Tina McAllister asked:




Are you a Mom interested in entering the real estate industry? If you’ve ever pondered jumping into real estate, you want to have a good idea of what kind of costs you will incur as you start your business. Because there are costs involved in becoming a licensed agent.

First and foremost, you will have to pay for schooling. You probably have some options in terms of where (online vs. offline) and their respective pricing. But you will still have to pay. You’ll be looking at anywhere from $250 to $800 for the licensing classes.

There are a few instances where brokers may pay for your education. Especially if you are currently working in the industry in some capacity and your boss wants you to become licensed. In that situation, you should definitely get your employer to foot the bill. Some brokers even have their own school where tuition will be refunded if you sign with them as a licensee.

And don’t forget to ask the school (whether online or offline) if there is any tuition assistance available. For example, active duty military can typically get discounts or assistance. It never hurts to ask. There’s a lot of competition out there. In fact, some online schools will beat out their competition’s price by 10% if you show them the numbers. So it pays to do a little legwork in order to save a few bucks on the schooling.

Another cost that you won’t be able to shake is the state exam and the state license. Each state has an exam you will be required to take and pass before a license will be issued to you. Exam fees can range from $25 to $200 but can also include other fees, such as the state license, so it’s important to understand what is included. Each state has a department of real estate website, or at least one page dedicated to professional licensing and all your education, exam and fee requirements will be found there.

Additional up-front costs can include fingerprinting and background check fees. Again, this information may be found at your state’s department of real estate website.

But what about after you have the license in hand? When you interview brokers and decide where to hang your license, you will find that each broker is different in terms of what you can get and what is expected of you. Many will expect you to attain membership in the local Association of REALTORS and the fees associated with that will also gain you membership into the state and the national associations as well. But you may have to fork out anywhere from $100 to $200 for the annual fees. Not only will this provide you entry into the largest professional association in the nation, but it will also provide you access to the MLS, also known as the Multiple Listing Service. This is important, as most homes for sale and rent can be found in your regional MLS.

Other start-up costs can be business cards and signs. There are ways to cut costs. You can have some temporary cards made inexpensively online through websites such as VistaPrint. And the same is true of signage. With a little bit of searching you can save $20-$100 on your initial order of signs by just looking around online.

You will also need a lockbox key. This will run you somewhere between $80-$120. This is the gadget that will allow you access to homes with keys kept in lockboxes. This is pretty much a must-have. And if you plan on working with sellers, you will want at least one lockbox in your inventory. This will also run about $80-120. But it’s good to have on hand so you’re ready when a client is listing his home with you.

Starting up a career in real estate isn’t expensive, but it does take some money. You’ll want to budget at least $500 to $1000 to begin your real estate business, but if you think of it as an investment towards a long and successful business, it’s well worth it!

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Damien Senn asked:




So you have entrepreneurial aspirations, but you’re stuck in a job working for someone else. You wake up, commute to work, work hard, pay your bills and then come home exhausted. You repeat the pattern for another four days, becoming increasingly tired as the week progresses. By the time Friday night comes around you are absolutely shattered requiring every second of your weekend just to recover! And just as you start to feel as if you have your life back, your alarm clock goes off on Monday morning, you drag your feet out of bed and you repeat the cycle. Does this scenario sound all too familiar? Is this the way you want to spend the rest of your working life?

Controlling your thoughts.

So how do you start to break this monotonous existence? You do so with a single thought. It is said that each one of us has 60,000 thoughts a day, 55,000 of which were exactly the same thoughts as we had yesterday. So I am going to place a simple thought in your mind right now;

” You have the potential to create a profitable business that you are truly passionate about, that fulfils you creatively and that delivers a lot of good in the world. “

If that message resonates with you, you may like to re-read it and hold the thought in your mind for a second time. Really try and experience the meaning in this message. Not just intellectually but emotionally as well. You may also like re-think this thought again tomorrow. And if it feels good tomorrow, you may like to add it to your habitual thoughts.

Give your new thought some support.

Once you have held the thought of running your own business in your own mind and you are comfortable with it, you need to start expanding the dynamics of the thought. Ask yourself the following questions

? What sort of business would you like to run?

? Would it be a full time business or just a part time one?

? What would you call it?

? How much time would you like to devote to it?

? Who would be your target market?

? Who can you get involved to help you get it started?

Take some action.

Once you have a few answers for the questions above, you’ve got to take some action straight away! Start off small. Get some business cards printed up (vistaprint.co.uk will give you 250 colour business cards for free!) and you may also like to register a web site domain name (you can register web names from as little as ?2.59 per year through 123-reg.com). Once you’ve got the ball rolling you can start thinking about the bigger action steps that you will need to take.

Seek out other business people.

Take a look at your social network. If all your friends and family are employees, chance are any conversations about work will be about the 9-5 grind. If this is the case, start adding a few small business people to your social network. Buy them lunch, ask them questions about how they started out in business. I am sure that you will find plenty of inspiration as well as some words of advice about how to run a business. You may also like to consider joining up with groups so you can network with like minded individuals (Toastmasters is excellent start and for online Networking check out ecademy.com)

The most important consideration.

One of the most important things to consider when setting up a business is to choose a business that you are passionate about. There are so many different ways you can make money so you might as well do something that excites you.

Copyright Damien Senn 2005. All rights reserved.

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