Our Courses

License Renewal/Continuing Education

General

Are your courses approved by the DRE?

Yes, all our courses have been extensively reviewed and approved by the California Department of Real Estate.

To view our DRE listing, click here, and then enter Real Estate Home in the first text box like so:

 . 

What courses comprise your 45-hour package?

Six are three-hour courses each of which covers topics required by the DRE, namely:(1) Ethics, (2) Agency, (3) Trust Funds, (4) Fair Housing, (5) Risk Management, and (6) Management & Supervision.

Our seventh and eighth courses are, respectively, The Consumer Protection Reader, Part 1 and The Consumer Protection Reader, Part 2.  The first is a 12-hour course; the second a 15-hour course.  Both share the same textbook.  CPR Part 1 covers the first half of the book and CPR Part 2 the second half.

The CPR textbook has two sections.  First is “Defensive Real Estate.”  It covers the first quarter of this course’s 260-page textbook.  It is an extension of our three-hour Risk Management course and, as such, provides additional tips on how to avoid disputes with your clients.

The second section of the CPR textbook is “Consumer Protection Articles.”.  It contains over 100 articles most of which are from two sources: (1) the DRE’s Real Estate Bulletin and (2) RealtyTimes.com.  Taken together, these articles give you a thorough review of changes affecting California residential real estate brokerage over the preceding four years.  Areas covered include law, taxes, industry, financing, mortgages, settlement, risk management, and home ownership.

How does your renewal package work?

For each course, you read its textbook (details), take its quiz, and pass its final exam.  (We do not log your time online.)

We enforce DRE’s scheduling rules:  (1) You may not take your first exam any sooner than four days after you register and (2) you may not complete more than 15 hours of CE in any one day.  Taken together, these two rules mean that you may not complete your CE any sooner than a little over six days after the time of your registration.

To earn credit for any course, you must pass one of its two final exams:  an initial exam and, should you fail it, a “retake” exam (details).  Should you fail the retake exam, you must start over for that course.

“Starting over” means that you must complete the study period for that course (see column labeled “Study Period” in the below table); retake its quiz, and pass one of its two final exams.  (Unlike some other CE sponsors, we do not charge you an additional fee should you need to repeat a course.)

When you have passed all eight courses you print your certificate and follow our instructions for renewing your license (details).

The following table summarizes the six courses comprising our 45-hours package:

  DRE Category CE
Hrs		 Study
Period		 No. of
Questions		 Pages in
Textbook
18-Hours (Mandatory topics) Ethics
Agency
Trust Funds
Fair Housing
Risk Management
Management & Supervision		 3
3
3
3
3
3		 3 hrs
3 hrs
3 hrs
3 hrs
3 hrs
3 hrs		 16
16
16
16
16
16		 30
30
30
30
30
60
Consumer Protection Reader, 2020; Part 1/2
Consumer Protection Reader, 2020; Part 2/2		 Consumer Protection
Consumer Protection		 12
15		 2 days
2 days		 30
40		 110
140
Total   45   166 460

How soon can I complete your 45-hour package?

The DRE requires a study period of at least four days before you may take your first final exam.  During your study period you should read the course text books and take the quizzes (there is one required quiz for each of the eight courses).  After the four day study period, you may complete no more than 15 hours of continuing education a day (24-hours).

A strategy for completing your CE in the quickest way possible is as follows:  (1) four days after registration, at one sitting, pass the finals for our first five three-hour courses, (2) 24 hours after passing the last of the first five three-hour exams, pass the final for the three-hour Management & Supervision course and the 12-hour Consumer Protection Reader Part 1 course, (3) 24 hours later pass the final for the last course, the 15-hour Consumer Protection Reader Part 2I course.  If you follow this schedule, it will take you a little over six days to complete your 45-hours.

Do you accept checks?

Yes.  To pay by check, register without paying.  To do this, register and when prompted for a credit card push [Pay Later] — the page which follows gives instructions for sending your check.

When we receive your check, we will mark your online record as “paid” and send you a confirming email (which you will have entered when you registered).  Your waiting period (the time you must wait before you may take your first final exam) starts when we mark your registration record as paid.  Since this method of payment is error prone due to glitches in mail delivery, please contact us by email (REHSS@pobox.com) if you don’t receive payment confirmation within three business days. 

Do you accept PayPal?

Note:  If you don’t know what PayPal is, skip this FAQ.

Yes.  To pay by PayPal:

  1. Register without paying.  To do this, register for the product you want but when prompted for a credit card push [Pay Later].
  2. Log into PayPal, send your payment to REHSS@pobox.com. 

PayPal will automatically send us a notice of your payment.  When we receive it, we will mark your registration record as &lsdquo;paid” and send you a confirming email.  If you do not receive confirmation within one business day, you should contact us at REHSS@pobox.com. 

Can I get a refund?

We always will give a full refund provided you haven’t passed any exams.  We will also give a full refund even if you passed some or all of your exams if your license has permanently expired (in other words, if you don’t renew your license within the two-year grace period following your license expiration date).  Otherwise, we will give you a partial refund using a refund in the amount calculated using this formula:  PERCENT-OF-UNPASSED-HOURS x .5 x COST.  For example, if you passed only our three hour Ethics course in our 45-hours package for which you paid $45, we will refund you 42/45 x .5 x $45=$21.

To obtain a refund, please e-mail (REHSS@pobox.com).  Be sure to give your DRE#.  We will need your DRE# to find your Authorize.NET approval code in our records (Authorize.NET is the payment gateway we use for processing your credit card payment).  Please understand that we don’t store your credit card number and we don’t need it to give you a refund.  If you do request a refund, we would welcome knowing the reason for your request but if you choose not to tell us we will provide your refund with no questions asked.

We will also grant full refunds to students who, because of time restrictions, can not possibly renew their licenses on time or to licensees who are renewing late (within the two-year grace period) and because of time restrictions can not renew their license in time to avoid the permanent expiration of their license.

If, because of DRE’s time restrictions, you can not possibly complete your CE in time to avoid a late fee, please do not call to ask us to make an exception for you.  We won’t.  We will, however, give you a full refund at your request. 

Our Courses

What is the four-day study period?

The four-day study period is the minimum number of study days required before you may take your first final exam.  It begins when you pay for the package.  (Note:  the "quiz" is not the final exam.  The quiz is a study-aid which must be taken in order to take the final exam.)

The study period is four days (precisely 96 hours).  The time the study period ends is displayed on your Course Work Page  under the column heading “Exam Status.”

The Four-Day Study Period should not be confused with the study period associated with each course.  A course's study period is the time you must study should you fail the course's final twice in succession.  During a course's study period you may not take any final exams. 

What are your textbooks like?

We provide a textbook for each course.  Each textbook has approximately ten pages per course hour.  Thus, the textbook for our three-hour Ethics course has about 30 pages.  (The ratio of pages per course hour is set by the DRE.)

The textbooks are formatted as ebooks in PDF format.  As such, they may be read online, downloaded and read offline, or printed and read on paper.

What purpose do the quizzes serve?

You must take (not pass) a course’s quiz (or quizzes) before we may permit you to take that course’s final exam.

We make available one quiz for each of our six three-hour courses and two quizzes for our 27-hour Consumer Protection Reader course.  You must take a course’s quiz to gain access to the course’s final exam.

Each of our quizzes has as the same number questions as does its corresponding final. 

Quizzes are nothing like the finals.  We do not require you to answer every quiz question but we do require you to answer every question on the final.  Each quiz has no time limit, but each final has a time limit equal in minutes to the total number of its questions.  Many of the quiz questions are long, some difficult, some ambiguous, and some even tricky; while almost all final questions are short, straightforward, and unambiguous.  But the most significant difference between a quiz and a final is that after the quiz we give you its answers whereas we are forbidden (by DRE rules) to give you the answers to the final.

The answers we give you to the quizzes are detailed.  For each quiz question, we give you not only its answer but a detailed explanation as to why it is the correct answer and, often, why the other proposed answers are wrong.  All answers are supported with citations from the course text book.  Our quiz explanations are presented as PDF files so that you may print them and study the answers.

What are the final exams like?

The types of questions on our final exams conform to all DRE regulations; that is, a mix of multiple choice and true/false questions in the ratio of nine to one.  All of our multiple choice questions have three possible answers.

DRE regulations require a minimum of 15 questions for any three-hour course.  For complicated reasons, each of our our three-hour courses have 16 questions.  These same regulations require a minimum of 30 questions for our 12-hour Consumer Protection Reader, Part 1 course and 40 questions for our 15-hour Consumer Protection Reader, Part 2 course.

Finally, DRE regulations require a time limit for each final exam equal in minutes to the total number of questions on the exam. 

All final exams are “open book,” that is, you may open the course textbook in one window (or tab) while taking the final exam in another window (or tab).  However, we do not recommend taking our exams open book for two reasons:  (1) searching the book for answers takes time thereby reducing your chances of completing the exam within it’s time limit, and (2) many questions have answers not likely to be found via keyword searches.  An example of a question which contains no obvious key words is “Is it illegal to refuse to rent an apartment because the prospective tenant is a drunk?” 

 

How does the 15-Credits-Per-Day Rule work?

The DRE limits the rate at which you may complete your CE to 15 credit hours during any 24-hour period.  This rule is strictly enforced.

Although you may take your exams in any order (except Part 2 of the Consumer Protection Reader which can be taken only after having passed Part 2), most participants choose to proceed as follows:  first they pass the first five three-hour courses at one sitting, then wait at least 24 hours, then pass both our three-hour Managment & Supervision course and our 12-hour course Consumer Protection Reader, Part 1 at one sitting, then wait at least another 24 hours, and then pass Part 2 of our 15-hour Consumer Protection Reader course.

What should I do if I fail the first final exam?

If you fail the initial (first) final exam, you may attempt to pass the course with its retake exam.  The initial and the retake exams have the same number of questions but their questions are different.  You may take the retake exam immediately after having failed the initial exam (or any time there after) BUT, it is usually a good idea to do more studying to improve your chances of passing the retake exam.

The amount of additional study you may wish to invest before making your second attempt depends on how badly you failed the initial exam.  If you failed the exam by a narrow margin, you may need only a little more time to study.  But if your score was closer to 38% – the score one would receive by chance alone – then you should consider studying much more.

Investing additional study after failing a course’s initial exam is especially a good idea should (1) you fail Part 1 or Part 2 of the Consumer Protection Reader and (2) when your license is two to three days from its expiration date.  In such a situation, failure of either part’s retake exam would require you to complete a two-day study period during which time your license would expire.

If you renew late (after your active license expires), the DRE will require you to pay a “late fee” to renew your license.  The late fee is 50% of the on-time renewal fee.  If you are licensed as a salesperson and you renew late, you will have to pay $367 to renew your license instead of the on-time fee of $245 or, if you are licensed as a broker or a corporation, you will have to pay $450 to renew your license instead of the on-time fee of $300. 

What happens when I fail the final exam twice?

Should you fail a course’s final exam twice in a row, you must start over for that course NOT THE ENTIRE PACKAGE just that one course.

Starting over for a course means that you must (1) complete the study period for that course, (2) take the quiz (again) for that course (remember, there is no passing score on the quiz), and (3) pass the course’s initial exam or, if you should fail it, pass the course’s retake exam.  Unlike some of our competitors, we do not charge you for taking a course over — one time or 101 times.

When you fail a course’s retake exam and are forced into the study period for that course, you may not take any exam while you are in the study period.  For example, if you fail both Ethics exams (initial and retake), you are then forced into the three-hour study period for that course.  During that three hours we can not permit you to take any exams — not for the Ethics course and not for any course. 

What is the “Certificate”?

The Certificate lists all courses you have passed.  For each course, our Certificate shows the course’s “Certificate No.,” the date you passed, its name, and DRE’s official classification (aka, “designation”) for the course (e.g., “consumer services,” “consumer protection,” &ldequo;risk management,” etc.). 

When you have passed all your courses, we provide you a link to DRE’s license renewal site – named “eLicensing”.  Their eLicensing site steps you through the process of renewing your license.  In the course of renewing your license, DRE’s eLicensing site prompts you for the certificate number and corresponding date of completion for each CE course you have completed.  In a final step, the eLicensing site prompts you for the payment of your renewal fee.

As an alternative to eLicensing you may renew through the mail.  If you are renewing a restricted license, a corporate license, an officer’s license, or if the address you have on file with the DRE is out-of-state, then you must renew by mail.  We recommend all other licensees use eLicensing since it is the fastest and most reliable of the two methods (online v. mail). 

To renew by mail print DRE form  RE#251:  Continuing Education Course Verification and follow DRE’s renewal instructions as described here (and also on page two of the form).  This form is used to list the CE courses you completed with their corresponding certificate numbers and dates of completion (which you will find on the Certificate we provide once you have completed your CE). 

What must I do to renew my license?

While you may complete your continuing education at any time during the term of your license, you may not renew your license with the DRE any earlier than three months prior to your expiration date.

First print your certificate using the  button from our Course Selection Page (the page following our Login Page).  The certificate contains the details needed for renewing your license.

Second, decide if you wish to renew via eLicensing (DRE’s online renewal service) or by mail.  We strongly recommend DRE’s online renewal service — it is immediate and final.

Note:  If you have a restricted license or if you hold a corporate or officer license, you must renew by mail.

To renew using eLicensing, click the eLicensing icon at the bottom of this section  (you may have to register first) and choose [Salesperson|Broker License Renewal].  eLicensing will prompt you to complete two online forms:  1) Continuing Education Course Verification, and 2) Renewal Application.  Finally, eLicensing will prompt you to make an online payment via a secure connection (for the DRE’s current license renewal rates click here).  Once eLicensing accepts your payment your license is renewed.

Note:  If you have a salesperson license and you are employed by a broker then your broker must validate your renewal in a subsequent eLicensing transaction (eLicensing will provide you with instructions).  Your broker’s validation is not required for your new license to be effective. 

If you are renewing by mail, you will need to print and complete form RE#251:  Continuing Education Course Verification (see below note) and, if you are a salesperson RE#209:  Salesperson Renewal Application or, if you are a broker, form RE#208:  Broker Renewal Application.  You then need to make out a check for your renewal application (for renewal rates click here) and then send in your check and forms to the DRE (the forms have instructions printed on page two).

Note:  If you renew by mail, do not send your certificate to the DRE.  The purpose of the certificate is to list the certificate numbers and corresponding dates of completion for you to copy onto form RE 251.

Click this icon to open DRE’s renewal site in another window:   

How can I pass your package in a little over six days?

The soonest a participant may complete our 45-Hours package is six days and three hours (give or take an hour). 

  1. Study Time:  Per our agreement with the DRE, we require each student to spend at least six days studying the course textbooks before completing our 45-Hour package.

  2. Completion Rate:  The DRE limits students to the completion of 15-hours of CE in any given 24-hour period.

Given these two limitations, consider the following example in which Sally completes her 45-hours in only six days and three hours:

Sally registers on Monday at 12:00 p.m..  Our testing program schedules her for her first exams in four days (96-hours); that is, any time after 12:00 p.m. on Friday.

At 12:01 pm on Friday Sally begins taking the exams for the five, three-hour courses (15 hours in total).  By 1:00 p.m. she passes all five exams.  She now must wait until Saturday at 1:00 p.m. to continue taking her exams.

At 1:01 pm on Saturday, Sally takes and completes the three-hour Management and Supervision course and then the 12-hour Consumer Protection Reader, Part 1 course.  By 2:00 p.m. she passes Part 1 for a daily total of fifteen additional hours.  She must now wait another 24 hours before she may take another exam; that is, she must wait until 2:00p.m. on Sunday.

At 2:01 p.m. on Sunday, Sally begins taking her final exam for the Consumer Protection Reader, Part 2 course.  She passes the exam by 3:00p.m. thus completing all 45 hours needed to renew her license.

In this example, the elapsed time from when she registered to the time she completed all 45 hours was six days and three hours.  

Do you have a final final?

We get this question a lot.  No, we do not have a single comprehensive final examination that tests your understanding of the content for all courses comprising the package you purchased. 

License Renewal and Continuing Education

What are my CE requirements?

All California real estate licensees require 45-hours of DRE-approved continuing education to renew their licenses.  The only exception is  for licensees who who have held their license for 30 continuous years and are over 70 years of age (details).

What if DRE’s renewal site is down on my license expiration day?

On rare occasions and usually during the weekends,  DRE’s renewal site (eLicensing)  goes down either for scheduled maintenance or due to a technical problem.   If eLicensing happens to be down the day you wish to renew and if that day is your expiration day, the DRE may not grant you an extension.

If eLicensing is down on your license expiration day and you must renew on that day to avoid a late fee, you should renew by mail.  As long as your renewal application is postmarked by midnight of that day (or the next day for which there is mail service), the DRE will accept your renewal application without requiring you to pay a late fee. 

When may I take CE and when may I renew my license?

You may complete your CE (i.e., pass your exams) at anytime during the term of your license or during the two-year grace period following the expiration date of your license.  The two-year grace period begins the day after your license expires.

If you renew on time, the four year term for your new license will begin the day after your current license expires but if you renew late it will begin the day after you renew. 

Can I apply my surplus CE to my next renewal?

No, all CE hours must be earned during the term of your current license or, if your license is expired, during the two-year grace period allowed by the DRE following your license expiration.  The CE hours for a given course are earned upon passing each course’s final exam. 

Can I be exempted from my continuing education.

If you are over seventy years of age and have held your license in good standing for thirty years you may be eligible for DRE’s “70/30 Exemption.”  Click here for details. 

Will you grant me an exclusion from DRE's waiting periods?

No!

Our compact with the DRE requires us to enforce the waiting periods.   Sorry.

But we are willing to grant any student a full refund who is unable to complete his CE before his license expires or before the end of his two-year grace period.  (Note:  when we grant a refund, we delete the student's registration and the student looses any CE credits he may have earned.)

Why won't you let me see which answers I got wrong?

Again, this is a DRE requirement.  It is based on Commissioner’s Regulation 3007.3(a)(1) which reads:

The final examination shall provide for the testing, examination or evaluation of participants.  The sponsor shall take steps to protect the integrity of the examination and to prevent cheating in an examination.

 

How long do you keep your records?

We keep your records indefinitely.  You may login in at any future time to see your records; however, once you pass a final exam, you may not take it again. 

How do I send my evaluation to the DRE?

You can send your evaluation of our courses to the DRE by clicking here.