Hundreds of practice questions covering the National Portion of the real estate broker licensing exam, including brokerage management, trust accounts, agency relationships, contracts, property valuation, fair housing, and settlement procedures. Questions include worked explanations with full solution steps.
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A broker receives a $5,000 earnest money deposit from a buyer. Under most state laws and national standards, where must the broker deposit these funds?
A listing agent discovers that the property she listed has a major foundation defect. The seller instructs her not to disclose it to buyers. What is the agent's legal obligation?
A managing broker wants to ensure compliance with the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). Which of the following practices would violate RESPA?
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Continue practicing for freeReal Estate Broker Licensing Exam is a CBT exam of Varies by state (roughly 75–200) questions over Varies by state (1.5–4 hours).
8 practice areas in the Real Estate Broker question bank, each with its own questions and analytics.
Every question in the bank is written in one of these formats.
The real estate broker exam is the second-level license exam in every state. It is taken by licensed salespersons who want to open or manage their own brokerage, or who want the broker or associate broker credential so they can supervise other licensees. As with the salesperson exam, there is no single national broker exam. Each state's real estate commission sets eligibility and publishes its own content outline, and most contract a vendor (PSI or Pearson VUE, usually) to deliver the test. The common structure is again a national portion on general real estate principles and a state portion on that state's license law, scored separately.
What changes at broker level is depth and responsibility. The national portion covers the same eight content areas as the salesperson exam but asks harder questions inside each, and it adds material a salesperson is never tested on: brokerage operations, trust and escrow account management, supervision and liability for the acts of affiliated licensees, office policies and record-keeping, and more demanding finance and investment calculations such as capitalization rates, cash-on-cash return, debt coverage ratio, and income-approach valuation. Candidates who passed the salesperson exam years ago often underestimate how much of that legal vocabulary has faded. The practice bank on this page is organized by content area so the diagnostic is quick.
| Content area | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Real Estate Contracts and Agency | Everything on the salesperson exam plus the broker's side: drafting and reviewing listing and buyer-agency agreements, company agency policy (single, dual, designated, transaction brokerage), the broker's vicarious liability for affiliated licensees, and contract disputes and remedies from the brokerage's perspective. |
| Real Estate Practice | Brokerage management: opening and operating an office, supervision and training of licensees, independent-contractor vs. employee status, commission agreements and splits, advertising compliance, fair housing and antitrust compliance programs, record retention, and handling of complaints and disciplinary exposure. |
| Real Property Characteristics Legal Descriptions and Property Use | Legal descriptions and surveys, land-use controls, subdivision regulation, and the broker's role in due diligence on zoning, easements, encroachments, and title defects. Questions test these at the level of advising a client instead of identifying a term. |
| Property Value and Appraisal | Income-approach valuation in depth: net operating income, capitalization rates, gross rent and gross income multipliers, and the relationship between value, income, and rate; reconciliation across the three approaches; appraisal regulation and the broker's limits when giving opinions of value. |
| Forms of Ownership Transfer and Recording of Title | Estates, concurrent ownership, and transfer as on the salesperson exam, extended to business ownership vehicles for investors (LLCs, partnerships, trusts), 1031 exchanges at an overview level, and closing and title issues the broker is responsible for catching. |
| Property Disclosures and Environmental Issues | Material-fact and property-condition disclosure duties, environmental hazards (lead-based paint, radon, asbestos, mold, storage tanks, wetlands, flood zones), and the broker's responsibility for ensuring affiliated licensees comply. |
| Financing and Settlement | Loan types and qualification, secondary market, creative financing (seller carry-back, wraparound, assumption), TRID and RESPA compliance, and closing statement preparation. The broker is expected to compute and check debits, credits, and prorations as well as recognize them. |
| Real Estate Math Calculations | Salesperson-level math plus investment analysis: NOI and cap rate, cash flow and cash-on-cash return, debt coverage ratio, depreciation for tax purposes, commission splits across a brokerage, and trust-account reconciliation. |
Question counts and content-area weights are set by each state and published in its candidate information bulletin. The national portion is typically around 80 questions and the state portion typically 30 to 50, with the state portion focused on the state's license law: trust-account and record-keeping rules, and the broker's duties under the commission's regulations. Brokerage management and trust accounting appear in both portions in most states.
The broker exam is scored by the testing vendor and reported as pass or fail, usually on screen before you leave the test center. Most states score the national and state portions separately and require a pass on each. The commonly used cut score is in the region of 70% to 75% correct, and some states set the broker pass mark higher than the salesperson mark. In most states, if you pass one portion and fail the other, you retake only the failed portion within a period the state specifies.
Questions are four-option multiple choice with no penalty for wrong answers. Calculators are typically permitted (a basic, non-programmable model, or an on-screen calculator supplied by the vendor). Expect a larger share of multi-step calculation questions than on the salesperson exam, particularly in finance and closing statements.
Broker candidates are working licensees, so the plan below assumes 8 to 12 hours a week and relies on timed practice questions instead of re-reading a textbook. It front-loads the material that is new at broker level, then refreshes the salesperson-level content that has faded since you last sat an exam.
Broker distractors are written for someone who already knows the business. The writer takes the correct answer and adds the response that is right for the salesperson in the transaction and wrong for the broker responsible for the office, the trust-account handling that is ordinary practice in some firms and a commingling violation under the rule, the closing figure that comes out when a proration is credited to the wrong side, and the investment number that follows when debt service is taken out of net operating income too early. PassExams explains on every question and on every plan why the option you chose looked right, which matters most on the material that is new to you at broker level.
On Pro each wrong option is tagged with its trap type (reading trick, rule swap, wrong party, calculation slip, partial answer), and the analytics sort those by content area. Brokers usually surface two separate problems. Trust-account questions that need the exact regulation and investment questions that need the arithmetic to be automatic. The variant engine rewrites a missed problem with a new rent roll or a new set of closing figures, so the retry tests whether the method stuck. Hints remove the most tempting option first and send you back to the rule or the formula. The exam frames the shorter areas as management questions about what the office must do, and thinking like the writer of those questions is what turns your experience into a passing score.
Start with the responsibilities that are new to you, since brokerage operations, trust accounting, supervision and record-keeping never appeared on your salesperson exam. Make the investment formulas automatic, because the broker exam carries more multi-step calculation and those points are the most predictable available. Read your own state's trust-account regulation in full, and take the question count, the time limit, the calculator policy and the pass mark from its candidate bulletin. Close with full timed mocks at your state's question count, then rebuild the next week around the weakest content area.
It depends on the state. In states that use a national-plus-state format, totals are usually 100 to 140 questions (roughly 80 national and 30 to 50 state). States with their own single exam differ. California's broker exam is 200 questions. Your state's candidate bulletin gives the exact numbers and time limits.
Each state sets its own passing score, most in the region of 70% to 75% correct, scored separately on the national and state portions. Some states set a higher pass mark for brokers than for salespersons. If you fail one portion, most states let you retake only that portion.
They vary by state but almost always include a period of active licensed experience as a salesperson (typically 2 to 3 years) and completion of state-approved broker pre-licensing education. Some states accept a law degree or a documented number of transactions in place of part of the experience requirement.
It covers the same content areas at greater depth and adds brokerage management, trust accounting, supervision, and investment analysis. The questions involve more multi-step calculation and more situational judgement, and some states set a higher pass mark. Most candidates find it harder mainly because they study less for it.
The broker (sometimes called a "managing" or "principal" broker) may operate a brokerage independently and supervise licensees. Associate brokers have passed the broker exam and hold the broker credential but choose to work under another broker. Whether both licenses exist, and what each is called, depends on the state.
Usually yes, with a basic, silent, non-programmable calculator, or an on-screen calculator supplied by the vendor. Financial calculators and phones are generally prohibited. Confirm the rule for your state and vendor in the candidate bulletin.
Most working licensees prepare over 4 to 8 weeks at 8 to 12 hours a week, with the bulk of that time on timed practice questions and closing-statement and investment problems. Plan extra time if it has been several years since your salesperson exam.
You apply to the state for the broker license within the period it allows, often 6 to 12 months. If you intend to open your own office, the state will also require registration of the firm and its trust account. Passing the exam alone does not authorize you to operate as a broker.
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