Real Estate Broker
One of the most recurring real estate doubts is regarding what is a broker in comparison to what is a real estate agent.
Well, it depends from state to state to tell exactly what a Broker can and cannot do, but it’s safe to say that, in every state, a Real Estate Broker is someone with more real estate education and experience than a real estate agent. To become one, you have to attend a certain number of Real Estate classes and pass the state exam. The duration of those classes is longer than the ones an agent goes through and the exam they take is more difficult to pass too. Summing up: although all Brokers can act also as Agents, not every Agent can act as a Broker.
In general, you could say that a Broker is the person with the certification necessary to list the property and sign the papers and overview the transaction between the home seller and the home buyer. But there is a large variety of other services he/she provides for home sellers and home buyers, like Comparative Market Analysis (CMA), preparing contracts and acting as the guardian of the escrow. Sometimes, the home seller or buyer doesn’t even meet the Broker, but a real estate agent that works under him/her.
The Broker is the one who collects the commission once the sale is made and he/she divides the value to all participating parts like the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent – most of the times an employee of his, but, depending on the type of listing agreement (like an Open Listing) it can be someone independent from him/her.
Popular Real Estate Terms
Court action to order a compulsory sale of real estate owned jointly between two or more owners. A partition action divides the proceeds of a real estate sale among the joint owners rather ...
mortgage being reduced through periodic principal and interest payments. ...
Section of the Internal Revenue Code relating to depreciation. Capital improvements made to real property are depreciable. ...
To create an encumbrance. ...
Expected period that property will provide benefits. It is typically less than physical life of the property because the property continues to have physical life regardless of inefficiency ...
To obtain the right through authorization to act as a legal representative and agent for another. ...
Member Of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers. ...
(1) Government seizes private property, but does not provide fair and reasonable compensation for it. (2) Property is seized and the owners rights abolished because of a legal violation. ...
The phrase used for the period in which the escrow agent communicates to both the buyer and the seller as to what documents or moneys have to be deposited with the escrow agent to satisfy ...

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