The nonsensical world of real estate education

I'm in my 4th year of teaching real estate at a community college. I gave my finals & turned my grades in this week, in fact. To qualify as an instructor at a community college, you have to meet the requirements of the school's credentialing body - that is, for transfer courses, you have to have a Master's degree in your subject area (or any Master's degree and 18 graduate hours in your area). I have a Master's degree in Real Estate, so no problem there.

I should mention - the primary reason people are taking these classes is to meet the educational requirements to get a real estate license. Texas has very stringent requirements in terms of the number of classes required, at least compared to most other states. You can either take those classes from a credentialed post-secondary institution, or you can take them from a private (aka vocational training) school.

A private school has to be licensed by the state Real Estate Commission, and all instructors have to be appropriately credentialed by the Commission. The private schools tend to have very flexible classes, so they're popular, and they pay their instructors well. So, it's desirable to be credentialed as an instructor.

To be credentialed as an instructor by the State, you have to have been working in real estate for 5 years, which they generally define as having a real estate license, and you have to have 3 years' teaching experience. I think you have to have a college degree. I could look, but that would take time and effort, and I'm in "creative" mode right now.

There's plenty of problems with this scheme. First, to say that someone's experience working in real estate is solely defined by the length of time one has held a license is foolish at best. By the time I started teaching, I had plenty of experience, but only a few years with an active license. And no teaching experience... it's one of those Catch 22s, since you can't be certified to teach until you have teaching experience, but how can you get teaching experience without being certified?

Fortunately, I got my teaching experience in a setting where I didn't need to be credentialed by the State. And it occurred to me recently that I might be able to pick up a little extra scratch teaching at a private school. And that I finally met the requirements for being certified. So I filled out & sent in my application. Described my work and teaching experience. The whole nine yards.

Part of the application involves checking off the classes you want approval to teach. Turns out I got approved for almost all of them. Almost all. The one class I didn't get approved to teach? The one I've been teaching for almost 4 years. The one I'm arguably most qualified to teach, since I've done it so often. Apparently I can only teach that one for college credit. But not at trade schools.

Yes, welcome to the nonsensical world of real estate education. I guess I can send them a "WTF?" letter. Or I can just try to shop my enormously credentialed letter around to different private schools, and see if I get any bites.

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