I'd like to buy a vowel. Expert Designations kinda scare me a little.

I recommend that if you plan on practicing real estate past tomorrow that you do more than just consider getting as much distressed property/seller training as possible.  Given the market conditions we face now and in the future, I think it should be required that all licensees know how to assist distressed homeowners in sorting through their many OPTIONS.  I DO recommend the CDPE class as the first of many steps toward helping distressed homeowners with one of the most challenging situations they'll face in their adult lives.  (Although I do think the CDPE folks should update the printed material to 2010 since so many changes have r.  As of this writing, the printed materials offered are copyrighted 2008.  As the CDPE instructor said a few times in class, "that was 4 stimulus packages ago.")

Furthermore, I applaud the efforts of the CDPE founders and instructors for being part of the movement toward educating agents on matters of helping distressed homeowners, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for promoting the effort and the professionals who are working hard day in and out to assist distressed homeowners.  I have no question, concern or opinion (other than stated above) about the CDP- part and consider the money and time spent toward the training to be worth it.

I wish I'd bought another vowel though.  CDPE stands for Certified Distressed Property Expert.

Expert seems more than a little strong to me.  My doctors, dentist,  and my lawyer all consider themselves to be practitioners of their field.  I've never once had a doctor tell me he was the expert...even though I believed it to be so.  They all practice because it is just that...a practice of medicine, practice of dentistry, of law and so on.  I haven't given a lot of thought to it in the past, but it stands to reason that the reason it's referred to as practice, is because it changes too often to be mastered.  What we do as practitioners isn't like woodworking or sewing with an established   that allows us to master a trade; ours is truly a practice that requires constant learning and to be experts.  If the laws and the rules and economic stimulus never change, then we stand a chance at expert mastery but certainly not until then. Am I an expert at continuing to learn all I can about my practice?  I guess so.

To the class and back to my point...

We were told that at the end of day 2, we would walk out ready to work short sales.  At the beginning of Day 1, the instructor asked for a show of hands as to the number of people who were working or have worked shorts. With less than half of the 39 sets of hands in the room raised, we were asked for a show of hands as to who was an expert.

Three hands remained.

To the Instructor, it was shocking to him that ONLY three hands remained in the air.

To this Texas Broker, it was shocking that as many as 3 hands remained in the air.  I've participated in a handful of short sales and I've attended several versions of online and in classroom training specific to short sales since 2006.  While I do consider myself to have expertise, I do not consider myself to be an expert.

The following day, 38 people, half of which have no prior short sale experience, walked out of that classroom with the Certified Distress Property Expert Designation.  There were several people in the classroom from other parts of Texas, but Wednesday afternoon, a couple dozen brand new EXPERTS hit the Dallas-Fort Worth real estate streets.

My question for you, the Active Rain community, is the following:

Do you think that it's possible to be an expert by attending a class or do you think that working to become an expert requires training and practice?  What about supervision of that practice?  Shouldn't there be a requirement that sponsoring brokers also earn and maintain designations held by their agents?  How many cans of worms did I just open?