Home › Study Guides › Real Estate Practice Exam: Sample Questions and Format Breakdown
Ten worked questions across estates, agency, contracts and the maths, plus why the state portion is where people lose points.
A real estate practice exam works when it mirrors two things the real test does: it mixes national concepts with state-specific rules, and it makes you do the maths cold rather than from a formula sheet. What follows is ten realistic practice questions with full rationales, a breakdown of how the exam is generally structured across states, and a plan for turning practice scores into a pass.
First, the structure. There is no single national real estate exam. Every state licenses its own agents and brokers, and most contract the test-day logistics out to a testing vendor. The content, however, follows a common shape almost everywhere: a national portion covering concepts that apply regardless of state, meaning agency, contracts, property ownership, financing, fair housing and maths, and a state portion covering your state's specific licensing law, disclosure rules and commission regulations. The common pattern is roughly eighty questions on the national portion and somewhere between thirty and fifty on the state portion, for a combined total usually between a hundred and a hundred and fifty, with a time limit commonly of three to four hours and a passing score usually between seventy and seventy-five per cent. Fees run from the low tens of dollars to around a hundred depending on the state.
Because licensing is state-regulated, treat every one of those numbers as a directional average rather than your state's actual specification. Some states test national and state content together as one combined score; others report them separately and require you to pass both sections independently. Always confirm your state's exact question count, time limit and passing score with your state real estate commission or your testing vendor before exam day. Searching for your state's real estate exam candidate handbook usually turns up the official document.
Here are ten questions written to match the topic mix most state exams draw from. Set a timer for fifteen minutes to simulate realistic pacing.
First, on estates. A property owner grants their sibling the right to live in a house for the sibling's lifetime, after which the property reverts to the owner. The sibling holds a life estate, which is measured by someone's lifetime and automatically ends at death, at which point the property either reverts to the original owner or passes to a third party named in the deed. Fee simple absolute is the most complete form of ownership with no expiration. An estate for years runs for a fixed defined term rather than a lifespan. And a tenancy at will is a rental arrangement terminable by either party, not an ownership interest at all.
Second, on contracts. A buyer submits a written offer, and the seller crosses out the closing date, writes in a new one, initials it and returns it. The seller has made a counteroffer. Any change to the terms of an offer, even something as small as the closing date, voids the original offer and creates a counteroffer, so the original buyer is now the one who must accept, reject or counter again. Acceptance is the wrong answer because changing terms is legally the opposite of accepting. An option is a separate paid contract giving someone the right to buy within a set period, which does not arise from marking up an offer. And a novation substitutes a new party into an existing contract, which is not what happened.
Third, on agency. A listing agent represents the seller, and an unrepresented buyer asks detailed questions about the lowest price the seller will accept. The agent should decline to disclose confidential seller information and explain that their duty runs to the seller. A listing agent owes fiduciary duties including confidentiality to the seller alone, unless a dual agency relationship is properly disclosed and consented to in writing, and some states do not permit dual agency at all. Referring the buyer elsewhere is unnecessary, since the agent can still work with them without disclosing confidential information. And agency is not created automatically by conversation: it requires an agreement, and in dual agency states, informed written consent from both parties.
Fourth, on loan-to-value. A buyer purchases a home appraised at 340,000 dollars for a sale price of 325,000, and the lender approves a loan of 260,000. The ratio is 80 per cent. Loan-to-value is calculated against the lesser of appraised value or sale price when they differ, because lenders will not lend against a value the buyer did not actually agree to pay, so 260,000 divided by 325,000 gives 0.80. Using the appraised value instead produces 76.5 per cent, a common trap, since exams often bury a higher appraisal figure in the stem specifically to test whether you know to use the lower of the two.
Fifth, on fair housing. Of the options offered, familial status is the federally protected class. The federal Fair Housing Act protects seven: race, colour, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. Familial status covers households with children under eighteen, pregnant people, and people in the process of securing custody of a minor. Source of income, sexual orientation and marital status are not covered federally, though many states and cities add their own protected classes on top of the federal list, which is exactly why the state-law portion of your exam matters as much as the national one.
Sixth, on proration. Annual property taxes of 4,380 dollars are paid in arrears, closing is set for 1 July, and using a 365-day year the seller owned the property for 181 days. The seller owes the buyer 2,172 dollars. The daily rate is 4,380 divided by 365, or twelve dollars, and twelve times 181 days gives 2,172. The core skill being tested is that taxes paid in arrears mean the seller owes the buyer for the days the seller owned the property but has not yet paid tax on, since that bill will not arrive until later in the year. Always compute a daily rate first and then multiply by days owned, not days remaining, which is the mistake that produces a wrong-direction answer.
Seventh, on contingencies. A purchase agreement includes a financing contingency, the buyer's loan is denied, and the buyer notifies the seller in writing within the contingency period. The earnest money is returned to the buyer. A properly exercised contingency protects the buyer: if they cannot get financing through no fault of their own and cancel within the window per the contract terms, the money comes back. Forfeiture generally only applies if the buyer breaches outside a valid contingency, such as backing out for a reason the contract does not cover. This is heavily tested because so many real transactions hinge on it.
Eighth, on easements. A landlocked parcel has no access to a public road except across a neighbouring lot, and the landlocked owner has used that path for over twenty years without permission but without objection. This may create an easement by prescription. Long-term, open, continuous use without the owner's permission and without being stopped can ripen into one, similar in concept to adverse possession but for a right of use rather than ownership. An easement by necessity arises specifically from landlocked access and does not require the twenty-year history, since it can be granted immediately on proof of necessity, often when a parcel was subdivided. A licence is revocable permission, the opposite of what is described. And an easement in gross benefits a person or entity rather than an adjoining property, as a utility easement does.
Ninth, on disclosure. A seller tells their listing agent the roof was replaced two years ago after storm damage but does not mention the repair was never permitted with the city. The agent's best course is to advise the seller to disclose the unpermitted work and document that advice. Most states require sellers to disclose known material defects, and unpermitted work is commonly considered material because it affects value, insurability and the buyer's ability to obtain permits later. An agent who learns of an undisclosed material fact has a duty to counsel the client to disclose it and should document that the advice was given, which protects both the client and the agent's licence. Saying nothing risks a disclosure violation for the seller and liability exposure for the agent, and an off-the-record mention to the buyer's agent is not a substitute for proper written disclosure.
Tenth, on commission maths. A home sells for 410,000 dollars, the listing brokerage charges six per cent total split evenly between the listing and selling brokerages, and the listing agent takes a seventy per cent split with their brokerage. The agent personally receives 8,610 dollars. Total commission is 24,600; half of that, or 12,300, goes to the listing side; and seventy per cent of 12,300 is 8,610. Commission questions test whether you can chain multiple percentages correctly in sequence, and missing one step, such as applying seventy per cent to the full 24,600 instead of the brokerage's half, lands you on a plausible-looking wrong answer.
Scored seven or more out of ten? You are tracking well on general concepts, and the remaining work is state-specific law and repetition. Five things make practice actually pay off. Separate national content from state content in your preparation, because most people over-study national concepts, which are the same everywhere and well covered by any prep course, and under-study state-specific licensing law, disclosure requirements and agency rules, which is exactly where first-time pass rates are lowest. Take full-length timed mocks rather than only topic quizzes, because topic drilling teaches concepts while a full hundred-plus question mock under a real time limit teaches pacing and stamina, and most state exams allow only about a minute and a half to two minutes per question, which maths questions eat fast. Target eighty per cent or better on fresh questions before booking, since practice scores run a few points above real performance and a passing bar of seventy to seventy-five per cent means the low-to-mid eighties on unseen questions is a reasonable readiness signal. Review every miss with a reason attached, sorting wrong answers into not knowing the concept, which means restudying the topic; knowing it but misreading the question, which means slowing down on stems, since these exams love qualifiers like most likely and best; or a maths error, which means redoing the calculation cold rather than from memory of the answer. And weight practice toward vocabulary, because the exam is vocabulary-dense with estates, easements, encumbrances and contract terms that sound similar but mean different things, and flashcard-style repetition usually moves the needle faster than re-reading a chapter, since the exam tests recognition and application under time pressure rather than essay-level understanding.
On where to get more practice, if your pre-licensing course already included a question bank, use it, because this is about supplementing rather than necessarily replacing. CoStudy's real estate bank is a curated question set with full rationales like the ones above, organised by topic so you can drill weak spots specifically. The first ten questions of every deck are free with no signup, so you can judge the question quality directly before spending anything.
A few questions come up repeatedly. On whether free practice exams are accurate, quality varies a lot, so judge any sample the same way: does every question include a rationale rather than just a letter, does the maths actually require calculation rather than guessing, and does the topic mix reflect what real exams test. On volume, there is no universal number since exams vary by state, but most candidates who pass comfortably work through several hundred unique questions plus at least two or three full-length timed mocks, and review quality matters more than raw volume. No practice exam is identical to the real one, since states and vendors do not release their actual item banks, so a good practice exam matches topic weighting, format and difficulty closely enough to be a reliable predictor, and you should treat any guaranteed-real-questions claim sceptically. On readiness, most people target eighty per cent or better on fresh timed full-length mocks. And you do need practice for both portions: national content is fairly standardised and easier to find good material for, while state-specific content is where a lot of candidates get caught off guard, so do not skip it just because quality questions are harder to find.
CoStudy is a study tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by any state real estate commission or testing vendor. Exam format, fees and passing scores vary by state and change over time, so confirm current specifics with your state real estate commission before registering.
Read this in the CoStudy app →