There is a previous thread started today that got extremely long. I want to give only a couple information items that I have seen in my time in real estate.

1. I went to Lumbleau real estate school in California Many years ago. The first day at school, I applied for the real estate salesman test four weeks later. Spent very little money and tons of time studying and preparing for the salesman exam. The school had so many students that immediately finishing the exam, they were met at the door to give the school representatives any questions they felt had not been adequately explained by the school. It was a great way to stay current on the testing methods and I feel was somewhat of a sham. I passed the license on the first attempt but it did not give me in-depth information that was required In the real estate market place.

2. I believe to obtain my California broker's license, I needed very little additional information and one year experience as a salesman. I was marketing and syndicating apartment buildings throughout the West and obtained a Colorado broker's license with very little additional work. The two states had a cooperative agreement for brokers.

3. I have seen many different commissions during my experience ranging from 10% to 1% commission. Even while operating as a real estate broker, I felt the commissions were ridiculously high for the amount of work performed. Much of the pay off two good agents comes from the knowledge and experience they learned. You get what you pay for in many cases. It is definitely negotiable.

4. Having extensive knowledge and experience in the real estate market place, I was ready to sell one of my apartment buildings several years ago. I'm very active on an investment website with over 100,000 members and I advertised my building in Texas at $9 million on the website agreeing to pay a 1% sales commission to what ever agent brought me an acceptable offer to purchase the building. The marketplace was extremely strong and I actually received in a matter of weeks five different offers on the building. I accepted one on terms that I was looking for at a price of $8,750,000 with a 1% sales commission. The offer was presented to me from an extremely knowledgeable investment broker who saw the benefit of working with me for a Relatively small % commission in hopes of selling other buildings I own and finding buildings for me to buy. It has been a very cordial relationship with it a win-win situation that we were both happy to be involved in.

I see big changes coming in the real estate market in the next decade. The commission is definitely one of those items that I suggest all investors keep their eyes on the tax happy Congress. One of these times, they will be looking for more tax money and attack the interest write off deduction fiercely. In the past, the method of depreciation on investment property has been changed significantly and they may also look at reducing the benefits of that in some way.

This is not a knock on real estate, my feelings are it is still the best investment opportunity for long-term growth. I can't think of any other type of investment vehicle where someone will loan you the money to buy the asset ( lender) and someone else will make the payments for you ( renter) and eventually you will own an asset free and clear worth X amount of dollars. The only unknown is the value of X.
GO COUGARS!!