What I Learned In School. . .

Today is Monday. If you remember, my last post was a week ago. I told you then about beginning my journey through the gauntlet that is the CCIM education program. At that time, I was quite optimistic about being able to give you updates as to my progress through CI-101, the first class in the gauntlet. Prior to starting the class, I received a call from the BawldGuy, the only other blogger I know who went through the classes. He gave me some great advice, and was good enough to write a post about his experience on the BloodhoundBlog.

When Jeff noticed that I had not written a post all week, something he warned me would happen, he took the time to poke a little fun at me. To be quite honest with you, when I talked to Jeff before taking the class, I had no idea what “death on a cracker” meant when he used it to describe my probable condition during the class. By the end of class on Tuesday afternoon, however, I knew all to well what it means to be “death on a cracker.” Before I explain, I want to say for the record that every single piece of advice and experience that Jeff shared with me about the class was RIGHT ON THE MONEY. Even though he went through the CCIM gauntlet in 1980, everything he said was completely relevant to me today.

Continuing education is part of the career of every real estate licensee. Every state requires some form of continuing education. The reality is that much of this education is not even remotely difficult. It is far more difficult to find time to take the classes that it is to actually pass the classes. That will NEVER be said of the CCIM courses. The CCIM designation is perhaps the most difficult designation to achieve in the entire real estate profession. CCIM designees are few and far between, and they are not slouches by any stretch of the imagination. They are some of the top leaders in commercial real estate and investing.

As Jeff mentioned in his post, my class had two instructors. They claim this is done as a way of keeping the class from getting bored by hearing one voice all the time. The reality is that this is done to keep the instructors fresh. They get tired, too. My instructors were Byron Smith and Ryan Lorey. They were both incredible teachers, and nice guys, too. Both of them have experience and knowledge so vast that you can’t help but learn something just sitting in the room with them.  From 8:30am to 5:30pm for 4 days they did their absolute best to share that knowledge and experience with the class in an attempt to train us to be more professional real estate consultants, and smarter real estate investors.
The best way to sum up the CI-101 class is to use the words of Ryan Lorey. The very first thing he said to the class when we began on 8:30am on Monday morning was, “for the next week, you are going to feel like you are trying to drink water from a fire hose.” He was exactly right. The amount of learning that occurs in the four days of class is completely astounding. On Monday, I could barely use the financial calculator I bought for the class. By the end of the test on Friday, I was able to work through real-life case studies of complex commercial real estate investments. Would I call myself an expert? Certainly not. But I can definitely say that I am a much more informed agent today than I was I week ago. I can can understand and explain important concepts that were completely foreign to me a week ago. It is truly an amazing thing.

The purpose of this post is not to share war stories about the class. Perhaps I will use some of them for later posts.  I am sure some of the lessons I learned are going to be subjects of future posts. The purpose of this post is to share the most important thing that I learned after going through the class– anything worth doing is worth doing right; and anything worth doing right is going to be hard.

CI-101 was far and away the most difficult real estate class I have ever taken. Heck, I had a few college classes that weren’t that hard. As difficult and arduous as it was, however, I can’t wait to take CI-102. And as a bonus, “death on a cracker” is now part of my vocabulary.

Technorati Tags: real estate, realtor, charlottesville, commercial real estate, real estate education, CCIM