In Brokers' Sales Offices
If your goal is to attract new sales agents and loan officers, the Professional Development Institute (PDI) can help. Here's how we will apply to the Maryland Higher Education Commission for approval to use your training room as an additional classroom. We will apply to the Maryland Higher Education Commission for approval of your training room as an additional classroom. Once approved, we will provide highly capable instructors to teach the required 60-hour MD salesperson pre-licensing course and 40-hour MD mortgage originator pre-licensing course, just as we do in our own classrooms. By using PDI as the provider you can have a pre-licensing program up and running within a couple of months without the substantial burden of applying for approval of, and operating, your own school. Following is some information to help you decide if our program is right for you.
In order to offer pre-licensing training for Maryland salespersons & mortgage originators, you will have to obtain a license from the Maryland Higher Education Commission to operate a proprietary school and have the pre-licensing course approved by the Maryland Real Estate Commission. The time and effort to apply for approval of a new school is substantial. It is a tedious and time consuming process that can take nine months or more.
Once approved, you will have to run the school. This entails detailed record keeping, filing an annual report and complying with minimum performance standards set by the Higher Education Commission. To do so successfully, you will need to hire very capable instructors and devote staff to enrolling students, purchasing course materials, maintaining records, filing the required annual report and performing the myriad other activities involved in running a school on a day-to-day basis. If you are focused on recruiting agents, growing your business and increasing your market share, you most assuredly will not want to dilute your time and energy by starting and running a real estate school.
We will apply to the Higher Education Commission for approval to use your training room as an Additional Separate Classroom. The application requires certain information which we will need you to provide, such as a use and occupancy permit indicating that training is a permitted use of the facility; a floor plan and pictures of the training room, and any other approvals required of a school in your jurisdiction. (To illustrate, a permit from the Department of Health and Human Services is required to operate a school in Montgomery County.) We have received approval for additional classrooms in Montgomery, Prince Georges, Wicomico, Anne Arundel Counties, and Ellicott City, and can provide you with guidance on how and where to get the required information for these jurisdictions.
The approval process can take six-eight weeks, depending on the number of approvals required and the processing time at the Higher Education Commission and other licensing authorities. Once approved, PDI, as the approved school, will be completely responsible for providing instructors, complying with the requirements of the Maryland Higher Education and Maryland Real Estate Commissions; issuing completion certificates, maintaining records, etc. You will be responsible for advertising and the cost of initial and subsequent licenses and permits.
The administrative fee to prepare the application to the Maryland Higher Education Commission, respond to requests for additional information and monitor the review process is $495.00. There is no application fee.
For courses to be held in Montgomery County, the administrative fee to apply for a permit to the Department of Health and Human Services is $195.00, and the initial application fee is $185.00. The annual renewal fee is $185.00.
For courses to be held in Wicomico County or Ellicott City, the administrative fee is $195.00 to obtain determination letters from the relevant authorities that a school for adults is permitted on the site.
Administrative and application fees for other licensing authorities will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Are there any other considerations?
Yes. But first a word about the economics of the training business. Because of market forces, the low price typically charged for sales agent pre-licensing courses requires that the average class size be quite large in order to make it economic to offer them. Consequently, if we were to rely on tuition alone, a prohibitively high guarantee would be required. To avoid this we have developed a program for agent training that requires a guarantee of just 12 students and involves making your training room available to PDI at no charge two days per week for the purpose of conducting continuing education and other courses. In effect, the other courses will subsidize the pre-licensing courses in your office, just as they do in our own classrooms. For mortgage originator training, there is a 12-student minimum, but use of your training room for other courses is not required.
The training room devoted to PDI does not necessarily have to be in the same office where the pre-licensing classes are held. If you have more than one office, we can explore using various locations for the other classes.
You won't be disappointed in our instructors. Many are salespersons and associate brokers with years of teaching experience. You might be surprised to learn that we occasionally provide pre-licensing instructors to other approved schools who are not able to hire or retain capable instructors on their own.
Yes, to teach the MD salesperson pre-licensing course, you should have at least two years experience teaching the MD salesperson pre-licensing course; to teach the the MD mortgage originator pre-licensing course, you should have two or more years experience as a mortgage originator. We will also consider using an instructor you recommend if he or she meets the minimum experience requirement.
Call us at 301-949-1771 to discuss the program. You could have pre-licensing classes offered in your office in a few short weeks. |
