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50 free Real Estate trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free real estate trivia questions with answers. This real estate trivia quiz is for agents, brokers, office trivia nights and anyone who has ever refreshed a Zillow listing. It covers the language of the business (escrow, MLS, amortisation, the acre), the institutions (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA and the trademark on "Realtor"), the famous deals (Manhattan for 60 guilders, Louisiana for $15 million, Alaska for two cents an acre), the history of American housing from the Homestead Act and Sears kit homes to Levittown, redlining and the Fair Housing Act, and the modern industry from RE/MAX's balloon to Airbnb and the 2008 crash. There are a few famous houses too, and a round on Monopoly. Questions run from easy ones any homeowner can answer to details that will stump a veteran broker. Difficulty is marked on every question, so it works as a warm-up for a sales meeting or a real estate class. Every answer has been checked against a Wikipedia article on the topic and each question shows its citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word "Realtor" is not a generic term. In the United States it is a trademark of which organisation?
The National Association of Realtors
NAR has over 1.5 million members and prefers the word in all capitals; it says never to use it as a synonym for agent.
Q 02The Realtors' national association was founded in 1908 in which city?
Chicago
It began as the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges and did not take its current name until 1972.
Q 03America's oldest real estate brokerage, founded in Chicago in 1855, later took which name?
Baird & Warner
It started life as L. D. Olmsted & Co.
Q 04A mortgage in the United States is typically scheduled to amortise over how many years?
30
In the 1930s most home loans were short three-to-five-year balloon loans; the FHA and Fannie Mae changed that.
Q 05What is the term for money held by a neutral third party until the conditions of a sale are met?
Escrow
Mortgage servicers also keep escrow accounts to pay property tax and insurance on the borrower's behalf.
Q 06Fannie Mae was founded in which year, as part of the New Deal, to expand the secondary mortgage market?
1938
By 1933 up to a quarter of the nation's mortgage debt was in default and nearly a quarter of homeowners had lost their homes to banks.
Q 07What is the real name of the lender nicknamed Freddie Mac?
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation
It was created in 1970; both it and Fannie Mae were placed in government conservatorship in September 2008.
Q 08Which government agency, created by a 1934 Act, insures home loans made by private lenders?
The Federal Housing Administration
Before it existed, most home loans ran only three to five years with loan-to-value ratios below 60 per cent.
Q 09Which major mortgage lender's bankruptcy in September 2008 became the symbol of the subprime crisis?
Lehman Brothers
Bear Stearns had signalled trouble a year earlier when two of its mortgage-heavy hedge funds imploded.
Q 10The US housing bubble that triggered the 2007–2010 crisis peaked in approximately which year?
2006
Subprime lending had jumped dramatically in the 2004 to 2006 period just before it burst.
Q 11Which economist argued in Freakonomics that agents sell their own homes for more than their clients'?
Steven Levitt
His point was that a commission rewards a quick sale more than a high price.
Q 12What does the abbreviation MLS stand for in real estate?
Multiple listing service
The idea dates to the late 1800s, when brokers met at their local associations to share properties and agreed to split fees.
Q 13An acre is traditionally the area of one chain by one furlong. How many square feet is that?
43,560
In the Middle Ages it was reckoned as the land one man with eight oxen could plough in a day.
Q 21The United States bought a vast northern territory from Russia in 1867 for what sum?
$7.2 million
That is about two cents an acre; critics called it Seward's Folly after the Secretary of State who arranged it.
Q 22A 1626 Dutch letter records the purchase of Manhattan Island from the Lenape for how much?
60 guilders
Peter Minuit is credited with the deal for the Dutch West India Company; the famous "$24" figure is a 19th-century conversion.
Q 23The Homestead Act signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 offered settlers how much federal land?
160 acres
Between 1862 and 1934 the government granted 1.6 million homesteads, about ten per cent of all US land.
Q 14Where was the Torrens system of land registration first introduced in 1858?
South Australia
Sir Robert Torrens devised it; many countries have adopted it since.
Q 15The first condominium law in the United States was passed in 1958 where?
Puerto Rico
The first condo in the continental US followed in Salt Lake City in 1960; the concept reached America from Europe via the Caribbean.
Q 16Monopoly is derived from a 1903 creation by Lizzie Magie called what?
The Landlord's Game
She meant it to show that an economy rewarding individuals beats one where monopolists hold all the wealth; Parker Brothers bought her patent for $500.
Q 17The streets on the original Monopoly board are named after locations in which New Jersey resort?
Atlantic City
Marvin Gardens is a misspelling of the real Marven Gardens, introduced by the family who taught Charles Darrow the game.
Q 18In World War II, British intelligence sent POWs Monopoly sets with what hidden inside?
Escape maps, money and a compass
Waddingtons could print on silk, which made the maps easy to hide.
Q 19The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 cost the United States how much?
$15 million
That worked out at roughly four cents an acre; the land was bought from Napoleon's France.
Q 20Which two American envoys negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in Paris?
James Monroe and Robert Livingston
Jefferson had sent them to buy just New Orleans; France offered the whole territory.
Q 24US homesteading ended in 1976 except in which state, where it ran until 1986?
Alaska
Only about 40 per cent of applicants managed to complete the process and take title.
Q 25Between 1908 and 1940 which retailer sold entire houses as mail-order kits?
Sears
The first Modern Homes catalogue offered 44 styles priced from $360 to $2,890.
Q 26Levittown, New York, the first mass-produced American suburb, was built between 1947 and 1951 for whom?
Returning World War II veterans
Levitt & Sons used pre-cut lumber from their own factory and built on concrete slabs, which required a change in the building code.
Q 27Levittown's 1949 "ranch" houses went on sale at what planned price?
$7,990
They came with an expandable attic, radiant heating and no garage.
Q 28Clause 25 of the original Levittown lease was a restrictive covenant that did what?
Barred non-white residents
Such covenants matched federal policy: the FHA insured mortgages only in racially unmixed developments.
Q 29What is the 1930s practice of marking minority neighbourhoods on maps as too risky for mortgages?
Redlining
The Home Owners' Loan Corporation drew the colour-coded "residential security" maps.
Q 30The Fair Housing Act was signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1968 during riots that followed whose assassination?
Martin Luther King Jr.
King had led the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement that helped push the law.