It has been a long haul with the whole process started back in January of 2012.
The main delay was that the rules here were that I had to take a national and territory broker exam. Well the company that they had administering the exams here pulled out of the territory. The only alternative until they had a new testing company was to get a temporary 6 month salesman license, with one caveat, you had to work under the supervision of another broker.
Working for another broker can be difficult as I had been used to making a 100% commission and down here they want 50-60% splits. So I decided to wait it out, hoping they would have another testing company brought in and did not mind taking some time off after shutting down my old brokerage where I was working 7 days a week.
July rolls around and this retired life was getting a little boring. So I met with one of senators here to see if anything could be done. Nope.
In the meantime, Shannon got so bored she went a got a job at a Economic Development Corporation here going back into finance. She started in August. After a few weeks of losing my best friend I was going stir crazy so I had a friend who worked at the Marriott Vacation Club here selling timeshares. He really liked it, so I thought I would give it a whirl, and we needed health insurance as you cannot get individual health insurance here unless you own a company or an employer can give it to you.
I was hired by the Marriott in mid-September. Went to two weeks of boot camp training in Orlando and came back to sell timeshares!
Selling timeshares is commission only and when a company has too many salesman on board, you opportunity to take a tour is slim, especially if you are new. So now instead of sitting at home, I was sitting in an office all day. Yes, I did sell some timeshares, but this type of real estate was not my style! I knew I needed to get back into normal real estate sales, so I applied for my 6 month license back in September and would hang that license with Kirk Boeger and Cara Hinton of Real Solutions. Thanks you guys for giving me a home for a while!
In December, I learned they had hired PSI exams, the same company I had taken all of my Nevada exams (yes and even shows that I passed the national broker exam back in 2006, but yet have to take it again?). They would be offering the exams starting in January. I knew with island time this means February or March.
I was right, Feb 15th would be first exam. Shannon was hired on as a full time employee on February 1st and with the exam coming soon along with Bristol, our dog, being sick, I resigned at the Marriott.
February 15th comes and I am ready to register with PSI online. I log on and it tells me that the licensing division needs to first approve me to take the exam! That whole process took another 3 weeks to get my name on the list and transmitted to PSI, after many phone calls and emails, it was official, I could register for the exam! Exam taken in March, it was at the ACE flight center, which is just a single wide trailer. I was lucky as they only have two computers and mine was not the one that wasn't working. Needless to say I passed both exams. When you leave the testing center it says to wait for two weeks before you hear from licensing. Yikes, another two weeks? Well at least this gives me time to work on my logo and website.
Two weeks goes by and I contact the licensing. They tell me they don't have the exam results yet. I call PSI and they tell me those were transmitted that night that I took the exam. More emails, more calls. I go into the licensing office and I get my Professional Broker License but now I have to wait another two weeks to get my business license when the Real Estate Commission meets again on April 23rd. What is another 2 weeks, right?
Well after lunch on the 23rd I got an email, "you have been approved".
Finally, I am pleased to announce the opening of America's Caribbean Realty! I am here for all your US Virgin Islands real estate needs!
You can reach me at 340-514-5671 or visit our website at www.americascaribbeanrealty.com
Love the blog. Very interesting glad you stuck it out.
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