Fitting Real Estate Classes in Brooklyn into Your Schedule

Ordinarily I would find this a stupid thing to write about. You’re an adult, “How do you fit a real estate class into your schedule?” Really? You just do it. Right?

The reality is a little more complicated than that. Fitting a class into your schedule that only takes 75 hours, of which you only have to think for 35 of those hours, in under a year shouldn’t be an issue.

Real estate classes in Brooklyn won’t explode when time runs out

You heard me. It’s not a ticking time bomb. If you don’t get done in time you have to start over. No big deal. The only big deal here is the fact that you really don’t want a career in real estate.

Wait! You say you do want to work in real estate? No you don’t. If you did, it wouldn’t be difficult to find time for your classes. You only want the dream of a real estate career or maybe someone is encouraging you to do something you don’t really want to do.

If you are finding trouble making time for you real estate class in Brooklyn then you really need to ask yourself if you really want this career and read more about it. Self-scheduling only gets worse when you are actually working in real estate. I you can create time for everything you need to get done, then real estate is a bad career choice for you.

Finding your priority

I have found that people find time for their passion, for the things that interest them the most.  I have plenty of time for real estate because I am no longer passionate about my old career path; in fact I am passionate about getting out as fast as possible. I sometimes skip dinner, sleep less, or forego a Broadway premier, to make time for real estate.

My advice to anyone struggling to find the time is to go back to the beginning and ask themselves, “Why?” Why am I pursuing real estate? Why do I think it will appeal to me? What is my why?

If you can’t identify your why in real estate and if your why doesn’t set your soul on fire, you will never be able to make time for real estate.

Work or die

Sure. There are plenty people in real estate that see it only as a job. They sometimes do okay, when they have a choice between putting in the effort or missing a house payment. They get motivated by the meanest of incentives, losing what they have, or providing for their children. They have a couple good days a month, enough to keep the wolf away from the door and the rest of the month they are unmoved. Discomfort is their motivation. They will never be great; they just get by.

My opinion, if you can’t fit real estate classes in Brooklyn into your schedule, quit. Quit now and put yourself and those around you out their misery. That may sound too harsh. If quitting isn’t your thing, then you better damn well get excited.

What to know before your first Brooklyn Real Estate Class

Look, I went to Brown—and aced it. Real estate classes didn’t scare me. Brooklyn scares me but not school. Some of my habits I learned at Brown really paid off for me however.

First, and I recommend this, I found out everything there was about my first class. I found out it was a New York requirement that you attend all 75 hours of the 75-hour course. Even if you choose to take your Brooklyn Real Estate Class in Chelsea at home on your computer, you literally have to sit in front of your computer for the full 75 hours.

In class or online?

The first thing I had to decide consequently, was; do I attend class or go online somewhere like www.brooklynrei.com? I know, a brainiac like me might as well take the course online. However, at Brown I learned the value of networking. I knew that learning from people and colleagues often had advantages over online courses. You do have to be gregarious and outgoing to take advantage of that learning channel. Some people I know took the online course and they did fine.

Do you have time for a Brooklyn real estate class?

If you decide to take your class online, you actually have one year to complete the 75 hours. This would be a bad idea in my opinion. By the time you completed the course you would have forgotten everything and need to take a refresher course to be able to pass the real estate exam.

Since I decided to take the class, I needed to make sure I could fit the class into my schedule while I was still working at the hospital to pay the bills. I needed to figure in driving time, class time, and time to talk to anyone I could find who could give me a heads up on the real estate business.

I then wanted to schedule time after class to study. I was taking my pursuit of real estate as serious as any career. I inherently knew that knowledge was one of the key factors of success and I was cramming any information I could get for success.

What’s your career path and timeline?

Even though my life and schedule were such that I just had to plug myself into schedules and curriculums that were already set, I recognized that now I needed to do that for myself. How fast did I want to get my license? What was my career path after that? What are the opportunities and what are the drawbacks?

Based on schedule at work, I created a reasonably aggressive timeline to get my license. I then had to seek out a mentor who could show me the career paths available to me and what kind of time commitment should I plan on. Without these objectives firmly in my mind, I could see how time could be my enemy. I had to follow a timeline that would allow me to quit my hospital job as soon as possible. My quality of life there was sucking the life out of me.

Having all of these things in mind before I began my first class made my real estate career happen much quicker for me than if I had waited to be told what I should do next in my Brooklyn real estate class.

How I Made my Own Career after Brooklyn Real Estate School

I know this blog starts out with the word “how” but that’s not the most important question if you are asking me how to get started in real estate. For me it all started with “why.”

First, by way of explanation, I am a woman in my early thirties. I took the traditional career path afforded someone with a 4.0 GPA, a 2350 SAT score, and parents with money. I attended Brown University and did well. I wanted to work in hospital administration, so I felt lucky when a prominent hospital in New York offered me a good starting position. My goal was to work for a few years and then return to Brown for my Executive Master of Healthcare Leadership. It all seemed like a good plan. 

The first thing I noticed about my new work environment was how structured everything was. Not structured in a good way though, structured by politics, and the struggle for power and position. I didn’t like what this environment did to the people around me. Those at my level seemed to be in fear most of the time. The women supervisors and executives seemed cold, aloof, and driven. The men were . . . well men.

Why real estate?

Long story short, I made serious inquiries to my former Brown classmates to see if it was just me. They assured me their corporate environments were similar. Now what? Work in this prison until I retire? I was too smart for that. I wanted to walk into HR at work and alert them that they had hired a bunch of psychos to run their hospital but I thought it through and decided to leave when I found something better.

I wanted a career that I structured, that tied my pay to my success, and didn’t want Ursula the sea witch breathing down my neck. That’s why I signed up for a Brooklyn real estate school. After my research, I could see how real estate was my thing and I wanted to be in the Brooklyn real estate industry. I felt free for the first time since ninth grade when I began living for grades and titles. I could see that real estate could be a challenge, fun, and profitable—and I could be in charge.

How real estate school liberated me

At this point I knew what I wanted and I knew why I wanted it. The next question was how to proceed, how to start.

When I talk to people today, I tell them if they don’t know why, they will never find a good what. The how is all about using your head. Even though I had my fill of school, a Brooklyn real estate school was obviously the first place to find out how.

I wasn’t disappointed.