Certifications and Designations

Greetings!

The Real Estate industry offers the most diverse and plentiful opportunities for education, more than almost any other profession.  There are certifications and designations aplenty - some offered by national professional organizations like The National Association of Realtors, the National Association of Home Builders, the four main appraisal organizations, the National Real Estate Investors Association and others from proprietary schools and organizations.  An investor can get a broad education or specialize by getting a certification or designation in a certain area.  There are programs for green building, home staging, seniors housing, international real estate, foreclosures and short sales, and on and on.

In referring to certifications and designations in general; there are three aspects to these programs all of which may not be readily apparent to the casual observer. The first aspect is getting educated in a certain field in order to become more familiar with the subject or to actually become an expert in that field. The second aspect is to be able to market yourself to possible customers and/or clients as someone who has expertise in that field. A person does not need to have a certification or designation in order to be an expert, but the general public will have no idea if you have any expertise or not without some way of conveying that in advertising. There is always word of mouth, but that is not the way to market yourself widely. Even just having the information on your business cards that you leave around for advertising is a way of getting that message out. Thirdly, people with designations usually have access to other designees on the sponsoring organization’s website so that they can give and get referrals and network with each other. And we all know that marketing costs money, which in this case takes to form of dues to the sponsoring organization – which also includes updates to the subject material that you studied in the first place. Most reputable national organizations provide excellent information in their coursework and typically keep their graduates updated on the current trends and happenings in that specific field.

I have a certification and a designation and plan on obtaining more because it will enhance my business. They may not be for everybody, but it is part of my business model.  You always have to keep learning or you get left behind.  It may not take the form of formal classwork, but always be looking on websites, on blogs, to colleagues and wherever you can find out the things that can make you successful.