What is PL?

Yes, I know that you know what post license really is, but I am not sure that it’s intent is working. My understanding is that the intent of post licensing is to instill knowledge into new agents, in what use to be the first two years of their first licensing cycle and as of July 1, 2008 will be the first year of the licensing cycle. My understanding was that it was suppose to be all the things that weren’t taught in pre-licensing. To submit for credit for PL classes, is a much more tedious and frustrating process than Continuing Education or Broker Education. The agent also needs to keep track of much more, and then different tracks (property management, residential, commercial) must be watched for.

The Structure

PL is not only more difficult to take for the new agent, it’s more complicated to submit for credit at DPOR. What I may be able to reasonable get approved for CE learners, may be more difficult for PL credits. For example, I submitted an 8 hour Technology class for Real Estate Related approval and received the 8 hour credits, but the same class submitted for PL only gets four hours, unless I figure out how to restructure the course to make it two distinct programs. If I am teaching a multiple discipline program such as ABR where one can get Fair Housing, Agency and Ethics; than one application goes to DPOR for CE credits and one number is issued for all three disciplines. However, with the same course for PL; each discipline has to be a separate application. Thus requiring twice (often more) the paperwork at the time of class, submissions, certifications and tracking. This also multiplies the opportunity for the school to miss a submission or misfile the credits. PL classes must be between 1-4 hours; or a minimum of 3 hours if mandatory topics etc…

Is the Mission Goal being accomplished?

I know that DPOR and leadership is trying to meet the demands of the membership to get agents better prepared early in their career, but many are struggling to get the 30 hours in a two year period - not for lack of trying’ but rather in difficulty in finding the required classes and finding them with sufficient hours approved. Most are simply renewing on-line or by correspondence because of lack availability of solid classroom education opportunities. Study, after study shows the retention rates for on-line or correspondence programs are considerably lower than classroom education.

I spend a considerable amount of time, as staff, trying to figure out how to get the most PL hours in each class submission. We also spend a large amount of time working daily with agents who are simply frustrated with PL issues. I find the new agents are much more concerned about their renewal credits and time lines that experienced agents In many, many occasions we find that agents must take 45 or so clock hours (often on the same topics) to get the 30 hours of credit time that they need.

What Say You?

At times I feel like the PL program was simply a way to circumvent apathetic Brokers who weren’t giving good oversite and education in their offices. I’m OK with that, as I don’t know how to do more to require Brokers to educate their agents. However, from standpoint, all agents regardless of experience should be taking at least 30 hours of training in a two year period seeing as how exponentially real estate is evolving. The additional 8 hours of Broker training was a good step in this direction.

How effective do you think the current program is, for actually better preparing the agent for their career, and if it isn’t working, what do you think could be done better?

The Mission

Awhile ago fellow VARBuzz and AgentGenius contributors Jim Duncan and Daniel (The Zebra) Rothamel wrote articles regarding Paying NAR Dues and NAR Engaging it’s Members.  They are great posts, with tons of interactions from members who support and unfortunately some of those who don’t support the Association.  The entire mission of the Association is to be a relevant factor of support and advocacy for the REALTOR member.  A great deal of work goes into carrying out the directives to fulfill these missions, from both REALTORS and staff.  Having now been both a practicing Realtor and most recently a staff member, I am seeing that a vast number of the tools, initiatives and resources created to enhance the agent’s success have been underutilized.   I feel that the Associations are answering your call, but you can’t hear us.

What Is The Barrier

As a staff member of FAAR, I’ve received countless calls and e-mails asking for a wide variety of assistance, and I always have resources from our local association, VAR or NAR to give to the member.  The members frequently ask why they didn’t know about these tools in the first place - good question.

Recently our Association had a meeting planned for Brokers, so that they could come provide open-forum feedback in preparation for our Strat Planning session.  Four days before the meeting and after a ton of notices, e-mails and marketing we had two members registered.  The workgroup decided to call the Brokers and in response we had almost 50 people attend the meeting.

What Works?

While pondering this post, I asked my friends on Twitter how they would like to be communicated with.  Almost all of them said e-mail.  However, one commented  that e-mails have become so ubiquitous that they are almost irrelevant.  There are so many people trying to e-mail you and get your attention that people are scanning them over without registering their importance.

This would explain why only about 20% of our e-mails, sent to members, are actually read.  But it begs the question; why with so many agents asking for their Associations to provide services, are members not paying more attention to the primary resource for their business? 

Call To Action

Most all Associations use e-mail, post cards, brochures, fliers, etc…  Calling on the phone, for most Associations, isn’t an option because of the size of the organizations and lack of staff.  So, what do you feel is the best way for your Association to keep you up to date and show you the plethora of tools that we’ve developed to help you with your business?

This week I received an e-mail from the Virginia Real Estate Board that, among other things, advised the schools that the requirement for CE and PLE instructors have changed. This is a good start, but we must do better…

Up to this point, schools submitted their classes to VREB for credit and included an instructor’s name and bio. There wasn’t much more required than a loose idea that the instructor could teach the topic. The new requirements state that the instructor must have three years experience in their area of instruction, letters of reference, etc… I am a fan of high quality instruction, but I am not sure that we’re attacking the issue of practitioner competency from the correct angle. I fully agree that it starts with the instructor. Not everyone who is teaching is effective. These requirements, although a bit cumbersome, will help.

Beneficial Changes?

There are other changes going on this year as well. Two significant changes are coming up as of July 1, 2008. The first is that licensed Brokers (Associate, Supervising and Principals) will be required to earn eight additional hours, on top of the limited services two hour requirements and the 16 hours of Continued Education. It’s obviously a good move to require those who carry the title of broker to get that higher level of training that most consumers perceive the broker as having. I’ve been surprised at the number of Associate Brokers who have balked at this requirement. I don’t even know what to say about that, other than the fact that it’s necessary and it’s only one extra day out of the 730 that you have between license renewals.

The other significant change is that VAR and VREB worked together to have legislation passed to require agents licensed after July 1, 2008 to obtain 30 hours of Post Licensing credit in the first 12 months of licensing. The theory, as I understand it, is that there are obvious failings in the pre-license program, as the 60 hour requirement does not typically carry information about the practical practice of real estate. There is so much theory and principle that things such as drafting a contract, short sales and marketing simply don’t find their way into the training.

I fully support the idea that the 30 hours should be “everything that we should have learned in pre-licensing and did not” but I think we’re going to see the nature of unintended consequences. Having sat as an association staffer now for the past few months and getting many daily phone calls from agents who find the relicensing program complicated, I have found that many (most) are taking the path of least resistance and simply taking an all inclusive on-line program. Many of these agents are very honest that the 30 hours can be gotten in 10 hours and they can do it while watching television.

Online Education Isn’t Cutting It

I’ve ventured through some of these online programs, and they can be done in far less time, than the “learner” is given credit for. At some point I have to ask: “Why do we even bother requiring CE or PL hours?” Almost all adult learning studies I’ve reviewed show that online learners have a much lower retention rate than those who learn in a classroom. The relicensing process for many is too complicated and frustrating to keep track of and they feel that there is no other option but these online classes. To compel the issue even further, most schools only have a limited number of these classes approved and don’t offer them often enough.

Learners have to take 30 hours, with 15 of them being in mandatory topics and the other 15 in a variety of electives. No one can get credit for taking any one class more than once. So, if I take “Short Sales” and get my three hours, but feel I need to take it again, I will not get an additional three hours, unless I take that topic through a different school.

How To Gauge The Retention

However, even aside all these issues, my real concern is that we never establish a mechanism by which to gauge the retention of the student. How do we know that the student really learned anything? What’s the point of requiring the student to meet certain criteria, if we’re not evaluating the student to see if they retained the information? I know that by suggesting that written evaluations be implemented I will become the least favorite person here, but really, how can we otherwise gauge our effectiveness? If the student is required to pass a written evaluation, then the instructor will be sure to deliver that material better and the learner will pay more attention.

Here are my suggestions:

First, we should consider requiring all mandatory PLE and CE classes be in a classroom setting, with a written evaluation. (Otherwise, what’s to stop an agent from reading a romance novel or comic book for the three hours I am supposed to be taking ethics?)

Second, electives can be taken in a classroom or online, but if they are taken online than it should require some mechanism to ensure that the learner is interacting at intervals that equal the clock time of the program. So, maybe you have to have mouse or keyboard activity every five minutes for the three hours, or you have to start all over. The technology is out there. All online training should require written evaluations at the end of the course.

Third, licensing and relicensing should be more relevant to the discipline of the practitioner. I am curious to see if anyone else thinks that Commercial, Residential and Property Management should have different licenses, with separate pre-licensing and separate post licensing requirements. There are a lot of different litigious pitfalls involved with these various types of practice and it seems that most all of pre-licensing and post licensing programs are directed to residential.

There are folks smarter than I am looking at the issues and overhauling as we go, but I just don’t feel our current structure is as effective as it can be. I am sure that there are some solid objections to these concerns, but if we’re all interested in improving the competency of agents than we need to find a better way to proceed in the future.