at a minimum, also requires that you take and pass a state examination to get that license. Most states require more than just an exam. After youve made up your mind to become a real estate salesperson or broker (brokers licenses usually are obtained after youve spent time as a salesperson), you need to find out what the procedure is for getting your license in your particular state. Because most states have an educational requirement, I assume that you have to take a course before obtaining your real estate license.

So how does this book fit in with your education? I wrote it specifically with the idea of:

• Giving you material that is focused on the exam rather than general real estate practice.
• Providing you with an additional resource that contains explanations and examples of material that you may encounter in the classroom, in a textbook, or on the exam.
• Preparing folks in states that have no education requirements for their state exam.
• Providing practice exams with explanations of the answers to help you prepare for the exam.

As the title states, this book is designed to help you prepare for and pass the state exam. In it, I discuss a wide variety of topics, such as the basics of the job, different real estate laws, the details of owning and transferring property, and issues such as contracts, leasing, and environmental regulations. Think thats a lot? Well, I also cover everything you ever wanted to know about numbers stuff, from appraising property to calculating mortgages, taxes, and investments. And to pull it all together, each chapter contains review questions, and I provide four full-length practice exams (complete with answers and explanations) to help you get ready for the real thing.

If youre a regular For Dummies reader, you know that a For Dummies book takes a modular approach to giving you information. That means you can pretty much read a section or a chapter and get the information you need without necessarily reading the entire book. Thats true of this book, too. Although you certainly dont have to read the entire book to get what you need from it, its okay if you do. I also provide you with plenty of cross-references so you dont have to remember where related subjects are. And just like all For Dummies books, feel free to skip sidebars; they offer good reading material, but their content isnt covered on the exam. A few things Ive written about in this book are common to most chapters. Understanding them can help you get the most out of what you read and study and will prepare you for the exam because youll run into some of them there, too.

• I use the term real estate agent to mean anyone who holds some form of license to represent someone else for a fee in a real estate transaction. In most places, there are at least two levels of licensure: broker and salesperson. Some states have more than two. Unless Im referring to a specific type of license, I use the term real estate agent.
• The terms real estate and property are used interchangeably. Even though real estate has a technical definition that I give you in . It can also mean vacant land, but that is made clear as necessary.
• The term land usually means vacant land, or land without structures on it, but it may also be used as a reference to the land-only portion of a property that has a structure on it. For example, He bought a piece of land on which to build a house. Her house sits on very rocky land.