Georgia Real Estate License Guide

If you are here, you are most likely looking to get your Georgia Real Estate License. Well let me commend you. Getting your license is one of the best steps to rising up above the real investing community, as well as just a cool career and way to make money. The freedom and ability to work with different people all the time can get very exciting. But let’s take a quick look at some of the benefits of getting your license, as well as some of the costs.

One of the best benefits of being a real estate agent is that instead of paying a real estate agent, you get to keep the money for yourself. And with the typical real estate agent charge being around 6%, that is a large amount of savings for any one deal, thousands of dollars in many cases.

Let’s just say that you started off by selling your own house, and you were able to sell it for $150,000. That would be a commission of $9,000! A commission you would have paid someone else, but now can keep for yourself. This was a big attraction for me.

But beyond that, you’ll also have access to the local MLS (multiple listing service). This will provide you access to all the properties that have been listed for sale by other realtors in the area. So aside from FSBOs (for sale by owners) you have the entire market right at your finger tips. You can run comparative analysis, look at historical data, and get a good understanding of how the market sits, and how you can find great deals. And with being able to check it any time you want, you can be the first one to see a new, great deal pop up.

OK, so let’s look at the costs. GREC (Georgia Real Estate Commission) has an application fee of $170 if you are applying within three months of taking your exam ($340 if outside that time), and a $97 testing fee. There is also some education requirements, which can be anywhere from less than $300 and up. You can complete the Georgia education requirements here.

So bottom line, you’ll have somewhere around $570 invested in your Georgia real estate license. Not bad when you consider our example above. If you made $9,000 on that first deal, that is a net gain of $8,430!

So outside of a little bit of time and hassle, you can do really well by getting your license. Trust, I am sure am glad I have a real estate license! I have made quite a bit of money with it.

So here’s the part you are probably most interested in. I have put together this step by step guide for knowing exactly what you need to do in order to get your Georgia real estate license. These are the GREC requirements, boiled down to just one page. Now, I’m not an attorney, so I have to insert a disclaimer that says make sure to verify this with GREC.

But let’s go ahead:

1. You must provide of copy of your Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC) Report.

2. You must be 18 with a high school diploma or equivalent.

3. You must complete a 75 hour Georgia Salesperson Pre-license Course, or provide proof of 10 quarter hours or 6 semesters of completed college coursework majoring in real estate.

4. Must pass the final exam ($97)

5. Pay the licensing fees ($170 if taking the exam within 3 months of apply for licensure, or $340 if between 3 and 12 months of licensure)

6. Find a broker and submit a Sponsoring Broker Statement Application.

Now this may sound like a lot of stuff, but if you take it step by step, you can get this done in a very short time. I completed 150 hours of education in about 2 weeks time. If you can do that and pass the test, you could have your license in just a month or two of time.

So don’t wait any longer, get started with the educational requirements, so you can be on your way to making money in real estate.

Really, when it comes to getting your Georgia real estate license, doing the educational part of it online is the best way to go. I only recommend going online because it is exactly what I did when I was going through the process of getting my real estate license. And once I completed my online courses, I knew that going online is just about the only way to. I mean, what is better than sitting on the couch (like I am doing right now) and getting your real estate license. I mean it sure beats having to drive to school 2 or 3 days a week to take classes, then come home and do homework.

But don’t be mislead, just because you can do the coursework in a comfortable environment, does not mean it is going to be a cake walk. The courses will definitely be some work, and you also need to make sure you take them from an approved education provider. I recommend using this Georgia real estate license online school for your required pre-licensing coursework. They have a nice package that will give you all the required education, you won’t have to take a course here or there and hassle with figuring it out. You can buy the complete package, and go right through the material.

They have some options for correspondence, aka hard copy classes as well. It is either doing it that way, or finding a local classroom setting, and probably paying much, much more to get the classes done. If you just really thrive in the classroom setting, and hate having to keep up with something like this yourself, then you may want to take the classes local.

But I chose the online route, and only had to spend a couple of weeks getting the coursework completed. Most of the time that it took to get my real estate license was waiting to get forms back, waiting for applications to be approved, waiting for the testing date, and things like that.

But whether you take the Georgia real estate license courses online, or in the classroom, just please, please make sure they are approved schools. I would hate to see you do all the coursework, and then get your license denied because the school was not on the approved list.