Licensure
Area II is six items on what requires a license, the license categories Pennsylvania issues, the eligibility rules that apply only to brokers, renewal and reactivation, change of employment, exemption, and suspension and revocation.
Activities requiring a license, and exemptions
Section 201 defines a broker by a list of acts done for another for consideration, including performing a comparative market analysis. Act 52 of 2024 added a second paragraph covering any person who, whether for that person or for another, engages or attempts to engage in a wholesale transaction, so contract assignment without taking title is now licensed activity. The same act narrowed section 304(1): the owner exclusion still covers an owner dealing in property owned or leased, and no more than five partners or officers of an entity, but it no longer applies to a wholesale transaction. Other exclusions in section 304 and section 35.202 cover attorneys at law, attorneys-in-fact under a recorded power, fiduciaries acting under court order, and the resident manager of multifamily housing who may show units and quote rents but may not negotiate occupancy terms, sign leases or hold tenants' money.
Types of licenses and broker eligibility
Beyond broker and salesperson, Chapter 5 of RELRA licenses the cemetery broker, cemetery salesperson, builder-owner salesperson, rental listing referral agent, campground membership salesperson and time-share salesperson, and registers cemetery companies; a broker employed by another broker is an associate broker under the section 201 definition rather than the holder of a separate class of license. Two subtopics in this area are marked "Broker only." Section 511 requires a broker candidate to be 21, a high school graduate, to have completed 240 hours of instruction, and to have been a licensed salesperson for three years or to hold equivalents the Commission accepts. Section 35.271 turns the 240 hours into 16 credits, two of them in office management and two in law, and requires experience the Commission considers adequate; Commonwealth Court held in Bhala that three years of holding a license is not by itself enough.
Renewal, change of employment, and discipline
Section 35.382 conditions renewal on 14 hours of Commission-approved continuing education by the May 31 deadline, and imposes the same 14 hours to reactivate a noncurrent license. Section 501(b) requires a licensee inactive for five years to sit the examination again. Section 603(a) gives a salesperson or associate broker changing brokers ten days after the intended date of change to notify the Commission in writing, pay the fee and return the current license, with a copy of that notice serving as a temporary license. Section 501(c) and section 35.251 bar relicensure for five years after a revocation, and section 35.291 requires a suspended broker to return the license and post the Commission's notice at every office.
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State-specific details
State exam facts
- State regulator
- Pennsylvania State Real Estate Commission (BPOA)
- Exam vendor
- Pearson VUE
- Prelicensing education
- 240 hours (16 credits) of broker-level real estate education, including 2 credits in a Commission-approved office management course and 2 in a Commission-approved law course
- Passing score
- Scaled score of 75 on each portion
- Scored questions
- 120
- Time limit
- 210 minutes
Who regulates real estate brokers in Pennsylvania?
The Pennsylvania State Real Estate Commission, part of the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs in the Department of State, licenses brokers and salespersons under the Real Estate Licensing and Registration Act. The Commission has contracted with Pearson VUE to administer its examinations.
What experience do I need before the Pennsylvania broker exam?
RELRA section 511 requires three years as a licensed salesperson, or educational and experience qualifications the Commission deems equivalent, plus 240 hours of approved broker-level education. Commonwealth Court held in Bhala v. State Real Estate Commission that simply holding a salesperson's license for three years is not by itself enough; 49 Pa. Code section 35.271 requires experience qualifications the Commission considers adequate for practice as a broker.
How is the Pennsylvania broker exam structured?
The broker exam has two separately timed portions: 80 scored national/general questions in 150 minutes and 40 scored Pennsylvania questions in 60 minutes, 120 scored questions over 210 minutes, plus 5 to 10 unidentified pretest questions on each portion. Pearson VUE's handbook lists a minimum passing score of 75 on each portion; scores are scaled to a 0-100 range and are, in the handbook's words, neither the number nor the percentage of questions answered correctly.
Sources: https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dos/programs/professional-licensing.html, https://www.pearsonvue.com/content/dam/VUE/vue/en/documents/publications/093900.pdf
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