12 reasons why you should consider taking online classes:
1) Online classes allow for flexibility. You won’t be required to attend your course at a certain time, unless your class meets each week in a chat room, which is rare. This allows you to work on your assignments when you have time, even if that means doing your assignments at 3am.
2) You will save gas money when taking online classes. In this day and time, that’s a really big deal. Save the mileage on your car and gas money in your pocket for when you are driving to your first listing appointment. What is the drive time, 20 or 30 minutes each way? Twenty or so classes, going and coming, parking spaces. Getting in and out (sometimes in the dark!) of the parking lot. Gas! My goodness you could be talking about an extra thirty hours… What is your time worth?
3) You will be able to keep your day job when taking online classes, because you will be available all day. When you attend school at a brick/mortar location it can be tough, because you need a job that offers flexible hours.
4) You save time when taking online classes. Often when you are at a brick/mortar class you waste time when the instructor is busy working with students who aren’t as fast of a learner as you and also there isn’t time wasted driving back and forth to class. This time could be spent studying.
5) When you take classes online, you’ll find that it doesn’t take as long. When you take a course at a brick/mortar, you spend hours taking notes, and sometimes just sitting there while the instructor is getting everything ready. Online classes have the notes available on the website. So instead of sitting in classes 4 hours a day 5 days a week, you’ll be able to go online, read over the notes, read the assigned coursework, and do the assignment. Plus, wake up at 3 a.m., can’t sleep? Fire up the computer and do a chapter. Tired today, don’t do anything. Really feel like working at it? Do a few hours in the morning, take the laptop outside by the pool and do an hour in the afternoon, then if there is nothing on TV at night, do another hour of coursework.
6) Taking online classes will save you money. You won’t need to buy notebooks, pens, pencils, etc because you’ll be able to type everything up on the computer.
7) If you have children, online classes allow you to still be a parent while working towards your license or while taking classes to maintain your license.
If you don’t live anywhere near a brick/mortar real estate school, online classes will allow you to still attend a real estate course without having to move. Sometimes you may want to attend a real estate school that is on the other side of the state.
9) You don’t have to wait to catch the instructor on break to ask a question. There is plenty of support for the online student, especially in Rational Realty’s School of Real Estate. You have the instructor’s phone number, so if you have a question and you call, it is answered that simple. You can email, with most of emails answered within a few hours. Don’t think taking a class in a brick & mortar situation will have better support! I’ve seen classes where the students line up during breaks to ask a question, or worse the question begets a wise guy comment from a bad instructor. What do you feel like then?
10) Materials used can be updated with a click of a mouse, instead of waiting for a reprint of a heavy manual. I am not saying that all classroom courses use out of date material. On the contrary, some schools offer very good up to date books, but think about it, there are law and rule changes going on all the time in this industry. Each year there are a lot of significant changes made. A book has to go through a reprint, or at best an eratus sheet. Online, can be updated at the touch of a button.
11) You can go more slowly in areas that you need more time in, and faster in topics that you are more familiar.
This may be the most important difference between Online real estate license courses and those that are in a classroom setting. When you hit an area of study, like real estate finance, or real estate appraising, these are complicated topics. Sometimes the instructor in a classroom is moving to fast for you to grasp the material. It may be different areas that pose the problem for each student! How is the instructor supposed to slow down for just a few each time someone is having trouble? The answer is they can’t do it in a classroom. They have a schedule to keep!
But if you’re taking the Florida real estate brokers course online, and you’re in the chapter on real estate closings, and prorations are giving you hard time, well slow down! Read the material again! Do this Quiz twice, or however many times it takes you to become comfortable. Just as important, for your sanity, if you’re in an area that you know like the back of your hand, you can speed up if you’re inan online real estate course. If you are in a classroom and the instructor is moving at the same steady pace through an area that you are very familiar with it can seem like everything has gone into slow motion!
12) You get the same certificate of completion you would get from sitting in a classroom all day or all night. If you have read the eleven reasons above this that means you are now reading the twelfth reason I believe online real estate instruction is better. Remember you get the same certificate of completion that would get when you pass in either setting.
