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How to get your real estate license in Washington State
The real estate profession has expanded and offers one of the widest career selections in the business world today. A career in real estate provides flexibility and freedom to set your own pace. Income directly reflects your efforts, with no limits on what astute, hard-working men and women can earn. Successful people in real estate are goal-oriented, persevering, self-motivated, ambitious and people-oriented. The rewards of a real estate career are a potential for high earnings, status in the community, autonomy, time freedom, helping people, the intellectual challenge and the satisfaction from those accomplishments.
If you think real estate is right for you, here is the requirements and steps you need to take to get your real estate license in Washington State.
Requirements
To qualify for a broker’s license, you must:
- Be at least 18 years old.
- Have a high school diploma or equivalent.
- Successfully complete 90 hours of approved real estate education within 2 years before applying for the exam. This education must include:
- A 60-hour course in Real Estate Fundamentals.
- A 30-hour course in Real Estate Practices.
- Pass the broker’s exam.
Study for broker’s exam
You need to complete 90 hours of real estate education before taking your broker’s exam. Included in this 90 hours is a 60-hour course in Real Estate Fundamentals which provides an overview of the theoretical and practical aspects of real estate. Another included course is Real Estate Practices which is 30 hours and provides an overview of the practical, day-to-day aspects of the real estate business. It teaches the essential skills that Washington real estate agents must master, including: working with clients, pricing property, complying with fair housing laws, filling out necessary agreements, handling offers and counteroffers, prequalifying buyers, and guiding transactions through the closing process.
To complete your education, you can choose from a variety of online and class based schools. Here is our recommendations in the state of Washington.
| 1- Windermere Professional Development | Cost: $399 | windermereu.com |
| 2- Rockwell Institute | Cost: $489 | rockwellinstitute.com |
Schedule your broker’s exam 
Before you complete your course, you must register as a student with DOL testing vendor, Applied Measurements Professionals, Inc. (AMP), so your school can submit your course completion information electronically. To register as a student with AMP click here and follow the instructions.
- Your school must submit your course completions to AMP electronically to complete the examination registration process.
- After your school submits your education information to AMP, schedule your exam online, by phone, or by mail. To schedule online: Go to www.goAMP.com.
For more information visit dol.wa.gov.
Apply for your Washington Real Estate Broker License
- Complete the Real Estate License Application form.
- Submit your completed application with a check or money order for the fee ($138.25 as of Nov. 2016), payable to the Department of Licensing, to:
Real Estate Licensing
Department of Licensing
PO Box 3917
Seattle, WA 98124-3917 - Submit fingerprints for state and national background checks.
- Inside Washington:
- Go to www.identogo.com to schedule an appointment through MorphoTrust, DOL’s electronic fingerprinting vendor. You will pay IdentoGO for taking your fingerprints and for the background checks required for your license type.
- Outside Washington:
- Call Real Estate Regulatory at 360.664.6484 for fingerprint card submission instructions.
- For more details, see Fingerprinting and background checks.
- Inside Washington:
We wish you good luck in the process. Please don’t hesitate to contact us, should you have any questions or need any further information.
Sources: dol.wa.gov, realtor.org, rockwellinstitute.com, amazon.com
Windermere Launches New Ultra-Luxury Brand: W Collection
Anyone who has spent time in the Seattle area in recent years has likely seen for themselves how much the city has changed. Thanks in large part to the booming economy, growing tech sector, and increasing international appeal, Seattle is no longer a sleepy little city tucked away in the far corner of the United States. With this changing landscape has come an infusion of wealth that has seen the area’s high-net-worth population explode. And with it, so too has the ultra-high-end real estate market.
In order to meet the specialized needs of this burgeoning market, Windermere has launched W Collection, a new ultra-luxury brand specifically designed for homes priced at $3 million and above in Western Washington. OB Jacobi, President of Windermere Real Estate, says that Seattle’s population of “global affluent” is on the rise and they greatly value real estate. The proof is in the numbers.
Over the past five years there has been a significant increase in the number of home sales in the $3 million+ market. In 2011 there were only 45 such sales in King County, while in 2015 there were 131. “Windermere agents represent anywhere from 40-60 percent of the $3 million+ sales in the Seattle area, so we felt we were in the ideal position to build a brand that could provide enhanced marketing support to the growing number of ultra-luxury homes,” said Jacobi.
W Collection is its own standalone brand with a separate website, WByWindermere.com, signage, presentation materials, and specialized advertising opportunities. When developing W Collection, Jacobi said that the goal was to create a sophisticated, yet humble, brand that evokes the understated expression of wealth that is unique to the Pacific Northwest. “Our clients are not largely drawn to the shows of excessive wealth that you see at other companies and in other parts of the country. This is reflected in the W Collection brand,” said Jacobi.
The development of W Collection began a little over a year ago, and according to Jacobi, was a highly collaborative process with Windermere agents playing an integral role in every step, “Over the past 44 years some of Windermere’s best ideas have come from our agents who are totally in tune with the needs of their clients and the shifting demands of the market; W Collection was born from this same agent ingenuity.”
