New Jersey Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

A New Jersey company charges prospective tenants a fee to be matched with available apartments, and never lists, shows or negotiates anything itself. Under the Commission's rules, that company:

• a.needs no license, because matching tenants to units is not brokerage activity
• b.needs no license so long as it collects its fee only from the landlord side
• c.must be licensed under the Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons Act✓
• d.must register with the Commission but need not hold a broker's license

N.J.A.C. 11:5-6.5(a) is written for exactly this business: "Every person engaged in the business of referring, for a fee, prospective residential tenants to possible rental units shall be licensed in accordance with the Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons Act," and must then satisfy that section's additional obligations on top of the ordinary ones. The trigger is the fee charged for the referral, so shifting the fee to the landlord side does not escape it; the definition of brokerage activity at N.J.A.C. 11:5-1.3 already reaches soliciting prospective purchasers and "assisting or directing in the procuring of prospects." Nor is doing less than a full-service brokerage a defense, since the rule contemplates a business that only refers. A registration short of licensure is not an option New Jersey offers here — the rule names the license.

A property manager in New Jersey collects monthly rents for several owners and is paid a percentage of what is collected. Under N.J.A.C. 11:5-1.3, this work:

• a.falls outside real estate brokerage activity, which reaches only sales
• b.requires a license only if the manager also shows units to prospects
• c.requires a license only where more than four owners are served
• d.is real estate brokerage activity and requires a license✓

The definition readopted effective 20 January 2026 spells it out: real estate brokerage activity includes "collecting or offering or attempting to collect rent for the use of real estate," and it sits in the same list as selling, exchanging, purchasing, renting and listing. Collecting rent for others for compensation is therefore licensed activity in its own right, whatever else the manager does or does not do. Confining brokerage to sales ignores half the definition, which repeatedly pairs rental and leasing with sale and exchange. Making the license turn on whether the manager also shows units adds a condition the definition does not contain, and a four-owner threshold is invented outright — no such number appears in the rule.

In New Jersey, a licensee who is qualified to be licensed as a broker but works under another broker's supervision performing a salesperson's functions holds which license?

• a.An associate salesperson license
• b.A provisional broker license
• c.A salesperson (referral) license
• d.A broker-salesperson license✓

N.J.A.C. 11:5-1.3 defines a real estate broker-salesperson as "any natural person who is qualified to be licensed as a real estate broker but who, for compensation ... is employed or contracted by and operates under the supervision of a licensed real estate broker to perform the functions of a real estate salesperson." That is why the Commission's fee schedule lists broker-salesperson separately from both broker and salesperson, and why a branch office must be supervised by one. Associate salesperson and provisional broker are not New Jersey classes at all; they borrow vocabulary from other states' license ladders. A salesperson (referral) is a real New Jersey class but the opposite one — N.J.A.C. 11:5-6.10 confines that licensee to referring prospects to the supervising broker, which someone qualified as a broker is plainly not limited to.

Under N.J.A.C. 11:5-6.10, the brokerage activity of a New Jersey salesperson (referral) is limited to directing prospects to publicly available information and to:

• a.showing listed property to prospects the referring firm has qualified
• b.preparing comparative market analyses for the supervising broker
• c.referring prospects to the broker through whom they are licensed✓
• d.negotiating rentals where no sale of real estate is contemplated

N.J.A.C. 11:5-6.10(a) confines this licensee to two things: directing prospects to websites and other sources of information generally available to the public, and "[r]eferring prospects for the sale, purchase, exchange, leasing, or rental of real estate to the broker through whom they are licensed," or, if that broker authorizes it, to another licensee with written or electronic notice at the time of the referral. Showing property, preparing a market analysis and negotiating a rental are all brokerage activity beyond that boundary, and N.J.A.C. 11:5-7.2(b) confirms it from the money side by limiting the broker's payment to compensation for referrals. The 2026 readoption also renamed the class: the operative defined term is now "real estate salesperson licensed with a real estate referral company," short form "salesperson (referral)," though the heading at N.J.A.C. 11:5-3.6 still reads "referral agents." The activity limits did not change with the name.