Abstract
We provide first evidence of the economic factors that motivate individuals to obtain a real estate license to potentially pursue a career in real estate sales. We focus on four key housing indicators: median house price, median days on the market, housing affordability, and housing sales performance. Our results indicate that house price is the main driving force for individuals to take the California real estate salesperson license exam as well as for those real estate salespersons wanting to upgrade to the broker license.