Do I Stay Licensed Or Pursue Foreclosure Investing Full Time?
Hello All,
First I would like to say that this site is an amazing resource that I have found so far to be a very valuable economy of information. That being said I am a 25 year old from staten island who recently left a career on wall street as a financial planner to pursue the much more LUCRATIVE and Profitable forum of real estate. I am currently registered and licensed as a salesperson with a real estate brokerage in manahattan but have recently found out about the wonderful world of foreclosures. After doing some reading (2 books) I have began taking the steps neccessary to pursue this type of real estate investing however, I am curious to know if i should stay licensed or if my license could in fact limit what I can and cannot do legally and if in fact I need to tell anyone at my office if Im doing a deal? If any body has any information and could elaborate and give me some ideas and answers I would grealty appreciate the time and effort! I have put up a few ads which enabled me to put together a healthy buyers list of retail buyers and investors, started a mailing program to pre foreclosure list, called local real estate attorneys, Have a local title company, and I am ready to go and negotiate with a MOTIVATED SELLER! But I am curious to know what I should do about the license issue before I go ahead any further. Thank You for your consideration! 
[addsig]
The field of Real Estate Investing is a rather large table with many goodies upon it.
If you are unlicensed you can only do basic investing. You are a single entity and everything starts and stops with that capacity.
If you are licensed, you are going to be running into a continual stream of profitable activities that require the license.
For Example. You form a syndicate of five heavy hitters, flush with money and credit but not too hep in the field of Real Estate. You gather a mass of properties and the group decision is to liquidate and cash out. If you are licensed you can then change hats and become the employed broker and earn a commission on sale. True you must disclose that you have an interest, if you www.do.There is a tendency in the higher priced Syndicates to shove out the producer as normaly he has a small if any investment. That is one situation where the license is handy. I could go on for at least another 50 lines, but I think you get my point.
Erudicating Lucius
LARGEPROFITS,
Glad to meet you.
Lucius says:
"If you are unlicensed you can only do basic investing. You are a single entity and everything starts and stops with that capacity."
$Cash$ says:
I receive many emails from an individual to groups requesting my assistance and help as an investor looking to buy or looking to sell properties anywhere from $50K - $5M and up.
Just this past week I had a email from someone with a $2.4M piece of property for sale where the Realtors could not get the job done and they asked me for assistance.
I am not licensed nor do I intend to be. Licensing would only limit me to a pitance of what I can charge for putting a deal together as an investor.
You have already went the commission route, you did not like it with stocks you should have learned your lesson from that.
There is no information and I mean no information that a Realtor has that I cannot get, as a matter of fact I have trained a few who did not even know what was available to them to help them become better Realtors or Agents.
Now if my good friend Lucius would like to post the other 50 reasons, I am sure my counter would be more reasons not to keep your license than his would be for keeping it.
If you stand out as the person to see when the job needs to get done, then you will certainly realize those LARGEPROFITS wtihout a license.
I just figured someone should stand up for the creative investors side of thinking.
John $Cash$ Locke
There is nothing you can't do as an investor -without a license.
An investor can earn more money in one transaction than most licensees earn in a year. You can become more knowledgible about real estate investing than 99% of the brokers/agents.
The road to wealth and security via real estate investing. Real Estate people just work for tips.
as a licensed real estate agent you can become a realtor and gain access to the mls. The mls can be very useful for research purposes. For this reason alone I have considered and probably will become a real estate agent.
I think the benefits probably outway any drawbacks but its your choice.
demosthenes,
Glad to meet you.
You would need a little stronger argument than you get access to the MLS.
As you travel through your investing career ask about any investor using MLS to find deals how easy it is to get access to the MLS if they need it.
The MLS isn't a drop in the bucket to what serious investors use to find properties.
John $Cash$ Locke
Boy, this is a tough one. I am a licensed agent as well as an investor and have asked myself the same questions; should I keep my license or not? So, the answer, for me, is that I will keep it and use it when I can.
I use it to not only access the mls system, but to network with other agent at all the breakfast meetings, dinner parties etc.
Be aware that as a licensed agent or broker, you are held to a higher standard. If, in one of your deals, something somehow gets overlooked, and the other side complains or sues, guess who's side the law is on? There side because you are a licensed agent and therefor should know better than to let this happen. That's one big downfall, because even if something got by you ACCIDENTLY, it doesn't matter, you SHOULD know better and will be held accountable at a higher level.
Once again, on the other side, you can list and sell your own houses to recoup some of the negotiated price reduction.
It certainly is a dilemma that is a personal choice.
Think this through before you let your license go. You know what it takes to get it back. Good Luck!
Worf,
Glad to meet you.
Yes, there are two sides to every story and you were very professional in replying to your side of the story.
I would tend to disagree on one thing as far as the higher standard goes, the last Realtor Contract I looked at had more CYA material to protect the agent and Realtor written in than a Supreme Court Justice could read in a month.
The one about "if a shooting star should fall from the heavens and strike your house we are not responsible" is a little over the edge in my opinion.
John $Cash$ Locke
I tend to agree with John Locke in that, I feel I am being forced to learn different and more creative ways to locate properties and potential sellers, than if I were to just rely on the MLS. I think the MLS is ok for those who want to use it, but I also feel that the thrill of the kill is taken away when you resort to using things like that. I prefer to do this the hard way and become more of the Creative Investor.
I believe that this board presently have more current and former RE agents then the good size state board of realtors. What they all look to find here? They do look to find different ways of doing business because the one they hope will make them a lot of money doesn't work the way they believed it will.
In my traditional manner I would have to come from the other side of the problem.
Take for example a business school. Does it worth finishing a good business school? Once upon a time a Business School graduates form Harvard was guaranteed to make 100K plus. Today, over 40 % of them remain unemployed upon graduation WITH 200K in unpaid loans.
And why do you think this happens like that? It happens because the businesses are tired of paying for the impotent diplomas. They need deal makers and shakers that know how to make a deal. The same applies for CRE weather you have a licensee or not.
Down on WS (wall street) they teach newbies to be aggressive. They teach them to be analytic and they teach tem to go and succeed. if you went true this school, apply it on real estate and you can not go wrong. With or without license!