A Realtor’s education begins with a state-mandated 40 to 180-hour pre-licensing course. New Hampshire sits at 40 hours. The course is supposed to be taken in person, but since COVID, that requirement has changed, and you can now take the course online. And, the course will cost you under $500 at The CE Shop.
The course covers definitions, legal terms, fair housing, fiduciary duties, mathematics if you’re unlucky (how many square feet are in an acre), and a sprinkling of real estate law.
The course, in my humble opinion, is pretty okay test prep. Which is important because the next step is the national and state licensing exam.
In New Hampshire, the exam is administered by PSI Exams. Because PSI is owned by ETS—the folks who administer half the standardized tests in America—the real estate exam carries the same uncanny vibe as an English subject GRE, the kind where you get questions like:
Passage:
“The fish moved in the dark, and the line whispered like something alive.”Question:
In the passage above, the narrator’s description of the fishing line as “whispering” primarily serves to:A. Emphasize the mechanical precision of the fisherman’s technique.
B. Suggest an animistic blurring between the natural world and human perception.
C. Highlight the futility of the fisherman’s efforts against nature’s indifference.
D. Introduce a symbolic contrast between sound and silence as recurring motifs.
E. Underscore the narrator’s belief that the fish possesses superior intelligence.Correct Answer: B
Rationale:
The verb “whispered” assigns organic, intentional qualities to an inanimate object, a move consistent with Hemingway’s tendency toward subtle animism—nature behaving with a quiet agency that reflects, complicates, or mirrors the protagonist’s interior state.
Real Estate 101
Real estate without the real-estate-speak.
A Coffee With Steve Publication
Or my absolute favorite type of questions:
Passage:
“The fish moved in the dark, and the line whispered like something alive.”Question:
This passage is most consistent in style and thematic emphasis with the work of which author, and from approximately what period?A. Herman Melville, mid-19th century
B. Joseph Conrad, early 20th century
C. Ernest Hemingway, mid-20th century
D. Jack London, early 20th century
E. Norman Maclean, late 20th centuryCorrect Answer: C
Yeah, like you were meant to even answer that.
And the real estate licensing test doesn’t read much differently. The hoop tests how well you memorize random things no working Realtor actually uses, whether you can identify obscure terms like ad valorem at 8am, and whether you can guess what the test writer wants instead of what is real.
What the Licensing Exam Actually Tests (Spoiler: Not Real Estate)
You take the two tests at the same time. About 70% of the test covers the national portion, and the remaining 30% covers the state portion. Tests are 120 questions long.
The good news is that if you fail the national portion but pass the state portion, or vice versa, you only need to retake the portion you failed. The bad news is that in New Hampshire, it’s going to cost you the same amount of money to take half a test as it costs to take a full test.
I passed the national test on my initial run through, but missed the state portion by one flipping question, and had to go back. When I returned the second time, the testing center wasn’t even open for my pre-booked hard-scheduled exam. I got the lovely experience of calling PSI, who did not believe me, even though the other four test takers standing outside the building were also calling with the same complaint.
A seller tells the listing agent she will accept any offer above $450,000. Later, a buyer asks the agent, “What do you think the seller would take?” What MUST the agent do?
A. Tell the buyer the seller will take anything above $450,000
B. Refuse to answer and tell the buyer to make their best offer.
C. Disclose the information only if the buyer is represented.
D. Tell the buyer the seller is “flexible” without giving details.
Some states are, by the way, reciprocal. So I have my license in New Hampshire, and so I have reciprocity in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and Georgia. Which means if I want my license in Georgia or Maine, I only need to take the state portion of the test in that state. I have zero interest in Georgia. I’ve so far failed the Maine state test three times.
Don’t think that’s an actual failing on my part, though, because my KWCLM recruiter failed her licensing test five times. These tests favor native English speakers, skilled test-takers, and people who read quickly but don’t read too deeply, and excel at rote memorization.
The state real estate laws in Maine are almost identical to New Hampshire’s, but often the vocabulary overlaps in weird places. And, if you’re planning on moving to New Hampshire and want to port your current license good news! New Hampshire now recognizes all states for reciprocity, no matter which U.S. state you’ve earned your real estate license in.
Which of the following is NOT protected under federal fair housing law?
A. National origin
B. Familial status
C. Age
D. Disability
Welcome to a Brokerage… and Good Luck
Besides the test-prep pre-licensing course and the actual test, training on how to do the job is severely lacking. You are, however, required to work under or in affiliation with a brokerage. In fact, when you, as a consumer, are sitting at the kitchen table, and the slick Realtor slides the contract over, what you are signing is not an agreement with the Realtor. You are actually agreeing to be represented by the brokerage, and the brokerage has contracted out services from the agent.
The brokerage is supposed to provide oversight.
But what’s actually provided depends on the brokerage, the culture, and luck. Some people get mentors. Some people get a desk, a login, and a “Hey, go call your sphere!” alongside God’s cold shoulder, while you’re left wondering what the hell a sphere is.
I took my test-prep course with Verani School of Real Estate with Pamela Weeks-Dorji, and really, thank goodness for people like Pam because I’ve taken a lot of real estate classes since her, and she has been by far only one of two instructors I actually trust to not only teach the damn material but also to tell you the truth. In fact, Pam was so amazing that Berkshire-Hathaway Verani Realty was one of the brokerages I considered and came in at a close second on where to hang my license.
I interviewed three other brokerages besides Verani. One, which no longer exists, firmly told me they were not the brokerage you began with, but the brokerage you ended up at. The hubris there was just unbelievable to me. Another agency required desk time–that is, I actually had to sit in the office and take phone calls, but this wasn’t a job I was being hired for; this was me interviewing the umbrella I’d work underneath, and they were already upset when I told them if that was the case, I’d walk to the office. “Well, you really need a car to do this job.”
Let me tell you a truth–you do not need a car to do real estate, and I know this because I was without a car for about a month and a half. Hell, you don’t even need a suit, which I learned the hard way there, too, because I have a nice suit that’s doing nothing but taking up space in my closet.
What New Agents Are Told They “Need”
And people will tell you that you need all kinds of things to be successful at real estate. Like, for example, you need business cards and lawn signs. Phone dialers and aggregators–which are illegal, mind you, and you have to sign paperwork promising you’ll not tell the people you’re calling that you are using a dialer. Listen, you do not need business cards, lawn signs, or autodialers. Everyone and their half-brother will try to take the money you make out of your wallet.
A listing agent knows about a latent defect the seller forgot to mention on the disclosure form. What must the agent do?
A. Stay silent because the seller didn’t disclose it.
B. Inform only the buyer’s agent.
C. Disclose the defect to the buyer.
D. Withdraw from the listing.
The Rare Brokerage That Actually Teaches You the Job
What you do need is a brokerage that will actually train you because the test prep is not anywhere near adequate.
Just to brag on my own brokerage for a minute: Keller Williams Coastal and Lakes & Mountains. Once a week, we have a contracts class where we go over the same dang documents every week that we use every day in our businesses. We have a midday accountability call, ongoing free and paid trainings. And when I run into a problem within a transaction, I have the ability to call my brokers who walk me through the problem.
We have in-house business coaching, training-wheel courses on how to do real estate from the ground up, and annual business planning.
In fact, the ongoing line in the brokerage is that if you have a problem, call the brokers, because you don’t want the brokers calling you–and one time, the brokers did call me, and I was scared blue in the face because what the heck did I screw up? Uhm, they were just calling to congratulate me. In some brokerages, if the real estate agent wants to talk with a broker, that’s a conversation they have to pay out of pocket for. We also have mindset training like the BOLD course (which you have to pay for, but KWCLM reimburses you–not all Keller Williams brokerages marketcenters do.)
Which of the following actions is illegal under antitrust law?
A. A broker setting a minimum commission rate for their own brokerage
B. Two agents independently choosing to charge similar commission rates
C. Competing brokerages agreeing not to compete in certain neighborhoods
D. A broker refusing to discount their rate for a particular seller
In fact, as a consumer, this is one of the key questions you should ask any Realtor you’re considering hiring: how does your broker support you? What kind of access do you have to your broker?
The very first exclusive listing contract I filled out, I didn’t even know where to download the form, but my KWCLM recruiter sat me down and we went one-on-one through the form step by step. I kept that template contract for two years, and referred to it every time I did a contract for two years, and I filled out every single piece of paperwork for two years until I knew that I undoubtedly understood exactly what was being put into these contract forms and why.
Only then did I hire a transaction coordinator, but I’ve spoken to other agents who have blatantly said they don’t even know what a real estate purchase and sales agreement looks like because they just leave that up to their transaction coordinator. I wish I were exaggerating this point.
The CE Machine: Compliance Theater Disguised as Education
The state attempts to mitigate some of this ineptness by requiring continuing education–or, for those who love jargon: we call it CE.
CE is the industry’s way of saying “Congrats on getting licensed. Now prove every year or two that you still remember what fiduciary duty is.”
Every state has its own requirements, but the spine of CE is the same everywhere: ethics, law, safety, fair housing, and whatever the state regulators are panicking about that particular year.
The standard requirement for most states is between 12 to 24 hours of CE every renewal cycle. New Hampshire renews every two years and requires 15 CEs. If you are part of the National Association of Realtors, you must take a NAR Code of Ethics course every three years.
NAR, Ethics Courses, and the Bundled Cable Package You Can’t Cancel
And let’s be honest. You don’t need to join NAR to be a licensed real estate agent because state law issues your license, state law renews your license, and state law governs your practice. NAR has zero legal authority. However, agents are trapped in that NAR gravitational field like a black hole wrapped in a country-club cardigan because in most markets you can’t access the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) without joining a local board, and local boards are tied to the state association, and the state association is tied to NAR, and so you’re stuck with this setup which feels like a shitty bundled cable package.
Uhm. The first ethics course I took, the instructor’s opening salvo was: Is it ethical for a jobless parent with a newborn to steal food to keep the baby alive?
I hate that question because it is not an ethical question. The question smuggles in a right answer, individualizes a systemic failure, and then pretends the dilemma lives inside one desperate person instead of the structure that cornered them. A sharper, truer question flips the lens entirely:
Is it ethical for a society to design conditions where a jobless parent must choose between breaking the law and letting their baby go hungry? Which ethics matter more–an individual’s or the system that created the crisis?
Please go re-read the ending of The Grapes of Wrath if you want a better idea of what I’m proposing here, because you don’t really get that kind of critical thinking in a real estate CE course.
What CE Doesn’t Teach (But the Job Requires Every Damn Day)
In fact, CE does not teach you how not to price a home, how to negotiate, how to run a business, how to understand people, how to survive a chaotic deal, how to write a compelling listing, or how to build wealth, or how to budget your feral roller-coaster-from-hell hurricane in a blender income.
CE is supposed to teach you how not to violate fair housing, how not to get sued, how to update your contract practices, how to avoid getting into the headlines, how to understand new regulations, how not to screw up trust accounts, and how to follow the evolving legal landscape.
But you don’t really get much of that either (Shout out to managing broker Tom Heany at KWCLM, by the way, who covers all those topics–just another reason to hang your hat at KWCLM).
You do, however, mostly get free sales pitches wearing Groucho Marx glasses.
I’ve sat through CEs on new-construction home inspections—taught by home inspection companies who would love your referrals. CEs on VA loans taught by banks that just happen to specialize in VA lending. I’ve endured fraud-prevention classes run by title companies, walking us through their proprietary safety systems so we leave feeling warm and fuzzy about using them instead of the title company across town.
This is an entire cottage industry of vendors dressing up their marketing as mandatory education. You get a PowerPoint, a stale muffin, and “learning” that miraculously concludes with the instructor’s business card on your desk.
At least you get a stale muffin instead of sitting through something like NAR’s Fairhaven: A Fair Housing Simulation.
Which isn’t much of a simulation as much as a choose-your-own-adventure designed for middle schoolers who are already bored by the graphics.
CE simply keeps you compliant.
The Actual Litmus Test for a Competent Realtor
Here’s the upshot to all of this:
The licensing process tests you on things no one uses, brokers vary wildly, continuing education is a joke, and the actual work of protecting consumers is learned through mentorship or chaos—not through the system that claims to prepare us.
Real estate is a crappy business, where the only reason you stay in business is by paying fees because you pay your brokerage fees, you pay your local board fees, you pay your national NAR fees, and you pay your state licensure fees. It’s not the required pre-licensure education or the exam that qualifies you to be a Realtor, but it is the paying of fees.
If you want to know whether a Realtor is actually good, then ask them who trained them once they paid for their license.
A buyer asks the agent, “Is this a good neighborhood?” What MUST the agent do?
A. Respond, “Absolutely, I live right down the street!”
B. Whisper, “Well… it used to be nice before they moved in,” then wink.
C. Tell the buyer to Google crime maps, school ratings, and anything else that
will get you sued if you comment on it.|
D. Answer the question directly because the buyer really wants to know.
☕About This Real Estate 101 Series:
This full 10-part series pulls back the curtain on an industry most people never get to see clearly. Beginning with the low barrier to entry that brings so many agents into real estate, the pieces walk readers through how those agents are actually educated, supervised, and licensed to represent the largest financial decisions of someone’s life. From there, the arc traces the full anatomy of a transaction—what a Realtor truly does, how agency law works in the real world, and why so much of the job has less to do with houses and more to do with marketing and navigating human behavior. The series also explains how agents are paid, how production numbers get misused, and how to read a Realtor’s online presence with a critical eye. The final installment gives consumers a practical set of interview questions so they can choose representation based on skill, clarity, and trust rather than chance or convenience.
Next week: How Brokerage Oversight Really Works, and coming up:
Agency Law for Real Humans
What a Realtor Actually Does in a Transaction
Why Most Real Estate Work Is Marketing
How Agents Get Paid (and Why It Matters)
The Myth of the “Top Producer”
How to Vet a Realtor Online
Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire an Agent
About this publication.
Coffee with Steve is an independent publication by Steve Bargdill. Views are my own and do not represent Keller Williams Coastal & Lakes & Mountains Realty (“KWCLM”) or any other organization. Each Keller Williams Office is Independently Owned and Operated.
Not advice. Content is informational and educational; it is not legal, tax, or financial advice and does not guarantee results. Talk to a licensed professional who knows your situation before you act.
No agency created. Reading this does not create an agency relationship or agreement for services. Brokerage representation requires a separate written agreement with KWCLM.
Licensure. I am licensed in New Hampshire. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Wire-fraud warning. During representation by Keller Williams, you will never be asked via email to wire funds to anyone, including a title company. Do not follow email wiring instructions. Always verify by phone using a trusted number.
You can reach Keller Williams Coastal and Lakes & Mountains Realty at 603-610-8500 or Steve Bargdill directly at 603-617-6018.
Steve Bargdill | Realtor & Author | Dover • Portsmouth • Somersworth • Rochester • Seacoast NH | Licensed in NH as Stephen Bargdill Jr., with Keller Williams Coastal & Lakes & Mountains Realty.
Pronouns: he, they
