A well known strategy to pass your real estate exam is to know the lingo.  If you don't know the words in a question or in the answers it will be difficult to pass the test.  Real estate schools that provide vocabulary tests and tools tend to have the highest pass rates for students.






For example consider these terms:

APR

Buy down

CRV

ECOA

deed-in-lieu

Mortgage insurance premium

Riparian rights

To set yourself up for passing grades you must study vocabulary.  Here is a study tool that you can download that will help you pass your exam.

Many times buyers (particularly first time home buyers) are not familiar with escrow requirements when they purchase real estate.

First of all, escrow needs all of the buyer’s contact information:  home, work, cell and email.

Secondly, a packet from escrow will be provided to you and they will need to know how you would like to hold title to your home.

You also need to let Escrow know if funds are coming from the sale of an existing home. 

After your loan documents have been received, Escrow will let you know what the amount is needed to close.  Funds need to be in the form of a wire transfer or cashier’s check payable to the Escrow Company.

You also need to provide Escrow with the name of your insurance agent and phone number prior to close of escrow.

At Signing:  All individuals named on the Deed and/or Mortgage must be present.  Everyone must present a valid identification in the form of:   a current Driver’s License, Passport, Department of Motor Vehicles Identification Card or other approved identification card provided it has a photograph, description of the person, signature and an identifying number.

You will receive the keys from your real estate agent and the recorded deed will be mailed to you from the County Recorder’s Office.

1. What are the different types of mortgage insurance?

In general, there are two types of mortgage insurance: mortgage insurance bought from the government, designed for those with FHA or VA loans or mortgage insurance for conventional loans which is bought from the private sector (this is called private mortgage insurance or PMI), Basically, the type of mortgage insurance required will depend on the type of mortgage loan you get.

2. Who is required to have mortgage insurance?

Typically on a conventional loan, if your down payment is less than 20 percent of the value of the home, lenders will require you to carry mortgage insurance. Usually, you pay those mortgage insurance premiums until your loan-to-value ratio (LTV) -- this is simply the amount of money you borrowed divided by the value of the property you bought -- hits 80 percent. For example, let’s say you bought a $100,000 home and put down 10 percent, or $10,000, and got a $90,000 loan to pay the rest. Your LTV in this case would be $90,000 divided by $100,000, or 90 percent. The longer you pay down your mortgage, the lower your LTV will become. On government loans, mortgage insurance is normally required regardless of the LTV.

3. What does mortgage insurance cost?

Conventional Mortgage insurance rates vary -- usually, the lower your down payment and/or the lower your credit score, the higher the premiums -- but typically the premiums can range from $30-70 per month for every $100,000 borrowed. So, if you bought a $300,000 home, you might pay about $150 per month for mortgage insurance. On FHA loans, there is an up-front MIP (mortgage insurance premium) and annual premium which is collected monthly. VA loans have an up-front fee(funding fee) and no annual or monthly premiums. Contact your lender for specific details.

4. What does mortgage insurance cost?

Typically, you’ll pay your mortgage insurance premiums monthly right along with your mortgage payment (you can just send one payment to the lender). Lenders may also allow you to pay your PMI on a lump sum basis either in cash at closing or finance the premium in your loan amount.

5. Why do I need mortgage insurance?

Your lender requires you to have mortgage insurance so that if you can no longer make payments on your home, the lender will still get paid (through the insurance policy). Mortgage insurance basically safeguards the lender in the event of borrower default.

6. How can I avoid paying mortgage insurance premiums?

If you put down 20 percent or more when you buy a home, you can typically avoid paying mortgage insurance on a conventional loan. And once you've built up a certain amount of equity in your home, you can request to cancel it (see below).

7.When does mortgage insurance “fall off” the loan?

Once the borrower has built up a certain amount of equity in the house, typically 20 percent, the mortgage insurance policy usually may be canceled. The lender usually won’t automatically cancel PMI until you've reached 22 percent equity based on the original appraised value of the home, but you can request cancellation at 20 percent of the current market value. So if you own a home worth $100,000 and have paid down $20,000 in principal, you can request to cancel your PMI.

A lot of students fear math and think it'll sink them during the real estate exam. The good news is that even if you missed all of the math questions you can still pass. However, learning the math concepts do not extend past basic math and is easy to learn.




Even if you haven't had to use your brain to do simple calculations in a while you need not worry. Any good real estate license school will cover the concepts in easy to understand ways so that you will ace this section of the test.

Here are some of the topics that a good school will cover:

Real estate calculations

1. Basic math concepts 

When taking the state exam, look at the actual information given in the question, do not read into the question by considering any possibilities or exceptions (you will get confused).

Review the testing information and use the examination content outline as the basis of your study.  This can be found at www.psiexams.com.

Read the study materials you received from class that covers all of the topics in the content outline.

Reviewing your notes that you wrote in your study materials is an excellent way to help you commit it to memory.

Studying is the most helpful and effective way to do well in the exam.  Studying frequently for periods of about 45 to 60 minutes works well as concentration tends to wander if you study for longer periods of time.

You will need to know math information such as:  43,560 square feet equals one acre.  Also 5,280 feet equals a mile.

Finally, if you don’t know the answer to a question – just skip it and go on to the next question, then go back and answer the ones you missed.  Even if you don’t know the answer, take a guess you may be right.