Myth: Most people take the state exam several times.
Fact: The Florida Bureau of Education and Testing publishes the state exam statistics every month. Approximately half of the people pass the sales associate state exam the first time.
Myth: The State of Florida makes the real estate state exam difficult on purpose.
Fact: The past several governors, and particularly our current governor, are adamantly against unnecessary regulation. Our current governor, Ron DeSantis, had a Dereg-A-Thon to discuss ways we could make it easier to get professional licenses, not more difficult. The State has a duty to ensure “minimal competence” but that is their only goal. They want people to get licensed so they can earn money – that’s good for everyone.
Myth: The questions on the state exam are designed to be tricky.
Fact: The questions are written to test you at different levels of learning. On one of my YouTube videos, I talk about Bloom’s Taxonomy. The Rules of the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC) require that at least 70% of the questions are at the application level and above. If you have been studying at the memorization level, or your teacher has only taught you at the memorization level, you will think the test is very, very tricky. If you study at the application level, you will not only pass the state exam the first time you take it, you will think it is fairly easy.
If you want to learn more about the specific learning levels of test questions on the Florida real estate exam, read this blog post or watch this video.
Myth: The Florida Real Estate Commission is trying to keep people out of the profession.
Fact: The State of Florida wants you to get licensed. This is good for business, which is good for Florida. Join me this Tuesday at the FREC meeting where applicants with criminal histories are trying to get a real estate license and you will see that the vast majority are approved to take the state exam. Most people pass the state exam the first time (very tiny majority). Florida grants about 2,500 new licenses every month. That wouldn’t happen that if they were trying to keep people out of the profession.
Please note that Karen Climer neither works for nor has any affiliation with Climer School of Real Estate. Her family sold the school in 2014.