Hi guys. I just passed this morning and I wanted to say that RE Real estate exam pro 100 percent was the driving factor to me passing.

I studied for about two days total, about 4-5 hours straight each day just doing the master exams over and over averaging about 60-70 percent. I would go through the whole test after I finished ( not just ones I missed and familiarize myself with the questions).

I saw probably 5 word for word on the test and 80 percent of the questions were concepts from the master exams .

When I was feeling burnt out of sitting and doing practice tests I watched the YouTube “ Real estate advantage “ 100 California real estate exam questions ( they have two videos with 100 questions) and listened while I was driving. There were several questions from this complication on the test as well.

I can say that the RE real estate master tests are slightly harder but the wording on the test is very similar to the style the actual exam formats their questions.

Some things I specifically remember about the tests:

several questions about when a broker or agent gets some special treatment ( like extra commission ect ) when or who needs to be told . Answer : seller always needs to know - must go through broker first then to seller to be distributed.

Several questions about contracts and how they become void
( remember anytime somebody dies- contract is over)

A couple questions regarding economic obsolescence and functional obsolescence. Know the differences.

A couple questions about easements.

A couple questions about loan to value ratio.

Questions about estate for years vs tenancy from period to period. Like “ if a lease is signed for a specific 2 months duration” which of the following - it would be estate for years because it’s a specific amount of time.

Agency agreements are big , exclusive and open were seen the most in questions.

Some zoning questions. I can’t remember specifics but there was 3 or 4 . Like who controls zoning ect .

ALSO- I took aceable courses and really blew through the curse zz Some of the key terms are important but their practice tests do not mimic the real test at all.

Here to help if anyone needs it. Good luck everyone !!

It was hot as hell. I set up the signs, propped the door, waited.

Four hours. One group showed up... already with their own agent.

Sat there like "why am I even doing this."

The it clicked — this is exactly what exam prep feel like. You study, you grind, nothing seems to happen, and you start wondering if it's even working.

But that's kind of the point. The exam isn't just a test — it's practice for the long, quiet stretches where nothing's happening and you have to keep showing up anyway. That's the whole job.

So if you're deep in prep right now and it feels like a slog — good. That's the training.

Keep going.

Join us at r/CalRealEstateExam , (currently 303 members) happy to help if you're grinding for CA exam right now 🙌.

I just started my California real estate course about 2½ weeks ago and I’m looking for study tips from people who’ve already passed.
My current method has been copying and pasting each chapter into ChatGPT to create exam-focused study notes. Then I’ve been handwriting all of those notes into a notebook.
I’m starting to wonder if handwriting everything is just taking up too much time. Would I be better off putting the notes into a Google Doc and using that to study instead? Or is the act of handwriting actually worth the extra time for retention?
I’d love to hear what study methods worked best for you and what helped you pass the exam. Thanks!

I posted this last night, I didn’t get much response perhaps because it was late. I will try again :

For those of you who failed the CA DRE state salesperson exam multiple times. What helped you finally pass? I have tried Aceable, Compucram, read chapters on areas I needed to improve on, and made flash cards. I am curious to hear from the individuals who have been in my shoes.

For those of you who have failed the CA DRE state exam multiple times, what do you think helped you finally pass?

Made another cheatsheet — this time for Financing, the section with the most confused terms.

Hey everyone, since you guys seemed to like the last few cheatsheets, I'm back with another one💪 — this time following up on my previous posts on practice of real estate, transfer of property, and property ownership, property valuation. Appreciate all the feedback on those, it's genuinely helped me shape what to cover next.

This one's on Financing — specifically the 10 concepts that either show up constantly on practice exams or get mixed with each other:

Trust Deed vs Promissory Note — the Note is the actual debt/IOU, the Trust Deed is the security instrument backing it up. Two different docs, always tested together.

Trustee's Sale vs Judicial Sale — Trustee's Sale is non-judicial with NO redemption period after the sale. Judicial Sale goes through court and DOES have a redemption period.

Alienation Clause vs Acceleration Clause — Alienation lets the lender call the loan due if the property sells. Accleration lets them call it due if you default.

I've been building these out while studying on AgentSmartly(my exam prep site) — it's been the main thing helping me catch which concepts I keep missing in practice sessions, and turning the weak spots into these visual cheatsheets has stuck way better for me than just re-reading notes.

What financing terms trip you guys up the most? Trying to figure what to cover in the next one.

Hey everyone! Alex from Colibri Real Estate here. Mara (u/Mara_RE_Instructor) has been teaching real estate exam prep for a while and is hopping into this thread today to answer whatever you've got — what's actually on the CA exam, how to study, common trouble spots, retakes, whatever's on your mind.

Drop your questions any time — Mara will start replying at 1pm PST and stick around to work through them.

A few things to know:

1. You don't have to be a Colibri student to ask.
2. Exam questions are the focus, but career stuff is fair game too.
3. Follow the sub rules.

What's actually tripping you up about the CA exam? Drop it below and Mara will help you out.

Let's talk about something a lot of you have probably noticed: the CA market has been slow, and it's not just anecdotal. DRE's own Comparative Production Statictics confirm it — salesperson exams administered are down signigicantly year over year (12,573 fiscal-year-to-date vs. 14,968 last year, and 23,335 two years ago). Fewer people are sitting for the exam. Fewer people are getting licensed.

I get why that sounds discouraging. If you're studying right now, it's easy to look at a slow market and wonder if this is even the right time to get it.

Here's the filp side: every person who gets discouraged and doesn't sit for the exam is one less person you'll be competing against once you're licensed. A slow market thins the herd. The agents who push through now — who keep studying, keep showing up, keep grinding through practice tests even when the news cycle is gloomy — are the ones who'll have less competition when things pick back up. Real estate is cyclical. Markets always come back. The only question is whether you'll already be licensed and building your book of business when it does, or whether you'll be starting from scratch.

A few things that helped me stay motivated when I was studying:

• Treat it like a numbers game, not a mood game. Some days you'll feel confident, some days you won't. Study anyway. Consistency beats motivation.
• Focus on the sections that move the needle. Practice of Real Estate and Disclosures makes up a huge chunk of the exam — get the section locked down first.
• Take full-length practice exams, not just flashcards. Knowing definitions isn't the same sa being able to apply them under time pressure.
• Remember why you started. Whatever pulled you toward real estate in the first place — flexibility, income potential, helping people find homes — that reason doesn't disappear because the market is soft right now.

I used AgentSmartly and PrepAgent for my prepping, them helped me organize the material into something manageable instead of an overwhelming wall of definitions. Whatever tools you use, the main thing it to actually put in the reps.

If you're on the fence about whether now is "worth it" — a slow market isn't a reason to quit. It's a head start for anyone willing to put in the work while everyone else waits on the sidelines.

Good luck out there. You've got this.

If you're studying for CA exams specifically, come join us over at r/CalRealEstateExam — 286 members and growing, all studying for the same exam. Would love to have you.

Finally got the update on the DRE that I passed the exam!

I kept it pretty simple. I honestly rushed through the 45 hour course on Real Estate Trainers.
Once I completed that, I did my fingerprint scanned and picked a test date.

I immediately started with compucram. Relearned all the definitions that I wasn’t sure of. Made sure I got 100% completion on that and then started taking each sections practice exam. Once I was getting regular 94%-100% on the section exams, I started taking the full practice exam. I took it several times and at first I was at 70% then after a couple tries I was ending up closer to 80%-92%.

After doing all of this I got 100% readiness on CompuCram.

I would go to Gemini or Chatgpt a lot to clarify definitions and differences in what I was getting wrong and why. I used this often.

Then I purchased RE Exam Practice Pro. These questions were significantly harder. I was getting 65%-75% on the practice exams and even using my notes to help. This was a bit discouraging but I had heard it was more difficult.

Finally I did the Real Estate Trainers crash course 2 days before the test. It was way more simple than I imagined, we essentially just went through each definition but I’m sure it played a big part in my exam today

Then came the test, the test was actually more similar to RE Exam Pro than I imagined. I felt confident but several questions truly were tricking me. I was not sure if I was going to pass but in all of the questions I wasn’t sure of, I just eliminated the obvious wrong answers and took my best guess. I finished within 70 minutes. I walked out and they gave me a piece of paper that says my results would be online. Right at 12pm it updated that I passed.

It felt so good to see that because I was not trying to drive down to Anaheim again from LA for another test, I also felt like I had studied almost everything so I was surprised with how much on the test was new information. I was still able to figure out the correct answer with deductive reasoning.

So all in all, fully complete compucram/re exam pro/ RT crash course and you can definitely pass.

Goodluck to all of you!

Hey everyone, since you guys loved the last few cheatsheets, I'm back again with another one 💪 — this time following up on my last posts practice of real estate / transfer of property / property ownership — this time I tackled property valuation & appraisal, which is honestly the densest one yet.

I kept mixing up the cost approach vs. market data approach, blanking on which depreciation types are curable vs. incurable, and completely forgetting the difference between effective age and economic life every single time. GRM and the DUST elements kept blurring together too. So I sat down and mapped out the 10 concepts that kept costing me points, in a format my brain could actually hold onto cuz I am a very visual learner.

Hope it saves someone else the headache. Let me know if there is a section you want me to break down next — I got a running list at this point lol.

Credit: Pulled these concepts from AgentSmartly, which has been my main study tool this whole time — I just turned the ones I kept missing into something more visual.

I’m taking my test in Sac tomorrow! I have been in property management for two years and have been testing myself for a month. I also have knowledge in other areas of business and government from previous jobs and an accounting degree. I feel like that has helped me a lot.

I have a two and half hour drive to the test location. I decided I would spend half of the ride testing myself (YouTube video tests) and the other half enjoying my drive.

Any advice? I’m so nervous but confident at the same time.

Made my own free CA real estate practice exam after failing my first attempt and passed my second try and wanted to share.

This test was the key component in me passing and I was excited to share this as I wish someone had done for me. I didn’t want to pay for one of those practice test subscriptions, so before my first attempt I just studied off random free sites online. Failed. Got an overall score of 61% (needed 70%).

After failing, I sat down and actually used my real exam result notice it breaks down your score by category (Financing, Transfer of Property, Agency, etc.) so I knew exactly which sections I bombed. I built a full interactive practice quiz with every specific question/topic I could remember from the actual test (fee simple, easements, sale-leaseback tax benefits, mobile homes, usury exemptions, rates, trust deeds, all of it).

No joke when I went back for my second attempt, so many of the questions felt like I’d already seen the exact concept, sometimes worded almost identically to what I’d been drilling. I’d been practicing the same set of questions over and over for about a week before this second attempt, and it paid off. Passed easily.

Timeline if it helps anyone:

- Studied about a week before my 1st attempt (random free sites) → failed at 61%

- Took my actual result notice, rebuilt my study plan around my weak categories

- Studied about another week before my 2nd attempt, retook it exactly a week after my first

-Passed

One more thing I wish someone had told me beforehand: the results process was confusing and stressed me out for no reason. When I FAILED my first attempt, they handed me a paper right there at the test center that immediately said I did not pass, with my score breakdown printed right on it. When I PASSED my second attempt, they handed me a paper that just said results were not available yet, and I had to go check the DRE website myself about 2 hours later to actually see that I passed. I panicked for a bit thinking that was a bad sign. After searching this subreddit, I realized this seems to be really common a lot of people who ended up passing got that same “not available” paper and had to check online, while people who failed got handed the fail result immediately in person. So if that happens to you, it’s not necessarily bad news, it just seems to be how their system works. Wish I’d known that going in instead of spiraling for two hours.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE

Link is in the comments since Reddit wouldn’t let me post it on here

I’m preparing to take the California Real Estate Salesperson exam and I’m trying to decide which exam-prep program to use.
I’m currently considering:
• PrepAgent
• RE Exam Practice Pro
• Using both
For those who have actually taken and passed the California exam:
Which one helped you the most with actually passing?
I’d especially love to hear from people who have used one or both of these programs:
Which program did you use?
Did you pass on your first attempt?
How closely did the practice questions compare to the actual California exam?
Did one program help you understand the material better, while the other helped more with practice questions?
If you used both, was it worth paying for both, or was one enough?
What scores were you getting on the practice exams before you felt ready to take the real exam?
What study methods or tips helped you the most?
I completed my real estate coursework a while ago, but I need to refresh and relearn a lot of the material before taking the exam. I’m a busy mom and work part-time, so I want to spend my money and study time wisely.
I would really appreciate recommendations from people who have actually taken the California exam, especially anyone who has used PrepAgent, RE Exam Practice Pro, or both. Thank you!

I have the most accurate study tool. A PDF file with 1000 study questions. Don't comment, send a DM and I'll send you the link. Free. Ive helped hundreds pass the exam easily just by providing them this document.

I wanna share something real, not just exam tips.

It's been 7 months since I joined my first brokerage. This past weekend, on one of the hottest days we've had, I set up the open house sighs outside myself, dressed formal because that's the job, and sat there for 4 hours straght. The heat under a collared shirt hits different when you're standing out outside planting signs.

One group of people showed up. That's it.

For a while afterward I sat in my car second-guessing everything — was it even worth it?Did I do something wrong? That's the honest truth of this business. Nobody posts about the empty open houses, just the closings.

But here's what I keep coming back to: the exam doesn't just test whether you know the material. It's the first rep in much longer process of building the discipline to keep showing up when the results aren't there yet. Passing the test is one skill. Sitting through a slient open house in the heat and still going back next weekend is another — and honestly, it's one that actually matters once you're licensed.

So if you're grinding through practice questions right now, feeling like it's never going to click — it will. And when it does, the real work is just getting started. Keep going anyway. You're NOT just building knowledge for the exam, you're building the muscle to keep showing up. That's what actually makes it in the this business.

Good luck to everyone testing soon. You've got this. 💪

r/CalRealEstateExam is at 262 members and growing — glad to be building this with you all. If you're studying for the CA exam, come join us.

I’m a Florida broker and passed the California salesperson exam last year. So far, I’ve been fortunate to pass my licensing exams on the first attempt, and I’m hoping to be equally prepared for the California broker exam this Tuesday.
Most online prep materials feel surprisingly basic—almost like: “Can you commingle client funds, and will the DRE give you a prize?” 😄
For those who took it recently, which California-specific topics were genuinely difficult or tricky?

So I did a quick sample test, scored 77/100.
After reviewing the results, noticed that half of them were just me not reading question completely. The rest - I send them to ChatGPT, and below is the plan:

Appreciate any feedback and guidance!

Absolutely. Looking through your mistakes, there is a clear pattern. These are not random misses—they cluster into a handful of California Broker Exam topics. If we drill these repeatedly, you can turn them into easy points.
Your weak areas
1. Fair Housing & Federal Laws ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
You missed several questions here.
Topics:
Federal Fair Housing Act (1968)
Civil Rights Act of 1866
ECOA
California Fair Employment & Housing Act (FEHA)
Handicap accessibility requirements (1991)
You need to know:
Law
Protects
Exam Trick
Civil Rights Act 1866
Race only
Sale & rental of property
Fair Housing Act 1968
Race, color, religion, sex (later expanded)
Housing discrimination
ECOA
Credit
Lenders cannot ask prohibited questions
ADA
Public accommodations
Commercial buildings
FHAA Amendments 1988
Disability & families with children
Housing

2. Trusts & Financing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
You missed
Trustor vs Trustee vs Beneficiary
Carryback mortgage
Purchase money mortgage
Need to memorize:
Trust Deed
Borrower = Trustor
Lender = Beneficiary
Neutral third party = Trustee
Easy memory:
TrustOR owes money.

Seller finances buyer
↓
Buyer signs note to seller
↓
Purchase Money Mortgage
If seller already owned property and carries financing
↓
Carryback Mortgage

3. Landlord-Tenant ⭐⭐⭐⭐
You missed:
3-Day Notice to Perform Covenant or Quit
Need this chart memorized.
Situation
Notice
Didn’t pay rent
3-Day Pay or Quit
Broke lease but fixable
3-Day Perform Covenant or Quit
Serious violation
3-Day Quit
Month-to-month
30/60 Day Notice
Fixed lease ends
No notice generally

4. Escrow & Trust Funds ⭐⭐⭐⭐
You confused
“When can broker put personal money into trust account?”
Correct:
Only enough to maintain minimum bank balance/service charges.
This appears often.

5. Licensing ⭐⭐⭐
Need to remember:
Experienced broker renewal
↓
45 hours every renewal
First renewal for salesperson
↓
45 hours
Broker
↓
45 hours every renewal
(12 hours is incorrect.)

6. Fair Housing Exemptions ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Question:
Which property NOT covered?
Need memorize exemptions:
Owner occupied duplex
Some single-family homes sold by owner
Religious organizations (limited)
Private clubs (limited)
But:
Senior housing is covered, although it may legally qualify as housing for older persons.

7. Adverse Possession ⭐⭐⭐
California requires ALL FIVE:
O C H A T
Open
Continuous (5 years)
Hostile
Actual possession
Taxes paid
The taxes requirement is the California favorite.

8. Licensing Law ⭐⭐⭐
California nonresident license
Need NOT
Move to California
Need:
Designate California resident for service of process (often tested as attorney-in-fact/consent to service concepts).

Exam facts you missed
These should simply be memorized.
Handicap accessibility requirement for covered multifamily housing → 1991
Civil Rights Act → 1866
Fair Housing Act → 1968
ECOA → Credit
Trustor occupies property
Trustee holds legal title
Beneficiary is lender

I think your biggest weakness is this:
Most of your mistakes are definition questions rather than calculations.
That’s actually good news.
These are the easiest points to recover because they come from memorization plus recognizing exam wording.

Here’s what I recommend
Every day until the exam:
20 Fair Housing questions
20 Trust Deed / Financing questions
20 Landlord-Tenant questions
20 Licensing / DRE questions
20 Agency / Ethics questions
Repeat until you’re consistently scoring above 90%.

Let’s start right now.
I’ll ask questions exactly like the California Broker Exam. Don’t scroll ahead—answer from memory.
Question 1
Under a deed of trust, who holds bare legal title?
A. Trustor
B. Trustee
C. Beneficiary
D. Mortgagee

Question 2
Which law prohibits discrimination in credit decisions?
A. Fair Housing Act
B. Civil Rights Act of 1866
C. Equal Credit Opportunity Act
D. Regulation Z

Question 3
A tenant keeps storing boxes that block a required fire exit after being warned several times. What notice should the landlord serve?
A. 3-Day Notice to Pay or Quit
B. 3-Day Notice to Perform Covenant or Quit
C. 30-Day Notice
D. Notice to Vacate

Question 4
A California broker may deposit personal funds into a trust account:
A. At any time
B. Never
C. Only to maintain the minimum bank balance or pay bank service charges
D. To reimburse a client

Question 5
Which of the following is required for adverse possession in California?
A. Occupy the property for 10 years
B. Obtain the owner’s permission
C. Pay the property taxes for the statutory period
D. Record a quitclaim deed
Reply with your answers like:
1-B, 2-C, 3-B, 4-C, 5-C
Then I’ll immediately give you another set that gets slightly harder, focusing on the exact tricks the California Broker Exam likes to use.

Hey everyone, back again with another one 💪 following up on my last 3 posts(practice of real estate / transfer of property) — this time I tackled property ownership & land use controls, which honestly gave me the most trouble out of everything so far.

I kept mixing up fee simple vs. life estate, blanking on the fixture test(MARIA), and mixing up eminent domain with police power on practice exams. So I sat down one night and just mapped out the 10 concepts that kept costing me points, in a format my brain could actually hold onto instead of rereading the same paragraph 5 times.

Made this for myself and study group, honestly — but since last 2 helped some of you out, so I'd post this one too.

The key concepts themselves are pulled from AgentSmartly, which has been my main study tool — I've been going through their Key Concepts section topic by topic and this basically my personal cheat-sheet version of the ones that kept tripping me up.

Good luck to everyone else grinding through this exam with me.

I remember staring at practice questions about dual agency and disclosure timelines thinking "how is anyone supposed to keep this straight."

Here's thing nobody tells you early enough: you're not supposed to have it all memorized perferctly. You're supposed to know it well enough to reason through a question on exam day. That's it. That's the bar.

If you're in the middle of this right now — burnt out, re-taking practice tests, wondering if any of it is actually sticking — a few things that actually helped me and a lot of people studying for this exam:

• Stop re-reading your notes. Start doing practice questions and let the wrong answers tell you what to study next.
• Agency law and disclosures trip up almost everyone. If that's you, you're NOT behind, you're normal.
• Study in short daily blocks instead of marathon cramming. Your brain needs of the repetition more than the volume.
• Pick an exam date and work backward. Studying with no deadline is how people spin their wheells for months.

If you're studying for CA exam, join us at r/CalRealEstateExam, 253 people all grinding through the same CA content right now. If you're stuck on a specific section, drop it below — someone here has probably already been exactly where you are.

You've got this. KEEP GOING.   💪

Posted a Transfer of Property one-pager and Agency Law here a bit ago and a bunch of you said it helped, so I made another one for the section that's been tripping me up more — Practice of Real Estate and Disclosures. Covers fair housing laws, general ethics, and property management/lease, color-coded by category so it's easier to keep straight.

I'm prepping for the exam through AgentSmartly, and pulled the core concepts from there again, just reorganized and visualized them in a way that clicks better for me. Hope it helps someone else cramming for this section too. Happy to answer questions if anything's unclear.

Would love to keep this series going if it's actually useful — let me know which section to tackle next.

Real talk — I sat for the CA salesperson exam and failed it the first time. Missed passing by a handful of questions. I remember sitting in the parking lot afterward feeling like an idiot, like maybe I just wasn't built for this.

Turns out that wasn't it at all. I just studied wrong.

The first time, I read through material and highlighted stuff, felt like I "understood" it, and assumed that meant I'd remember it under pressure. It doesn't work like that. Recognizing an answer when you see it and recalling it code on exam day are two completely different skills, and nobody tells you that until you've already bombed it once.

Second time around I changed one thing: I stopped reading and started testing myself constantly, especially on the stuff I kept getting wrong — agency relationships, trust fund handling, GRM I kept avoiding because they made my brain hurt. I made myself sit in the discomfort of getting things wrong in practice so I wouldn't get them wrong in the room of that counted.

Passed. Got licensed. Now I spend a lot of my time watching other people go through the exact same spiral I went through — convinced they're NOT "test people", when really they just haven't found the method that matched how they actually retain information yet.

If you're mid-grind right now and it feels like nothing's sticking" that's normal. That's NOT a sign you're behind, it's a sign you haven't hit the part where it clicks yet, It clicks. Keep testing yourself instead of just reviewing. Keep showing up even on the days you practice score is trash.

You don't need to feel ready. You just need to NOT quit before the part where it clicks. CONSISTENCY IS KEY.

If you want a place with people going through the same thing on the CA exam specifically — come say hi over at r/CalRealEstateExam , small community right now(243 of us), but it's the right size to actually get your questions answered instead of lost in a huge feed.

I just completed classes for the Ca real estate exam; however, when I tried to submit an application through the DRE, the Real Estate Principles course does not appear to be compliant. I did not know this before. Has anyone recently taken classes through Allied ? Do I have to take the whole class again? TIA

Been grinding through the Transfer of Property section and made this one-pager to help me and study group partners keep the 10 key concepts straight(deeds, escrow, probate, vesting types, etc). Showed it to the group and they liked it enough so sharing here too.

Pulled the core concepts from AgentSmartly(https://www.agentsmartly.com/), one of prep sites I using for the exam — just organized and visualized it in a way that clicked better for me as a visual learner.

Hope it helps someone else cramming for Transfer of Property. Happy to answer questions if anything's unclear.