career prospect for estate agent
 

hi all,
my boyfriend and i will be moving to Canada next year...he is an estate agent in England, what is the job market like for an estate agent over there? Is it relatively easy to get into the field over there? Any input would be helpful, thanks!

Re: career prospect for estate agent
 

Hi There,
not an expert on this and I'm sure some folk already in Canada will be able to shed a bit more light on the matter, but a wee bit of info I can pass on is that you have to qualify and take a Realtor exam, our Realtor(estate agent) in Nova Scotia was explaining that you must pass the exam before you can work as a Realtor in Canada! I'm sure you could get a bit more info on this and how much it costs if you try Google...maybe :o

Re: career prospect for estate agent
 

It's fairly easy, you see the big companies recruiting all the time. as Tony said, you have to sit the exam after doing a 3 week course. It cost just under $1500 for the course and exam but they tell you that you need $3500 to get started.
PM if you want more details, i have all the links to essential websites.
HTH

Re: career prospect for estate agent
 

Hi Webgirl.

Best to get info from CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) they are the national body for the industry and have plenty of useful info on their site.

To practice real estate anywhere in canada you have got to be licenced by you desired Province's Real Estate commission. It varies from Province to Province regarding how hard the exam is and also how much it costs. It cost me about $1500 (three week course followed by a three hour exam) in Nova Scotia but then there are costs related to membership of the local association and MLS, the Provincial and National multiple listing services.

In my opinion its a better system here. If its an MLS list (which most are) you are advertising your property for other Realtors to sell and splitting the commission between buyer agent and selling agent.

Re: career prospect for estate agent
 

that sounds promising, thanks for the response. I have PM both of BH PNP and Andy_Sheila to get more info...i hope the job market is not that hard to get into...will start doing my research now.
Thanks everyone!!

Re: career prospect for estate agent
 

Out here in BC it's longer than 3 weeks, and actually it's a correspondence course, but faily tough. My advise to you - as someone who works in real estate but on the legal end of things - is to go into commercial real estate. It takes longer to get established, but that's where the money is, and fewer people go into commerical so not so many after the same piece of the pie.

Re: career prospect for estate agent
 

NS course can be taken as a correspondence course and it's $200 ish cheaper, not a big market for commercial i suspect though unless your'e in Halifax and even then i don't think turnover would be that great. From what i have learn't, there is more than enough money to be earned just in domestic sales.

Re: career prospect for estate agent
 

i seem to recall you have to be resident for 1 year before you can practice, at least in ontario..