Getting Your Florida Real Estate License

Getting a real estate license is a pretty straightforward process, and I will go over everything I have done and everything you have to do to get one.  Please be sure to double-check state requirements because they can change quickly!

1. Find a school, enter the school and begin taking lessons.  For a Florida Real Estate Sales Associate License, you will need to complete an approved 63 hour course. Please remember, not all schools are equal!

2. After you have started the course, you should complete the application and the electronic fingerprinting. The fingerprinting is a bit expensive, 57 bucks!  You can schedule it online and you should be able to find a place that does it fairly close to your home.  Get this done as soon as you send in your application, because the DBPR will NOT start processing it until they get the electronic fingerprint.  You shoulld send the application by certified or registered mail (you can also deliver it electronically), and don't forget to enclose the application fee to the DBPR (Division of Business and Professional Regulation).

3. Complete the prescribed 63 hour course and take the course exam with at least a 70% score.

4. After you receive the approval to take the state exam (which is a notice from Pearson Vue, the testing agency), you can or log into the Pearson Vue site to schedule an exam date.  The reply from pearson vue takes between 2 and 6 weeks, but I got mine about 3 weeks after I sent in my application.  

5. Complete and PASS the state exam.  You need to get at least 75% on the test to pass.  Right after you take the test at the Pearson Vue center, they will give you your results and if you pass, CONGRATULATIONS!  You can start to look for a broker to work for, or if you have one already, just bring the document from Pearson Vue to them and you can get to work!

My Decision to Become a Real Estate Professional
I first decided to become a real estate agent when I was in Japan about 2 years ago.  I figured that the real estate market always goes up and down and if I timed it right, I could get in when it was just starting to recover and make some real $$$!

Of course, I had some roadblocks ahead of me:

First of all, I was still working in Japan and had no idea of when or where I would re-enter the US.

Secondly, besides helping my mother show apartments in her business, I didn't really know what to do.. I mean, do I just join a broker or just start selling houses, what do I do?

So after planning my (hopefully) glorious return to the great US of A, I entered Orlando international and began living with my brother in the country while I planned my career.

I finally decided on a school, RealEstateExpress.com (an ad for them is below) and started studying.  The course itself was pretty interesting, you become more knowledgeable about everything from renting to real estate investment. Some of the topics can be frustrating to study for, especially the different legislation affecting real estate.  For instance, the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) RESPA (Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act) and so forth, but you really have to know this stuff backwards and forwards if you want to be confident about passing the test. 

Anyway, about why I decided to become a RE agent.  In my mid twenties, I decided that I wanted to be rich, or as close to it as possible.  Life is a very wonderful thing and its even better if you have the freedom to buy and do what you want.  I figured that I wanted to do something that I'm pretty good at and that is very rewarding.  Previously, I have done a lot of different sales, as well as construction and administrative jobs.  The most rewarding job for me was construction, because you feel the progress and to make something that sits strong and tall for all to see is a tribute to humanity's progress.  So I figured real estate investment and development would be really satisfying and rewarding financially in the long term.  So here I am, on my way to the big bucks!  Below I will tell you in detail about getting your license and finding a broker and making money.  Check it out!


Florida Real Estate License Courses

Finding the Right School and Joining

Here is where you start spending money.  Get used to it!  You have to pay for everything when becoming an RE professional!

You will spend money not only the school, but on school supplementals, practice tests, etc.  Then you pay for the application, fingerprint fees, testing fees, then the professional organizations' fees!  I tried to keep my expenses at a minimum, and I'll tell you how I went about it.

When choosing a school, I was mostly concerned about the price and the ease of taking it.  I wanted to do it from home and online. So after 'window shopping, I joined realestateexpress.com.
I picked realestateexpress.com primarily because of the cost, it was very reasonable, and they gave me 6 months to do the course, which is important.  I completed the course on nights and weekends (well, some weekends) in less than 5 months.  It was very easy to do.  I kept over 3 spiral notebooks and ended up filling 2 and a half of those large notebooks full of notes.  The course was very informative, the only thing I didn't really like about it is that there were many other links in the course to a huge amount of Florida and Federal Law.  I didn't know what exactly to study, because to study it all would probably take 20 years!  But other than that, it was great!

Now, some would say its better to spend between 400 to 500 bones on an in-class school that lasts from 1 to 2 weeks, so you can get it over with and take the exams before you forget everything... well, that's fine, if you don't have to work at another job and someone's paying for you to go.  For folks that have to support themselves, you might want to shop around, there are a lot of online courses available. 

Anyway, I picked the school and paid the fee.  When I applied for the school, I had to fill out premilinary information that would be matched with my application and sent electronically to the DPBR.  Good luck!

Finishing Up The Course and preparing for the Course Exam !IMPORTANT!

It took me about four and a half months to finish all of the units doing them at night and on some weekends, so I knew that stuff I learned at the beginning of the course I might've forgotten.  So I developed a strategy to review the course, study, then pass the test the first time.  THIS IS IMPORTANT!  If you fail the course exam, you have to wait a month to re-take it!  Also, some courses expire after 6 months, so you should leave yourself PLENTY of time to study and retake if you have to, otherwise, you'd have to pay for it again!  Finally, if you fail the course exam the 2nd time, you have to wait a year to retake and have to take the course all over again, so it just makes the best sense to study well and pass the exam on the first try.  Here is what I did to ACE the course exam:

1.  I went back to the beginning of the course and just took the quizzes, without looking or studying or anything.  After each quiz, I wrote down the missed questions, my answers and the correct answers for later review.  I did this for each quiz and also for the practice exam in the textbook.

2.  I studied JUST the concepts/units that I did badly in or missed (usually it shows that there's some concept that I misunderstood).  I took notes on all of that and studied it again.

3.  I re-read all of my high-lighted notes from the printed sheets from FL and Federal Law and Real Estate/Financial Institutions.

4.  I started the course again from the beginning, just reading and studying the notes, and simultaneously made seperate study guides for:

         Organizations, Financial Institutions, Vocabulary terms, Legislation, and RE Law.

I think this helped me pass it more than anything else.

5. I took and aced all of the review quizzes and then closed the books and shutdown the pc.

6. I studied just the study guides for about 3 days right before I went to bed and then 2 weeks after I started my review,

I PASSED THE COURSE EXAM ON THE FIRST TRY!  Good luck!