by Caroline Gabsewics and Mike Sharkey
Staff Writers
School starts for children only once a year, but for prospective real estate agents, classes start about every few weeks.
That alone may explain why Northeast Florida is producing about 2,500 new licensed real estate agents a year. Mary Ann Conley taught elementary school in Pittsburgh for nearly 31 years. After retiring this spring, Conley moved to Jacksonville and entered the Florida Real Estate Institute, a real estate agent-producing factory with schools in Orange Park and on Phillips Highway.
During one intense 63-hour week, Conley learned everything she needed to know to pass the state exam deeming her a licensed real estate agent. Today, she’s on the verge of selling her first house with Watson Realty.
Conley said she’s glad she subjected herself to the intensity of the Real Estate Institute (which is owned and operated by Ron Boatwright, who did not return repeated phone calls) because it was the quickest way to get her license. However, the training Conley has received from Watson since passing her state exam has proven even more valuable.
“I would never recommend to anyone that they do it in a week unless you absolutely have to,” said Conley. “I would say that others would say the same thing. It isn’t necessarily difficult, but it’s a huge amount of material to learn in a short time.”
Conley said that while her real estate class taught her to pass the exam, it taught her very little about the real estate industry itself. Like the Real Estate Institute, the Watson School of Real Estate is designed to help its students become licensed agents. However, because the class is spread out over a few weeks, there’s more emphasis on the ins and outs of the industry.
Watson Realty’s main office is off of Southside Boulevard on Deercreek Club Road, but they have classrooms throughout Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra, St. Augustine and Orlando. Beverly Petz, the chief administrator at the Watson School of Real Estate, said depending on the classroom size, there are usually about 25-60 students in a class.
“A lot of our students are retired or ending a career and they are searching for a new one,” said Petz. “We get a lot of stay-at-home moms and others who are frustrated with their job and are looking for something new.”
Petz said she also sees people who are ending a career in the military, people in the education field with the summers off and sometimes college and high school graduates.
“Students in the classes are in the 18-60 age range,” she said.
The Watson School of Real Estate offers a variety of ways for people to attend classes. Classes are offered for a week from Monday-Sunday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. For those who work during the day, evening classes are offered three nights a week for five weeks from 6-10 p.m. and occasionally the school also offers weekend sessions over three weekends in a row.
“They all have to have 63 hours total of class hours; that is the state requirement,” said Petz. “We try to offer classes in different ways to fit people’s schedules.”
At the end of their classes the students have to pass an exam and complete a state application that goes to the Department of Business and Professional Regulations.
“The state application process takes four weeks, so a lot of people do that before they even take our exam,” she said. “The application has to be complete before they can go on and take the state exam.”
If a student doesn’t pass Watson Realty’s exam, he has to wait 30 days to take it again. Once they pass that and the state exam, they become a licensed real estate agent. Prospective agents can take the state exam as many times as they want, but it’s $31.50 per test.
Licensed agents are then on their own to find a job, she said.
“Students who go through our school don’t necessarily have to work for Watson,” said Petz. “A lot of students research where they want to work ahead of time to find someone to hire them after they have gotten their license.”
The Watson School of Real Estate costs $295, which includes tuition, books and weekend reviews. There is an application fee of $152 that goes to the State of Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulations.
“The weekend reviews give the students an opportunity to be back in front of an instructor to help with the state exam,” she said.
If students take time away between their classes and taking the exams, the school allows them to audit a class to help refresh their memories.
“We try and go an extra step and we are different in how the materials are given to the students through the exercises, weekend reviews and auditing a class for extra help,” said Petz. “Hopefully we do a good job preparing them.”
Conley said the training she gets from Watson has complemented the Real Estate Institute’s one-week class.
“I got the best of both worlds,” she said. “Watson is a real class act and they are very strict on us.”
Sherry Malloy, an accountant with Entegee in Independent Square, also went through Boatwright’s school and is on the verge of entering the real estate field. She and Conley took the same class and Malloy will sit for her state exam on Oct. 13. She chose to attend the Real Estate Institute after a referral.
“I had heard so much about an instructor there named Bob and the teaching methods were so learnable. I knew it was the right place to go,” said Malloy, who passed the course and has worked in the real estate industry to some extent in the past, but said certain aspects of the class were harder than others. “The hardest part was the math and learning all the different commission structures.”
Like Conley, who had already lined up a job with Watson, Malloy has also lined up a position with a real estate broker.
“I am going to work for Premier Coast Realty,” she said. “I know the people there and it’s a fast-growing company.”
Melanie Green, communications director for the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors, said about 200 new agents a month are going through NEFAR’s mandatory orientation sessions. During those sessions, new agents learn everything from real estate ethics to the true nuts and bolts of selling a home. Green said the growing number of agents is a statewide trend.
“It’s not just us, it’s everywhere in the state,” said Green. “We are outpacing the state and I think the numbers will keep going up. Jacksonville is unique in that it’s not surrounded by other large towns. It’s surrounded by a mostly rural area, so there’s room to grow.”