Hello, again my friends and welcome to another episode of Ask Marco where I answer your investing related questions.

Today's question comes from Mike. The general theme here is that his question is will a real estate license help or hinder my real estate investing? Good question. Mike says, hi Marco. I'm a relatively newly licensed real estate agent in Northwest Arkansas. My work history is mostly in construction. About a month ago I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is the Robert Kiyosaki book. Then I found you through a Google search and have since immersed myself in all things passive income. I'm 53 and I want out of the rat race, ASAP and he capitalizes as soon as possible. Thanks so much for all the great info and inspiration that you and your team provide. I have scheduled a call with one of your investment counselors for me and my fiancée. We are very excited about that.





My question for you today is how can being a real estate agent help or hinder my goals for real estate investing in general? Does there ever come a point where it can get in the way of investing full time? So this is a good question. So any concludes by saying thanks again. I look forward to your response. Okay, so well here it is. First of all, congratulations on reading the book, getting your license and wanting to get out of the rat race. I know that book is basically a head Turner for so many people. It just changes your mindset and really wakes you up to so many things and although literally millions of people have read the book, there are still tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people who have not read the book. And it's such a foundational book, not so much for tactics but for mindset.

So great upon you for reading the book and congratulations on getting your license. So little bit of history on this question because I remember this question from 1516 years ago, if not longer, and there was always a negative stigma. If you will with getting a real estate license, if you want it to be a real estate investor, whether part-time or full time. And I think the reason for that is because in some cases held you back in your ability to negotiate with prospective sellers when you want it to purchase their property. Why? Because it is a law probably in every state that you need to disclose that you are a licensed real estate professional because you supposedly know more than the average Joe. So if you are in a situation where you're dealing directly with a seller and trying to negotiate on the purchase of their property, you have certain responsibilities being a licensed real estate agent and that is fiduciary responsibility.

So you cannot supposedly take advantage of a seller regardless of their situation. So, the fact is that you need to disclose the fact that you are licensed and that you have a certain amount of knowledge which is probably more than the person you're dealing with. And so just to keep things on a level playing field and fair, you're supposed to disclose that, especially on a purchase contract. Now if you're working through another brokerage or agent, then you should still disclose but it's probably not mandatory. Now don't quote me on that part because that probably changes from state to state when you're one party removed, but the benefit today is that if you are planning to fix and flip, in other words, you're out on the hunt looking for deals. It gives you access to the MLS, it gives you access to other resources, people within, you know, within the larger network of your real estate agents to get your hands on, on deals that are coming down the pipeline.

But if your plans are not to be an active real estate investor and meaning you're buying and negotiating directly with sellers for buy and hold properties or you are looking to buy fix and flip properties where you still are dealing directly with sellers and in some cases wholesalers, but still you're contractually getting involved directly with a...