I am not sure @artloversplus is correct. I think in the past you could bypass the agent experience with a BA in any subject. If I understand correctly the requirement now is that one must have a major or minor in real estate to be exempt from the two year agent requirement.
For our family business we have looked into my D getting a brokers license to save on some large commissions that might be coming down the road. From what we have researched she would have to get a agents license and work under a broker full time for 2 years to qualify to sit for the broker exam. D has a BS but not in Real Estate. This is for licensing in state of California.
@mom60 I think you might be right, the rules must have been changed. I don’t have a degree in Real Estate, in year 2000~2001 when I applied to my RE broker license, I did not need a degree in RE.
well, cb is fully qualified for a broker license as she is an experienced flipper.
@artloversplus- I think the rules changed a couple of years ago. Thank you for your research and the link. I don’t know if my D can qualify but I know my H could or they can work on her gaining experience that would qualify her.
Regarding the RE Broker’s license tests, it is funny that they are just about as difficult as the Agent test. There is no reason any educated person who can understand English well should not pass easily.
artloversplus’ link says:
This link ([Requirements to Apply for a Real Estate Broker License](Requirements to Apply for a Real Estate Broker License - DRE)) says:
So even if you can bypass the 2 years of working as an agent with other experience, you still need to take hundreds of hours of college courses before you can even take the test.
The for profit educational real estate school “a private real estate school which has had its courses approved by the California Real Estate Commissioner” has a way to “expedite” the process. If there is money, there is a way. 
In my license renewal on Jan 2017, I am supposed to take 45 hours of “courses” but in reality, it took me about 2 hours in total online to “pass” all the courses, including all the quizzes and the final exam. It is worth that $30 dollar extra.
@coralbrook: Why are you saying “never again” to do the kind of flip you just did? Too big a project? Too risky financially? Other??
I think she was saying never again to building from the ground up. Is that what you mean in post 6234 @VeryHappy
Too much risk, takes too long, not appreciated by buyers. Too much money goes behind the covers and not enough left to really Wow with the finishes.
This particular lot is not a smart deal. The seller wants $850,000 for the lot and the approved plans. The approved plans are not utilizing the lot to its highest value… not capturing the views the best that it can. They have 2 stories built on the low part of the lot and only 1 story on the high part (back part on alley) to get the best views to the northern coastline. I would want to redesign and then have to resubmit the plans again.
My estimate to build the entire house from scratch is $450,000 to $500,000 based on my experience. I am not the best at cost containment for the construction portion of the building. I think the finished product will sell for possibly $1.4 million because it is a much smaller lot and location is not as special as the one I just finished.
They can’t build two stories on the high part perhaps the soil test would not allow them to do it unless deep piling is required and that will be very costly. I won’t pay $850 to build a 1.4 million dollar house, it does not make any sense. My neighbor bought a parcel on steep slope for $100 and he thought he had the kill. The house he built was eventually sold for $850 but he said he lost money because the deep piling and the carrying cost killed the profit.
There would be no deep piling required because it is not a steep slope lot. Just gradual grade, similar to the lot I just built on.
Why do some land sellers think that a lot with a plan for a house is worth more than just the land. To me, those plans are worthless unless they match my preference. We looked at one lot that came with a plan… wait for it… for a 6,000 sft home. Double the size of our current home! No thanks. The seller insisted that there was a lot of value in the plan. Nope.
Final Story
As you are all interested in how I got from listing on Dec 7 to the sale on Feb 1st.
When we first started my agent was insisting on $1,940,000 and I felt it was way too high. Just before we listed on the MLS, we both spent a lot of time running very detailed comparable sales. My agent was including properties in the more desireable Sunset Cliffs area and she came up with a higher value. I told her we could not use those comparable sales because the values are different in that neighborhood. In the end she came up with $1,890,000 as her price and I came up with $1,820,000 as my expected value. We agreed on $1,849,000 for asking price.
We always hold off with our final pricing until the staging happens and the photos are done. The photos help us gauge how we feel about the house and how it will look out on the market. We both were so excited about the final product we just couldn’t contain ourselves. I thought the living room would sell the property immediately. So, I gave in and let her price it at $1,879,000.
As you know, we had an incredible amount of interest in the property. 42 local agents at Broker Caravan… all of them gushing over the house and the remodel. Lots of ‘I have a client for this’. Of all those local agents, only 2 brought any clients for showings over the next couple of weeks. A lot of them called to make appointments, but then couldn’t get their clients pinned down so they had to cancel the showing.
Then we had 60 people through the public Open House. Of those, three were serious buyers. One was the guy in the middle of a divorce who wanted to Lease to Own. Another couple came back for a 2nd showing and decided the layout wasn’t right for their family because the bedrooms were all separated out. The 3rd was the extended family who came back for a 6:30am showing and backed out because of airplane noise.
Then we had several other buyers come through for 1 or 2 showings and eventually back out because of airplane noise.
I had given myself 21 days to be patient at our asking price. By then I knew we had gone through all of the buyers in the price range and would need to sit and wait for new buyers to enter the market. I had analyzed the other recent sales in the price range and 21 days was average market time for properties that were priced correctly.
At 21 days I was very close to lowering the price. When you are at that high dollar, a price reduction has to be significant to drum up any new interest. But then we knew we had a buyer that had come through twice. Also, we met this buyer and did a full walkthrough with him. This buyer had sold his home in Mission HIlls (4,000 sq ft gorgeous home) and was living in a temporary one bedroom apartment while searching for a home. So, we knew he was a serious buyer. He is single, but brought his fiancee through all the showings. They are looking for a home to start a family.
The buyer is a pediatrician and was covering the holiday period for his group practice. He was really busy at the hospital covering the baby deliveries. First offer came in at $1,775,000. I thought we were just not going to be able to come to price but he was a highly qualified buyer with a huge cash down payment. He also was willing to close in less than 30 days. This means that we did not have to worry about a bank appraisal coming in lower than sale price. The large down payment mitigated that contingency.
We returned a counter offer at $1,815,000 (very close to my value). He sat on it for over 3 days. The counter offer had expired and we were not hearing back from the buyer’s agent. During this time period his agent was out of town in Chicago (Chicago always seems to be involved somehow??) so he asked my agent to take him through the house again. Finally we heard back verbally that they were sticking to their original price and they kept complaining about no AC, and having to do their own landscaping in back yard and the closets. Agent sent a link to Redfin value of the property (Zillow and Redfin values just are not accurate in this type of neighborhood) which was $1,771,000.
At this point we suddenly had serious interest from 2 other buyers. So, I held out for a couple of days to see if any offers would be submitted. Although we kept having serious interest and showings, nothing was really materializing. So, we went back verbally and asked if he could meet us at $1,795,000 and I negotiated a lower real estate agent commission with buyer’s agent and several other things in the terms. I knew the buyer’s agent would agree to a lower commission because she had commission from his $1,900,000 sale in Mission HIlls.
Pins and needles for 3 days as he was ‘working a lot’ and then we had agreement! In the end I am only $25,000 off what I felt the value of the house was. And, we had a very strong buyer who was going to close fast. My agent had a talk with his lender and they assured that he was pre qualified and the main documents had already been submitted and reviewed (such as income, etc).
He was very picky through the inspection process, but that is to be expected.
Here is the house that he sold in Fall 2016. Gorgeous home. I’m wondering if he is bringing all that furniture to the new home??? Zillow doesn’t have the photo of the master closet but it is HUGE, and check out the wine cellar.
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I have loaded the final photo for this project The day the roof opened up and I was so excited to finally see what the views would be like from top floor. The best day of the project
Now back to reality… there is a big poop issue over at Flip #6 that I have to deal with this morning. All the sewer lines are backed up and toilets overflowing. Need to get emergency drain clearing.
Redfin has a picture of the master closet. Holy cow.
https://ssl.cdn-redfin.com/photo/48/bigphoto/944/160047944_19_2.jpg
I wonder why he decided to move, that house is pretty amazing. His new house is pretty much the same price as the old one, so it’s not like he banked a lot of money.
Holy cow is right. That is a gorgeous home
He bought the home for $1,650,000 in 2013 so he made a good chunk on apprecication
He banked $165,000 between the two, except not really because he had to pay commission on that sale. He disclosed to me when we were walking through my project that the house was built into a slope and there were huge drainage issues that he had to fix to the tune of $17,000. That is why he was very concerned about the lot drainage at my project.
Super nice! I’ve seen bigger closets, but that one is so well organized.
Wow. That’s some house. That first photo, from the bottom looking up at it, with all the lights on, is a stunner.
I like the house but think it is kind of stuffy for a younger guy. I think his new place is much “cooler”.