How Hard is it to Become a Real Estate Agent in California?

Becoming a real estate agent in California is more accessible and affordable than you think. You don’t need a college degree to start your real estate career. But, you are required to take 135-hours of real estate school courses approved by the state. 

Once you have taken the required courses, you can apply to take the California Department of Real Estate (DRE) licensing exam, also known as the real estate exam. 

If you pass the exam and complete the state’s licensing application process, including a criminal background check, you will become a licensed California real estate agent.

Easier said than done… or is it? In this article, we’ll show if becoming a real estate agent in California is actually hard.

How hard is it to become a real estate agent in California?

Do people find it hard to become a real estate agent in California? That depends on the person. Some find it very easy. Others will struggle with the licensing process because it requires mandatory education.

Compared to other careers, becoming a real estate agent is less work. The following 5 steps are required to be a real estate agent in California, all of which can be completed within 6-months:

1. Join an accredited real estate school
2. Pass 3 required real estate courses
3. Submit application for the real estate exam and license
4. Pass the exam
5. Sign with a brokerage

Since there are few steps and a short timeline, getting into real estate has a low barrier of entry.

Is real estate school hard?

A real estate education will be challenging, especially if you don’t have prior experience. The courses you take in a California real estate school are college-level, so there is a degree of difficulty, particularly for some students. Because everyone is different, everyone will have different experiences.  

How long is real estate school?

The California real estate course requirement is 135 hours with a minimum of 54 days. Some real estate schools will allow students to finish in 54 days exactly or take longer. 

The quickest way is through an online program, which lets you take the courses on your own time, not dependent on other schedules.

What do you learn in real estate school?

In addition to the required topics of real estate principles (45 hours) and practice (45 hours), students can choose an approved elective. These electives offer a range of real estate topics, including property management, finance, economics, appraisal, business law, general accounting, escrow, real estate law, office administration, real estate computer applications and software, common interest development, and mortgage brokering and lending.

Is the Real Estate Exam Hard?

How hard is the real estate exam? If you can grasp the college-level courses in real estate school and use the available study materials, you should successfully complete the California real estate salespersons exam. But, without studying or understanding the concepts, it can be hard.

What are the questions like on the real estate exam?

The California real estate exam are tricky, and the questions are designed to trip you up. Between 2023 and 2024, around 50-60% of the people who took the exam in California passed.

There are several reasons why the California real estate exam is so difficult: 

• The questions themselves can be tricky or misleading
• Questions occasionally contain unnecessary information
• There are numerous concepts and terminology that you will need to familiarize yourself with
• The testing environment and the additional pressure you place on yourself can make things more stressful
• There is a time limit

We provide exam prep and crash courses to make studying for the exam and passing easy.

How long is the real estate exam?

The California salesperson exam has a 3-hour time limit and it consists of 150 questions in a multiple-choice format. To pass the exam, applicants must score a 70% or above.

Is working as a real estate agent hard?

How hard is to be a real estate agent? If like me, you’ve watched Selling Sunset, Selling the OC, Owning Manhattan, or one of the seemingly hundreds of real estate reality shows, you might have a skewed idea of how difficult this career is. Let me explain.

These are flashy, luxury and commercial agents who work with high profile clients. They represent a very… very small portion of all agents. It’s not impossible to get to their status, but it is uncommon. Most agents will make around $60-110k a year.

This happens when you establish yourself as an agent. Let’s explore how hard this is:

How hard is it to find clients as a real estate agent?

Some agents think that just because they have a real estate license, clients will flock to them. That’s not the case. Finding clients involves  selling yourself to people every day.

Richard Schulman, top-producing agent and team leader of a top .1% sales team, says, “You have to sit and prospect [2-5] years at a high level to build a pipeline for people to call you to do deals.” This means that new agents must always search for and contact new leads.

Most people find it really hard to consistently make these call day-in-day-out. That’s why they leave in the first few years. Some agents are risk adverse and will choose not to sell themselves out of fear of failure.

This is equal parts the hardest part and the part that takes the most of a new agents time.

How hard is it to represent a client?

There are many steps to the real estate transaction process. Buyer’s agents help their client find homes, tour homes, qualify for loans, make offers, negotiate prices, negotiate repairs, coordinate with escrow, coordinate with third parties, negotiate some more, finalize contracts, and record the transaction.

They do all of this within 30 days while managing their other duties. For listing agents, they must perform listing presentations, create marketing plans, find buyers, negotiate offers amounts, coordinate with third parties, record the deal, and make sure everyone is paid out.

When agents are performing all of these duties while balancing lead generating, attending seminars and workshops, paperwork, and other admin responsibilities, the job can be hard.

If agents aren’t representing clients, they could be experience a dry spell and hard times finding new clients. Then the job becomes hard in a different way.

Overall, the job of a real estate agent is simple yet difficult. It’s fast paced and requires attention to detail and proper communication.

Common pitfalls, hardships, and traps for real estate agents

First 6-months is a big adjustment for new agents. During this time, they get used to what the job demands in order to do it well.

Here are a few pitfalls and traps agents fall into:

Goal Setting

New agents will enter the industry and plan on making high 6-figures in their first year. They may want to make hundreds of calls and immediately find people ready to hire them.

This makes it hard to be a real estate agent, because it is unrealistic goal setting. The secret to setting good goals is to take inventory of where we are in our career and skillset.

A good goal is made in relation to where we currently are, not in relation to where we want to be. To first make hundreds of thousands of dollars, we must first close one deal.

To close one deal, we must first find one client. This is how we create realistic goals that don’t burn us out.

Scheduling

Real estate agents will find it hard to schedule their days at first. They may not know what they need to do at the start of their career.

Should they lead generate for four hours or six hours? Should they attend workshops multiple times a week or once? Should they make time to build their website?

What’s great about being a real estate agent is ownership over one’s own schedule. But what’s hard about being a real estate agent is dictating what goes on it.

An agent should analyze the steps they need to take to reach their goal and schedule out their weeks and months to get them there.

Accountability

As I mentioned, agents have a lot of ownership in their work. Therefore, they must be accountable. They are their own boss. If nobody tells them they need to do the work to get paid, who will?

This is a hard part about being a real estate agent. When agents hold themselves accountable for committing to work or mistakes they’ve made, they will see the most growth.

How to make becoming and being an agent easy

What do we need to do to make being a real estate as easy as possible? Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple fix.

The majority of the work requires new agents to learn new skills and what systems allow them to run their business effectively.

There are a few ways new agents can expedite the learning process and become pros quick. Here’s how:

Join big brand brokerages

Big brand brokerages provide the most services. When agents are new to industry, this is a life saver. New agents have a network of third party services that they can recommend their clients to make their lives easier.

They don’t have to learn from trial and error from working with crummy services. From the start, new agents have a toolshed of resources to deploy when they need them most.

New agents also have a bigger pool of mentors and coaches who are willing to help them out. At the start of an agent’s career, this is the fastest way to learn the ropes.

Join a team

This is a controversial position. But, new agents benefit from joining teams. When they join teams, they can learn from peers and the team leader. Some teams even share leads and contracts.

That way you can find clients and get first-hand experience working with seasoned agents. The downside is the commission split. New agents will split their commissions with their team leader as well as the brokerage.

But most will find teams well worth the split, especially for new agents without big networks.

Learn as much as you can

Brokerages offer training workshops. New agents (and also old agents) benefit from joining these workshops.

They can range from being free to taking a small portion of your next commission. This is where most agents learn how to do specific, intricate tasks that they won’t learn in other places. For example, a new agent can join a training workshop about how to properly fill out a buyer’s contract.

These are immensely beneficial for everyone. That’s because you can learn how to do your job and do it really well. Your clients will love you for it!

We worked with Richard Schulman to create residential real estate agent training program. It provides lecture videos from Richard on how he become one of the top-producing agents in the entire country.

Save up money before becoming an agent

Most agents find the least amount of work in their first year. Business is slow because they are establishing themselves. Despite this, the bill still need to get paid. That’s why I advise saving money before starting this career.

This is consider the investment money into your business. I recommend saving money instead of working another job because it provides an open and clear schedule that lets you focus 100% of your working time on establishing yourself in real estate.

Part time agents who work second jobs can still make it work. However, removing the need to find alternate income removes extra stress and provides more time.

Become comfortable with being uncomfortable

This is a social industry. Agents sell themselves to  people (often strangers) and most people will turn them down. That’s just business. To be successful, agents must learn how to roll with the punches.

Agents must push themselves to meet new people all the time. This could be exhausting, but it’s part of the job even when your social battery is drained. Other times, agents could experience dry spells.

They can go long periods of time without making money. After the first few years of doing good business, the job becomes easier. But, even then, agents must adapt to the ebbs and flows of the industry.

They may need to re-learn how to run their business despite years of success, because of a new law or disruptive tech. Other times, they may find themselves starting from scratch when they move to a new city.

Knowing all of this, we come back to one principle: becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. Adaptation is one of the most underrated qualities successful agents have.

When agents become adaptable, they become flexible and ready for any situation. When every day is unique and different, this a requirement.