So, you have passed your pre-licensing course work and the North Carolina Real Estate exam! Congratulations! What comes next?

While you may think that your hard work and studying is over, you still have much to learn that will help you in your new profession as a Licensed North Carolina Real Estate Agent and will help you to graduate from a provisional license to a full broker.

The North Carolina Real Estate Commission requires that Provisional Brokers complete all 3 Post-Licensing courses within 18 months of initial licensure to retain eligibility to actively engage in real estate brokerage. Each Post-Licensing course is 30-hours in length and covers essential information that you will need in your career.

At Carolina School of Real Estate, we recommend that you take your North Carolina Post- Licensing courses soon after passing your state exam and becoming a provisional broker. The material you learn in these courses is quite important, and the courses take some time, so you do not want to leave them for the last minute. To help you with this goal, we offer a special package price for customers who purchase all three Post-Licensing Courses at once of $650 for all three classes including the textbook!

Here is a brief summary of what you learn in each of the Post-Licensing required courses. You may take them in any order, so long as all three are completed within the 18 month deadline.

Post 301: Broker Relationships and Responsibilities
This course entails a review of agency relationships (in real estate residential and commercial sales and commercial property management transactions), a real estate broker’s legal duties to clients and customers, a step-by-step review and discussion of the functions and responsibilities of a real estate broker when working with sellers and buyers, a review of issues associated with transactions in progress when a broker leaves a firm, and a review of license status and education issues.

Post 302: Contracts and Closing
The topics addressed in this course include selected basic contract law concepts, real estate sales contract preparation, sales contract procedures, buyer’s due diligence, closing procedures, Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, closing disclosure preparation, contracts for deed, options, and selected real estate license status and education issues.

Post 303: NC Law, Rules, and Legal Concepts
This course covers North Carolina licensing requirements, brokerage compensation issues, the disciplinary process, specialized types of real estate, property management in NC, and miscellaneous NC laws and legal concepts.

We wish you continued success on your real estate path. To take your post-licensing class with Carolina School of Real Estate, you can register today at www.CarolinaSchoolRE.com and click on the post- licensing tab or call Lane Young at 336-391-2910. Our customers rave about our instructors for a reason. Our engaging educators make the process fun and effective! We hope you will choose Carolina School of Real Estate for your Post-Licensing coursework.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the nature of Real Estate education has evolved rapidly, and Carolina School of Real Estate is here to help you make sense of the changes. We want to help you choose the right educational delivery method that will give you the greatest likelihood of success. All online courses are NOT equal. I’m sure you are wondering how to find the best online real estate classes in North Carolina. We hope that this article will help you make the best choice for your learning style.

Previously (Prior to COVID-19), the NC Real Estate commission required that Prelicensing (training to become a licensed Realtor) and Postlicensing (Provisional brokers must take these three courses within 18 months of getting their license) hours be taught in-person in a classroom setting. Instructors that are certified by the NC Real Estate Commission go through a rigorous screening and training program, and the belief was that having an in-person experience with a certified instructor offered students the greatest likelihood of success.

When the pandemic removed the ability to offer a safe in-person classroom experience, the NC Real Estate Commission adjusted its rules to allow alternate delivery methods for the learning experience. NCREC’s permanent education rules effective July 1, 2020 now allow ALL education, prelicensing, postlicensing and continuing education* to be offered in-person, synchronously, or asynchronously (excluding the CE Update course that must be taken in-person or synchronously).

At Carolina School of Real Estate, we evaluated these options and quickly decided that there was no substitute for the live, synchronous experience of learning from an instructor with whom students can actively interact. It is our philosophy that a live learning experience, even one on Zoom, is far superior at delivering student success than a pre-recorded (Asychronous) course. We knew this based from our years of offering in-classroom courses and receiving feedback from our students about the high quality of our instructors and their incredible willingness to help answer questions both during and after class hours. We have also seen this in action lately as we have had many students enroll at CSRE after first trying the lower-cost pre-recorded (Asynchronous) classes being offered online by many national real estate schools. These students have come to enroll at CSRE after their disappointment with the Asynchronous classes and their challenges to learn the material needed to pass the state exam.

We offer you this advice not to discourage you from taking a lower-cost pre-recorded course from another provider, but to give you the information we have learned from years of educating real estate professionals. Your time and money are valuable. The Prelicensing course to become a realtor takes 75 hours. It is not something that you want to have to repeat because you are unable to pass the state exam! Invest in your success by choosing a locally-owned North Carolina real estate school that has a track record of phenomenal, caring instructors and high student success rates on the state exam.

To help clarify the differences between synchronous and asynchronous learning, we have created this comparison chart. At CSRE, we ONLY offer synchronous learning because we firmly believe it offers a superior learning experience for our students.

What are the differences between synchronous and asynchronous learning?

Synchronous learning	Asynchronous learning
Traditional classroom	Recorded class
Instant Messaging	E-mail
Immediate feedback from instructor and peers	Sending a question and waiting for an answer
Phone call	Recorded voice message
In-person training	Online traiing courses (without live video)
Live webinar	Self-paced
Same time	Different times

The benefits of synchronous learning

• Interaction between participants.
• The ability to ask questions as they arise.
• Exchange of knowledge and experience between participants.
• Real-time feedback for the instructor.
• Training happens on a fixed schedule.
• Instructors get to know you and care about your success

We hope that when the time comes for you to choose a NC Real Estate school, you will choose Carolina School of Real Estate for your Prelicensing, Postlicensing, or Continuing Education Needs. If you are interested in learning more about our school, please call our Director, Lane Young at 336-391-2910.

I’m not going to sugar coat it. Being a Realtor can be a tough job. “Sure,” you scoff. “You get to make your own schedule and show cool houses for a living.” If only it were that simple.

The last thing I want to do is try to discourage you from becoming a Realtor; however, anyone who gets his or her Real Estate License and enters this profession should do so with eyes wide open, and I hope I can impart to you some of the items I had to learn over time. Individuals who end up successful as Realtors tend to work very hard to master these challenging areas. I wish I could tell you that I’ve figured out systems and techniques to master all of these items, but that would be a lie. My hope is that by identifying and working on them, I’m at least headed in the right direction. That said, I do believe that you should know what these most challenging aspects are before you decide whether to get your North Carolina Real Estate License.

Challenge #1: No one is going to tell you what to do.
Sounds pretty awesome at first, right? But, think about it… there is no job description, no assignment from your boss, no one monitoring to make sure you have done your work by a certain day. Where do you start? How do you build your business? How do you organize your processes, locate resources, handle negotiations, or develop a customer service model? It is all up to you! Challenge #1 can be a fantastic part of the job, but it is a challenge you should think about in advance and evaluate whether you are well-suited for a job that requires you to be self-motivated and disciplined.

Challenge #2: You have to market yourself.
This is not something that comes naturally to everyone. I have seen smart, hard-working Realtors struggle with the so-called “simple” act of asking for business. It doesn’t matter how many connections you have or how many people you know if you can’t bring yourself to ask them to do business with you. When you become a licensed Realtor, clients aren’t going to just show up on your doorstep ready to do business with you. It is hard work to get clients and that work begins with telling people what you do for a living and why they should do business with you. Know your business proposition, know what differentiates you from the crowd, and know that you have to keep telling your story. Being a Realtor is a delicate balance of being assertive yet friendly, a master of both in-person and online communications, and a trustworthy listener.

Challenge #3: Your income can be unpredictable.
In exchange for unlimited upside potential, you have to say goodbye to a regular paycheck. If that thought alone gives you a panic attack, this is not the career path for you. You absolutely have the potential to make far more money in this profession than you thought possible, but it will not come in regular increments. Therefore, you will need to become an expert at saving when you close a big sale and budgeting even when it feels like you are doing really well. You can have three months of non-stop closings, immediately followed by lean times that come out of nowhere and last for months. Be conservative with your spending and stick to a budget.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the last thing that I want to do is discourage anyone from entering this great profession. You have the potential to help so many people achieve their dreams of homeownership. That said, it is important to know the challenges that come with a given job before you make a leap so that you don’t realize after a few months that it was not a good fit for your personality and lifestyle. Our goal at Carolina School of Real Estate is to help individuals become successful Realtors who thrive in this profession, and I hope that my thoughts here help you better evaluate whether this might be the right profession for you.

Stay tuned for professional development courses that we will be offering at Carolina School of Real Estate in the near future! Training in the Real Estate industry is NOT optional—it is necessary.

As it was not very long ago that I undertook to make this decision myself, I thought it might be valuable if I shared my thoughts and reasoning to those of you who are still contemplating this career decision. I will also be offering some tips to help your process be as smooth as possible. While there is no best way to become a successful Realtor, there are certainly some better ways and suggestions I can share.

I’m going to be entirely candid, as I know this is not a decision you are taking lightly. Two of the primary reasons I chose to make a career change were the search for a more flexible work schedule and the opportunity to directly influence how much I am able to earn. After over 20 years as a contractor—both residential and commercial—I had worked more long days in tough working conditions than I can list. There was not much time left to do the things that were important to me. Additionally, although I was fortunate to work for an employer that appreciated and valued my contributions to the company, I was not able to directly impact my paycheck by working longer hours or doing superior work.

Don’t misunderstand me—Real Estate is not a career you can instantly begin and experience huge success in on day one. It takes time, dedication, and a defined business strategy. That said, I work with many highly successful agents who have built up impressive businesses in two or three years. In order to be successful as a new Realtor, here are several tips to help make a smoother transition.

Firstly, choose your Real Estate Pre-licensing course carefully. If you are going to spend 75 hours taking a course, you want to be successful and not have to go through another 75 hours because the class did not adequately prepare you to pass the class’s final exam or the State Exam. Also, decide whether you want to quit your current job to take the course or whether you want to attend on the weekends or in the evenings so that you may continue working in your current position until you receive your license. There are benefits and costs to doing it each way. The course is not an easy one, nor is the State Exam. You have to pass the course’s final exam to qualify to sit and take the State Exam. This is not something you can do halfway, or just pay attention in class and think you can pass the exams. Considerable time needs to be spent studying as well, so you will want to make sure you have the necessary time in your schedule to study if you are planning to continue working your current job while taking the course. If you are planning to stop working in order to take the class, you will want to have sufficient money saved up to tide you over for at least six months, if not more, unless you have a partner or spouse that can support your household during the period of transition.

Secondly, begin talking to different brokerage firms to see who you might be interested in working for when you do become a licensed Realtor. Ideally, you will want to be working on a business plan while you are taking your Pre-licensing course so that you may “hit the ground running” when you pass the State Exam. At Carolina School of Real Estate, we allow the opportunity for different firms to come and speak to you about working for them. We are not affiliated with or owned by any Real Estate firm; therefore, we can provide exposure to all of the options available to you.

Thirdly, talk to different Realtors and ask them how they built their businesses. Although every person’s business model will be tailored to his/her personality, it is helpful to learn what others have done. We are proud to offer this opportunity to our students at Carolina School of Real Estate. We bring in practicing Realtors so that they can talk to you about how they built their businesses. In addition, all of our instructors are practicing Realtors, so their experience working in the field will be of immense value to you.

I have been very pleased with my decision to become a Realtor. The flexibility of the career has given me more of an opportunity to spend time with my family, and I value being able to impact my level of success. I hope these suggestions will be of value to you as you consider whether it will also be a smart career change for you.