How To Study for Your Real Estate Exam
Feeling overwhelmed by the thought of your real estate exam? You're not alone. Many aspiring agents find the study process daunting. But with the right tools, it doesn’t have to be. Our Real Estate Exam Prep courses are designed to help you focus on the material that matters most, so you can study smarter and walk into the exam with confidence.
In this post, we’ll break down proven study tips, tools, and mindset strategies to help you stay on track and pass the exam on your first try.
Study Tips For The Real Estate Licensing Exam
What’s the easiest way to pass the real estate exam? Elbow grease. Many states’ exams hover at around a 50% pass rate for the first attempt, so the most important tip we can give you is not to take the difficulty of the exam for granted.
Study like it’s your job because it stands between you and the job you want.
Here are a few tips for how to make your study time the most effective.
Take Your Pre-License Courses Seriously
The real estate licensing exam is designed to ensure you truly understand the concepts they’re testing you on. Luckily, you have a way to learn these concepts the right way: your pre-licensing curriculum.
So don’t blow those courses off or rush through them. They’re not just a hurdle to jump to earn your license, they’re also a big step towards preparing to pass the exam.
Give Yourself Enough Time
You might have an idea of when you want to take the exam, and you’re probably eager to start your new career. But one of the best ways to pass the real estate exam on the first try is to wait to take it until you’re ready.
How long do most people study for their real estate exam? It depends on so many things. What else do you have going on in your life? How much time per week can you devote to distraction-free studying? How good at book learning are you? How good a test taker have you been in the past?
In most states, you schedule the exam with a third-party testing center, which allows you to schedule the exam on your own timeline, not anybody else’s. Take full advantage of this by waiting to schedule the exam until after you’re fairly confident you’ll pass.
Get Real Estate Exam Prep Help
While it’s true that your pre-license courses contain everything you need to know for the exam, they also contain a lot of stuff that won’t be on the test. Investing in a real estate exam prep package from an education provider like us can be a great way to separate the wheat from the chaff and ensure you’re spending your study time where it counts.
Take Lots of Practice Exams
The traditional study methods, reviewing the material, making flashcards, etc., are not steps you’ll want to skip. It’s also a good idea to take lots and lots of practice exams. Practice exams are conveniently included in our real estate exam prep packages.
These practice tests serve several purposes, especially when you take them repeatedly between studying.
First off, they tell you which topic areas you can backburner (because you have them down) and which you need to move to the front of the line (because you bomb that part).
Also, the more practice tests you take, the more question types you’re exposed to. There are many ways to test your knowledge of the same information, and this way, you’re less likely to be taken off guard.
You can also use them as another way to learn – after you take a practice exam, go back over questions you got wrong and try to figure out what the right answer should have been and why.
Finally, taking multiple practice exams can tell you when you’re finally ready to take the real thing! You won’t be guessing that you can pass, you’ll know it for sure.
How To Remember Everything For The Real Estate Exam
What is the hardest part of the real estate exam? There’s just so much to remember.
The math questions require you to know formulas and unit conversions by heart. There’s a ton of industry vocabulary that’s easy to mix up. There are also lists of characteristics or criteria to memorize.
This is where mnemonic devices come to the rescue. Mnemonic devices are a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that help you remember something.
And you can find tons of them out there that apply to the real estate exam. Here are just a few.
DUST: What Gives a Property Value
There are four characteristics that allow a real estate property to have value. You can remember these with DUST:
Demand: People want the property
Utility: It’s useful for some purpose (shelter, income, etc.)
Scarcity: There’s a limited supply of similar properties
Transferability: It can be sold from one owner to another
Is It a Fixture? MARIA
When someone buys a house, they’re not just buying the building and the land but also the permanent fixtures. On the other hand, they’re not entitled to the personal property of the previous owner.
How do you distinguish fixtures from personal property? With MARIA:
- Method: the item is affixed to the property using nails, glue, wires, cement, pipes, or screws (and thus, not easily removed)
- Adaptability: the item has become integral to the property
- Relationship: when the parties dispute whether something is a fixture, the relationship between them plays a role
- Intention: the item was meant to be permanent at the time of attachment
- Agreement: the item is expressly defined as a fixture in the purchase agreement (the contract terms trump general rules)
PITT Determines Joint Tenancy
How do you know if more than one individual has joint tenancy ownership of a property?
Figure out if they’re in the PITT:
- Possession: multiple parties have equal rights to possession
- Interest: multiple parties hold equal interest
- Time: multiple parties acquired the property together (simultaneously)
- Title: multiple parties acquired title under the same document
How Many Square Feet in an Acre? Four Old Ladies
No, we haven’t lost our marbles. Sometimes, a funny little story can help you remember otherwise random information.
One of the numbers you need to memorize for the real estate licensing exam is that there are 43,560 square feet in an acre.
It’s a lot easier to remember a sentence like “You’re stuck behind 4 old ladies driving 35 in a 60 mph zone.” We’ve all been there (sort of).
Is it still random? Yes! Is it more memorable than the number by itself? Absolutely.
How Do I Pass The Real Estate Exam If I Have Test Anxiety?
Basically, you want to follow all the tips above and give yourself plenty of time to study and prepare. It’s especially important for those with test anxiety to create a structured study schedule, though it can also help to give yourself a limited number of “get out of studying free” passes for the days when it feels like too much.
Here are a few anxiety-specific strategies you can use to do your best.
Learn Standardized Testing Strategies
Familiarize yourself with the existing strategies for taking any standardized multiple-choice test. There are ways you can cope with trick questions or unclear choices. You may remember some of these from school, but study and practice them again in this context.
Take Practice Quizzes to Build Confidence
Speaking of which, research shows that practice tests can help moderate test anxiety, but it comes with a caveat: easier practice quizzes help build confidence and reduce anxiety while longer, more difficult practice tests can be more of a crapshoot.
If you know you have test anxiety, you may benefit from breaking up your practice exams into shorter practice quizzes. Instead of taking a practice test that is the same length as the real exam, break it up into 10-question quizzes that you spread out over multiple days.
Don’t forget to practice your multiple-choice strategies when you’re having trouble with a question. You’ll be able to figure out which tricks work for you, and knowing that you can get the right answer that way can help keep you calm during difficult questions on the real test.
Once you feel confident about your practice quizzes, you might try taking one full-length exam as a test run.
Set the Right Conditions
Try to study under similar conditions to the ones in which you’ll take the test; this will allow you to make use of a phenomenon called context- and state-dependent memory.
For example, if you think you’ll need anxiety medication during the exam, use it when you study. Or, if you use anxiety medication when you study, make sure to take it on the day of the exam.
Know You Have Multiple Chances to Pass
One of the biggest points of pressure for those with test anxiety is perfectionism – every wrong answer is panic-inducing. It may be helpful to know that you can take the real estate licensing exam as many times as you need in most states.
The tests are typically available on demand through a commercial testing center rather than restricted to certain days of the year. You may need to pay the fee again for each attempt, but in some states, the fee covers unlimited tries within a certain window of time (often a year). Of course, it’s a good idea to know the policies in your state so you’re reassuring yourself with accurate information.
Ironically, keeping in mind that there’s always next time can give you the calm you need to pass the real estate exam on the first try.
Start Real Estate Exam Prep With VanEd
As a long-time real estate education provider, we’ve helped thousands of real estate agents pass their real estate licensing exams.
We offer real estate exam prep packages with study guides full of need-to-know information and a databank of unlimited practice questions in the same format as the national exam. When you finish a practice test, we’ll provide an explanation of each answer so you can tackle the topic more effectively in the future.
Not quite ready for exam prep? If you’re just getting started on the path to licensure, check out our Pre-licensing Courses to build a solid foundation from day one.
Already licensed? Check out our Continuing Education courses to stay current and meet renewal requirements in your state.
Get started today!
