SDR, you must be aware that one CAN’T LEARN the ins and outs of a RE agent/broker job in college classes. A CA public college student can take:
Principles of RE
RE Practice
Escrow
Property Mgmt
CA RE Law
RE Finance
RE Brokerage (some schools)
and possibly a couple of other RE offerings …
I’ve taken six of these classes. They don’t teach you:
– that the local AAA Credit Union now makes purchase/improvement loans under the FHA 203(k) program
– where the high-power lines are
– where the danger of radon exposure is
– which developments are built on landfill or infill
– how to negotiate and structure an offer/counteroffer (depending on seller’s circumstances and market desirability of property
– where to look first for that Starker upleg without wasting your busy client’s time
– which blocks have issues with cracked slabs
– which developments have oil pipelines running underneath
– which developments are situated near a “cancer cluster”
– where to find artifacts and competent craftsman to repair a particular kind of property (i.e. Craftsman) in a particular locale
– where a particular architect’s work abounds
– how to quickly and thoroughly search the condition of a title without purchasing a preliminary title report
– zoning of a particular area
– potential of an area for upzoning in the future
– what’s slated to be built over that hill and when
– attendance boundaries of XYZ public school
– chances of your client’s child getting accepted into that magnet program by February
– status of litigation of ABC HOA
– if a property’s granny flat has been “grandfathered-in”
– if the properties on the street below have an easement on the airspace of the properties situated on the street above it
– doesn’t have at least rudimentary knowledge of home systems (to follow buyer’s inspector around)
– how many calls to police/sheriff that corner grocery has had in the last 3 yrs
– why that subdivision costs 3x as much for trash pickup as an adjacent one
ETC….
An agent who ignorant of these factors (doesn’t know “cold” the answers to the pertinent factors in the area he/she is doing biz in) is NOT serving their clients properly. I don’t care if they possess a Ph.D or JD!
As a principal and especially as a buyer, if my agent didn’t know how to competently do these things and didn’t have this working knowledge about the area I was shopping in, I wouldn’t use him/her. I couldn’t give a r@t’s a$$ whether he/she had a “college degree” … or not.
All this stuff is learned from intimate knowledge gleaned from the intricate study of a niche market area and “years on the street,” NOT “classwork.”
Compare these “street smarts” (or lack thereof) with a freshly-minted attorney (or even an experienced one who doesn’t go to court much or took a case outside of his/her expertise). Nowhere in law school did he/she learn how many exhibits are allowed behind a domestic declaration in SD County, how to properly bind a lodgement for acceptance by the Court, what CA agencies will be triggered by a filed adoption petition and what Judge BBB’s trial rules are in Dept 61. That’s why they hire grunts like me :=]
