Originally Posted by Yorkieabroad

Lol - starting to see why you're looking for a change in career from management consultant....

OK - will take it (almost*) back on topic with the realtor thing - check out your local real estate licensing board, whatever it is - in Texas its TREC. They will have all the education and experience requirements you need to get into the business.

I looked into it a few years back as I do quite a bit of real estate and I was looking for easy access to the MLS to try to save some costs.

Round our way, you become a salesperson first (classroom/exam route) then have to have 4-5 years experience working "in a brokers office" plus quite a few hours more classroom/exam time before you can call yourself a Broker. From memory, it was something like 400 classroom hours to become a salesperson and another 400 to become a Broker. If you didn't have an accredited degree, that second chunk of 400 becomes something like 1000 hours. I have an MBA in marketing that should have got me around that second chunk, but as it was from a UK school, I needed to get the transcripts "translated".

At the end of the day, I wasn't looking to build a new career and wasn't prepared to put in the hours again (at the time I had was an NAEA member in the UK), plus the 4-5 years just for "personal" MLS access, so I didn't go that way.

From talking to a friend who is a Broker, the definition of "working in an office" is quite, erm, flexible - he takes people on on a "supervisory" basis, lets them use his office and takes a massive chunk of any commission they manage to generate. Not a period for getting rich by all accounts!

*if you do go that way, don't fall into the trap of assuming that the marketing of a realtors services can be achieved in the same manner as the company selling air duct/carpet cleaning/oil changes. Get some professional marketing help. Or montor the effectiveness of the campaigns of the office you tie to- maybe in some markets the blind mailshots do work.

Originally Posted by Michael

...since most expenses plus a home office can be written off as a business expense.

Originally Posted by Bob

But it's got to be dedicated home office space, it can't just be a desk/computer at the end of a living room.

Originally Posted by njmackem

I just do not suffer fools lightly, and have been known to be brutally blunt with almost everyone, but in a way that has always worked well for me.

Originally Posted by njmackem

I just do not suffer fools lightly, and have been known to be brutally blunt with almost everyone, but in a way that has always worked well for me. I hope that I did not offend anyone.