My Virginia real estate license renewal needs to be postmarked by midnight tomorrow.  And it will be, but just barely! 

I’m licensed in three jurisdictions – DC, Virginia and Maryland.  That means keeping track of three different sets of ground rules for doing business.    For DC and Maryland, there’s Professional Development Institute about 15 minutes from my house.  In one day each year, I can take care of Maryland and DC. 

But Virginia is different.  The have lots of outfits offering on-line renewals, and I decided to try RealEstateExpress.com – oops!

This is an outfit that offers real estate continuing education in virtually every state that lets you renew online.  Next time, I’m going to look for Realestateturtle.com.

The 16 hours of credit took 28 hours to complete.  Now, I’m pretty bright and normally would qualify as a “fast learner”.
 
The 8-hour required course wasn’t too bad.  It was well-organized and took about 8 hours to finish.  They covered everything, and I thought to myself, OK, theses guys have it down!

Then I went to the electives. 

Working with Diversity to Assist the Customer was the most ridiculously politically correct, pandering idiocy.  Grrrrr!

Virginia Limited Service Agency was not bad at all – straightforward and understandable.  And as I went through it, I realized that the new laws were well-drafted – regulating disclosure instead of service quality. 

The Residential Offer To Purchase section took forever to finish because, oh, gee!  They taught me everything I needed to know about the Virginia Association of Realtors boilerplate – a form we don’t use in most of the Commonwealth!  Grrrrr!

Then there was Selling to the Senior Market.  And oh dear!  It seems they were talking about my demographic!  And it was also politically correct and pandering!  And it didn’t really cover anything that would help me do a better job with my Baby Boomer and older peers!   And it took forever to finish!  Grrrr!

Well, it is done!  I’ll mail my renewal, a check and the certificates off in the morning, and for my next renewal, I’ll try to find an outfit where I can sit in a classroom .  OK!  So I’m retro!  But I think I’ll do it the old-fashioned way!