How To Prepare for Your Maine Real Estate Brokers Exam

Maine is home to some of the most beautiful rocky coastlines in all of New England. From Boothbay Harbor to Kennebunkport there is a lot of beautiful real estate to conquer. According to salary.com, the average real estate broker in Maine is making anywhere between $51,876 to $74,004 annually.

But some real estate agents in Maine aren’t exactly sure about where to start when it comes to making the leap from agent to brokerage. The first thing is to make sure you understand the requirements! Then you can go ahead and look into how to prepare for your Maine real estate brokers exam.

The actual preparation can feel like a lot of work but the steps you need to take to prepare are simple. Let’s talk about them.

What Are the Maine Real Estate Commission Requirements

When it comes to being a broker in the United States you will quickly see that there are different requirements for different states. For instance, Maine has different education requirements for designated brokers and associate brokers. Let’s do a quick breakdown of the requirements for Maine.

Complete Maine Real Estate Commission license education program. Expect 60 hours for associate brokers and 50 hours for designated brokers.
Associate brokers applying in Maine must be an active real estate agent representing a brokerage for two years and have five years of total experience.
Designated brokers must have been a previous associate broker for two years with a brokerage within the last five years.
Both types of brokers licenses require a 75% passing score on the test.

Buddy Up With The Right Prep Course

Now that you know what type of educational requirements you need to pursue it’s also worth working with a prep course to solidify your education. The time requirement for education is by no means short which is why many real estate agents pursuing a broker’s license don’t want to waste time studying with the wrong group.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when you are trying to find a prep course to pass the Maine broker’s exam.

Guarantees

We want to make sure we work with a legitimate company that has had success with passing students. Most companies should be so confident in their product that they offer you some sort of guarantee. This can be a money-back guarantee or a pass=guarantee.

Time Allotted

Self-pace is always an important quality to consider because you are likely still going to be working your full-time job. When a company doesn’t allow on-demand learning there is a high chance you won’t retain the information because their schedule may not work for yours.

Different Learning Formats

Not everyone processes information in some way. Some people like to work with modules while others like to highlight PDFs and work on study guides. The more variety a prep course can offer you the more likely you will find your stride in learning.

Maine Real Estate Broker Exam Prep Course Recommendations

There is a lot of options on the market when it comes to choosing how to prepare for your Maine broker’s exam. Here are some of the top-quality choices.

Prep Agent offers a money-back guarantee for its students making it a reliable choice. They also offer a section dedicated to test-taking tips which is fairly important as we will learn later on. Prep agent also offers a variety of plans with different pricing to suit different customers’ needs.

CompuCram is one of the most popular test prep courses because they have all 50 states available to study. Not that you need that! And to boost your confidence even more 86.5% of their students pass on the first time!

What to Expect In a Prep Course

When you work with a prep course for the real estate broker’s exam you should have a slight expectation. Aside from the qualities, you should look for here are the materials you will be covering.

The Material

You are going to be quizzed on a large volume of both national and Florida-specific information about the real estate market. The most common subjects that you will come across are brokerage financing, real estate law, and real estate management.

Review Structure of License Law and MREC rules as well as practice-related issues.
Review agency and non-Agency relationships including fiduciary duties and transaction broker.
Closings and identifying issues with subjects such as title insurance, walk-through problems, unmet contingencies, closing date postponed, and mortgage fraud, among other closing issues.
Review land use laws from zoning, subdivisions, shoreline zoning, deed restrictions, etc.
Finance includes various types of financing options. You will also dive into the Real Estate Procedures Act and problems like the buyer losing their finances the day before the closing.
Value includes reviewing how a broker can estimate and finalize an estimate for both buyers and sellers on a property.
Contracts for the transfer of an interest in real estate will go over being able to recognize different contracts and resolve any issues with these contracts.
State and federal laws under a miscellaneous section.
Job description with both topics of selling and listing licensee.
Negotiations and communications will cover how to negotiate for your clients.

These are all the subjects that should be talked about throughout a prep course. Within these topics are more subcategories.

Taking Additional Practice Exams

The best way to study for the exam is to take practice exams. Likely your test prep provider will give you a number of practice quizzes and exam questions. You want to make sure you take the extra step by taking an exam that mimics the exact same test structure that you will take with Pearson Vue. In fact, Pearson Vue the official proctor of the exam has its own practice exams you can purchase to prepare.

Recommended Test Taking Strategies

Your exam prep provider will likely give you a handful of inside tricks to manage your time and work through the test. The best way to figure out which ones work for you is by trying them out on different exams. In general, there are a few methods that you can apply.

Here are the most common test-taking strategies.

Come Back to Hard Ones: Within the different sections, you can likely skip over the ones you don’t know and come back to them later. Get the easy ones out of the way first.

Process of Elimination: A trick as old as time. Eliminate the answers you are sure are not correct to give yourself a better percentage of answering the question correctly.

Take Your Time: Regardless of the fact that the test is timed, it is important to not rush. There are some tricky wording questions that cna easily allow you to misinterpret the question.

No Second Guessing: Go with your gut. It is a proven study that usually your gut answer is correct and second-guessing can result in the wrong answer.

Know the Exam Structure

You may be incredible at retaining information and have already proved you can be a fantastic Maine real estate broker. However, if you can’t pass the test that dream will never come to fruition. It’s not unheard of that some people are not good at taking exams. That’s ok! That’s why understanding the exam structure is very helpful so there are no surprises.

Understand that there are two parts to the Maine Real Estate Commission Broker’s Exam. There is your state-specific section (law) and your national portion. You have 3.5 hours for the national and 1.5 for the state-specific section. You should and likely will go over this with your prep course.

Start Today

There is so much upside to becoming a real estate broker in Maine. Whether you are an associate broker or you are a designated broker it is worth the likely salary increase after passing your exam. But knowing how to pass the exam is a whole other topic. That’s why by making sure you meet the requirements and choosing a test prep provider that meets your needs is crucial.

Make sure that when you go to prepare for your exam who you choose not only meets you studying formats but has some testimonials to back up their credibility. When they offer a guarantee (they should) they are much more likely to know what they are talking about.

But as we know the work doesn’t end there. The most important part is taking initiative by taking your own practice exams. This is where you can replicate the scenario you are going to be facing and implement test-taking strategies. This can take some time but it is how you should prepare for the Maine real estate broker’s exam. When all is said and done and you pass you will be thankful you took these steps.