I am about to enter the world of residential RE..but I am interested in getting into the commercial aspect in a year or so possibly

you need to get certified usually to break into it.....?.or how do you agents or brokers start doing commercial RE..

can you usually do both or does it usually have to be one or the other?

thanks in advance

The best thing you can do is take the CCIM Intro Class. It will count for your license CE and will give you an overview of commercial real estate with the focus on Investment Properties.

Before entering you should decide what area of commercial you want to specialize in ie..Investment Properties, Retail Leasing, Multi-family commercial, industrial, vacant land for development and the list goes on.

Some agents do both commercial and residential but I personally feel if you want to be a commercial agent you should do only commercial property and refer out any residential property to a residential agent and hopefully they will do the same for you.

personally, I came into commercial brokerage via my previous career in land development.
If you want to get into commercial re i would seriously consider starting out in it right off the bat. Why go into resi if you don't want to do it? Once you get the resi ball rolling it can be tough to switch gears b/c you will have made the connections, etc. in that arena.

I personally wouldn't recommend that you do both residential and commercial. They are 2 entirely different animals and you will spread yourself way too thin across the two. The two previous posts are spot on.

well I know a few agents who are very successful doing both. I think it depends on the person. But you must be realistic in your own abilities and time.

For the most part...A jack of all trades is a master of none!

I just dont understand how anyone can't excel at selling typical resi listings or even the buyer side after a few years. A little bit of brushing up and youre good. Where as with commercial its so multifaceted its ridiculous. Seems like any decent agent could take select resi listings or select buyers while concentrating mostly on commercial.