A law professor I know told me that before he bought his house, he took the Georgia Real Estate licensing exam, passed it, and collected the 3% buyer’s broker’s commission when he bought the house. I’m thinking about buying a house, and was wondering whether I can do the same thing in Virginia. It seems relatively easy to pass the licensing exam, but it’s unclear to me whether simply being a licensed real estate seller, as opposed to being an eligible broker, or employee of a broker, would make me eligible for the commission. Anyone know the answer?
And before I get outraged emails from real estate agents arguing that I can’t do without their essential services, I have narrowed the area in which I would like to buy a house down to a very small area near George Mason Law School, so I would not need any help picking a neighborhood. Given that houses in this vicinity sell from $400k, I would need a lot of convincing that an agent’s services were worth upwards of $12K.
UPDATE: Reader Joel Buckingham notes that in some states, such as California, attorneys who pass the real estate sales exam are automatically eligible to become licensed brokers. In Virginia, however, there appears to be no such allowance for attorneys, who need, like other potental brokers, to prove they have several years of sales experience before they can become brokers. Of course, we all know that licensing laws are meant for consumer protection.
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