Tentmaking Tips

The first way is the most obvious and most frequently pursued. But it’s not the best option if you don’t want your real estate business to take you even more time.

The second and third ways are less often pursued, but very powerful if you can pursue them together. Neither of them add to your time commitment, but both can add significantly to the bottom line.

Ok, let’s get started.

1. Increase Your Volume

   This is what most people think of when they’re wanting to increase their commissions. Just increase the number of transactions and you’ll increase your commissions. While this is certainly true, it requires more effort. Each transactions represents hours of additional work. That’s fine if you’re wanting to do this full-time, but if you’re wanting to do this on the side to supplement or replace your ministry income, this is...

1. You don’t like the process of buying and selling houses.

   It probably goes without saying that if you don’t like real estate, you shouldn’t get into it. To get your license, you will have to take quite a few real estate courses and to keep your license, there will be continuing education every few years.

2. You have a close family member who is an agent.

   Because many of you would get your license mainly to represent close family members and friends on the side, there could be some family conflict if you take business away from the other family member. Of course it doesn’t have to be this way, but if the other close family member derives most of their income this way, they may feel threatened if you get your license. And they may worry that they’ll lose some of the business they would’ve otherwise received from the...

As the kids started growing up, she was interested in finding a way to make some extra spending money without giving up her dream.

We didn’t need the money, but she thought if she could work for herself a few hours on the side, it would be more like a hobby than a job. And it would give her some extra cash.

Her mom was a real estate agent. She was a full-time teacher but became an agent for extra money on the side. Her mom helped friends and family buy and sell houses and she made some great money doing it.

Her mom always told her she wished she had been able to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s probably part of what influenced by wife’s dream.

My wife has always loved house projects and so watching her mom in real estate inspired her to give it a try herself.

She took an in-person class to get her real estate license while our daughters were...

Longer Answer:

Retail real estate and investment real estate are two different businesses.

In retail real estate, you are representing clients who are buying or selling houses.

In investment real estate, you are buying and selling houses for yourself for some investment purpose.

In retail real estate, you need a license because the state regulates the industry to ensure you are a qualified fiduciary for your client.

In investment real estate, since you are working for yourself, your activity isn’t regulated in the same way.

Getting a real estate license is typically for the purposes of engaging in the retail real estate business.

Quick Flipping is buying and selling houses yourself for a profit which is the investment real estate business.

The reason I’m making these distinctions is two-fold:

1. Sellers who are selling you a distressed, off-market property at a discount are usually looking for an...

I’m going to share the approximate costs to get your real estate license in Texas and it’ll likely be similar in your state.

Sales Agent Application = ~$150-200

Real Estate Education = ~$400-600

Exam Fee = ~$30-60

Fingerprint Fee =...

As I was putting the totals in during our final 2021 payroll cycle, I was amazed once again at the amount of money you can make as a Realtor just doing a few transactions a year.

All of the people working actively in our brokerage who earned income this year were doing it on the side. It was a supplement to their income (or their spouse’s).

I averaged all of their earnings together for 2021 because some did more transactions & some did less.

Guess what the average was?

$53,806

Wow!

Now of course we also have agents that are just starting that haven’t done their first deal yet, but for those who are active in doing deals, they averaged $53,806 in extra income for their families in 2021 just doing it on the side.

None of them were doing this full-time. Some did...

Let's just assume you don't want to Flip Hack, House Hack, or even Agent Hack (represent your family and friends as a real estate agent).

There's still a way you can make extra income from real estate.

Referral Fees.

What you may not know is that when one agent refers a lead to another agent, the referring agent will often be rewarded with a percentage of the commission (often 25%).

You must be a licensed agent to get this referral fee, but you don't actually have to represent any clients to make this extra money. And getting your license is a fairly quick & easy process. See the post entitled, The Best Places to Get Your Real Estate License.

We have a neighbor that does this exact thing. She was an active real estate agent for years, but now that she's older, she really doesn't want to be active in the business anymore. But, of course, she'd still love to make some extra money. The...

A flat fee broker keeps a flat fee, rather than a percentage, of each of your commission checks.

This is quite uncommon among brokerages.

Usually a brokerage will charge you a significant percentage of the overall commission - 25% on the lower end and up to 50% on the higher end. In addition to this, the broker will often have monthly fees they charge for office, equipment usage, supplies, etc.

Imagine you make $10,000 in commission on a deal. If the broker takes 25-50% ($2,500-$5,000), that’s a huge chunk of your earnings. Add to that any other monthly fees they charge.

On the other hand, if you find a flat fee broker, they may charge you $500 per transaction regardless of what you make. In the example above, if you made $10,000, they’d take $500 and you’d make $9,500! Wow! Quite a difference.

In this scenario you’d have to do between 2-4x...

The exam is broken up into 2 parts. A state section and a national section. The national section would be similar for all of us who take the test and the state section would be specific to real estate regulations in your particular state.

You can pass one section, both sections or neither, but if you don’t pass either section, you have to go back to retake the sections you didn’t pass.

The reason many people don’t pass the first time is because the test covers such an extensive amount of information. It’s hard to know what to study and there are a ton of names and dates to memorize that can get a bit overwhelming.

That’s why I always tell people that the key to passing the first time is to buy an exam prep wherever you purchase your licensing courses.

The exam prep is often optional and many...