There is an ongoing debate about whether having a real estate license will benefit you as a real estate investor.
You do not need to be a Realtor to invest in real estate. However, having a real estate license can only benefit you’re business.
Transcript:
Viktor Jiracek 00:00
When it comes to the realtor thing, let’s say a lot of the people listening here like beginners. Is that something you’d recommend, like “hey, like first step. Get your Realtors license?” Or do you think that’s like a more advanced thing, I just let love to hear your thoughts on that.
Chris Bounds 00:13
You do not need a real estate license to succeed. I mean, you’re not licensed. You seem to be doing very well. To kind of fast forward through my beginnings, 2004, 2005. I’m still in college, did four deals. I didn’t have a license, I utilize the resources available and worked with some pretty sharp people who know what they’re doing, to get to those, get those deals get paid. Fast forward, 2011.
I got married, still not licensed as an agent. I have a full time job. I’m a sales agent selling vacations online. From 2011 through 2014, I’m not licensed. Now in 2014, somewhere in there I do finally get licensed. It had been something I’d always planned on doing. But this was the kicker, a local, they call them the legend in Houston. Because he’s he literally flipped like 2000 houses, you said two hundreds amazing just had an extra zero like 2000.
Then on top of that he was a hard money company and they’ve loaned on way more than 2000. I forget what that number is. He’s got his hand and a lot of deals. And he told me-I’d asked him like, this was my strategy, going to networking meetings. I always tell new folks, this-if you’re going to go to a networking meeting, pick several, go to them consistently throughout the month, every single month, find the host or someone of that you know, successful and bring one question, just one because you don’t want to bug them.
Just one question that you’ll ask them, and then you’ll over 12 months, you accumulate a lot of wealth of knowledge. That’s what I did. Then this was , I was at the meeting, I asked him, “hey, what do you think about getting your real estate license? “ And he told me, I paraphrase something that was like effect of, if you want to be a professional in this business, you need to get a license.
It’ll never hurt you. It can only add value. At that point, I just needed to make a decision. Do I really want to be a professional in this business? And I did. I chose to get my license. Now whether you personally get it with a business partner or a spouse that gets it instead. You know, all that can be done. Not required to be successful, but, it can only add value. That’s my opinion. That’s one of my unofficial mentors opinion. That’s kind of how I answered that question.
Viktor Jiracek 02:58
I like the advice as well, when you go to -house, like three or go to multiple times to see a lot of people they show up once like, “oh, you know, it wasn’t helpful.” But you get a lot more value, meet more people, the more you go, and the bigger you build your network. I want to dive deeper into what you said there. It can’t hurt you. It can only help you. What are some of the ways I can actually help you?
Chris Bounds 03:19
Well, let’s get back to the ways that people think it can hurt you. That’s the number one reason why or not the number one reason. Most people who say I don’t want to get my license because and that because is I don’t want to disclose. Am I okay? Well, what do you don’t want to disclose? That you’re a real estate agent? Because you would have to do that , is that bad? Because this is what I say, I’m licensed by the state of Texas, if I had a background check, I’m not some guy who took a weekend boot camp and is just trying to tie up a property and steal your equity. I say that.
Now, landmines do a lot of people is probably calling them and I put a little bug in their head. That’s not really an excuse. Now, what really people are talking about is, I would have to disclose value. And my response to that is, of course defects and all this other stuff is one for defects. Just because you’re not licensed, you’re not like you still have to disclose that. Like if you own a property.
And so you know this, you have to give a seller’s disclosure according state laws and federal laws to the end buyer. And I had just just like a week ago, someone telling me that because they weren’t licensed. They didn’t have to do that. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, like, that’s how you get sued. Like, not only me is a flipper, I get it from the buyers. I mean, from the sellers that I’m buying properties from, I’m making them fill that out, because that’s cya. And then I’m gonna take that and I’m gonna fill out my own to the end buyer.
And then sometimes I’ll give them both. I’ll give them a copy I got from my buyer and the new and double cya. So you have to disclose that. But beyond that, I think that one of the biggest concerns people have is disclosing value. And my argument to that is like one like, if you really want to be kind of like shady where you are stealing people’s equity because they really truly are ignorant, they do not know. Okay, then maybe you don’t want to be or most people know anyway, they know their home is worth a lot more than they’re selling it to you.
They just don’t want to do the work. Like they know if they put in 50 grand and replaced all the flooring and got it like from 1960s to 2020 quality. They could sell that and they know the markets hot. Anyone who is like got any type of connection with social media or has looked at the newspaper lately. No, the real estate market is hot right now.
They know that they do sell it may be able to sell it quickly. Zillow is telling them open doors telling them we’re I mean like 500 wholesalers and investors are reaching out to them. They know this stuff. At the end of the day. They don’t care because if you’re gonna they’re gonna sell it at a discount because they don’t want it at that point, who’s gonna be able to give them the best deal. It’s not that that’s not important, and who they know I can trust