New York real estate:
salesperson or broker?

You cannot start as a broker

A salesperson needs 77 hours of qualifying education and no experience. A broker needs 152 hours, which is that 77 plus a further 75, and two years as a licensed salesperson, or three years in the general real estate field, plus a points requirement. So the salesperson license is not an alternative to the broker license. It is the route to it.

The exams are weighted very differently

The salesperson paper spreads across eleven subjects with the largest at 13% of the questions. The broker paper puts 35% of its weight on agency, license law and running an office, and another 17% on advanced fair housing. Over half the broker exam sits on two areas.

Subjects in one and not the other

The salesperson exam has contracts and leases, valuation and math, land use, condos and co-ops. The broker exam adds general business law, transaction analysis and local issues. Where they share a heading the altitude changes: the salesperson exam asks what the rule is, the broker exam asks what the broker must do when a licensee under them breaks it.

Time and validity

The Department allows an hour and a half for the salesperson exam and two and a half hours for the broker exam. A passed broker result is valid for two years; the Department publishes no equivalent figure for the salesperson exam.

Which should you sit?

If you are not already a licensed salesperson, the question does not arise yet. If you are, the broker license is worth it when you intend to run a firm or take responsibility for other people's licenses, because that is what the exam is about and it is what the job is about.

Preparing for the broker exam if you are already licensed

The broker exam draws on all 152 hours, so half of what it can ask is salesperson material you last studied years ago. Sitting one of our salesperson forms alongside a broker form covers both halves at close to the real proportion.

If you are weighing the two, sitting one section of each is the cheapest way to feel the difference in level. Both licenses are covered on the real estate page, and ten questions are free on the samples page.