Real Estate Courses - Common Requirements

The Georgia Real Estate Commission has developed common requirements to which schools must adhere in offering approved courses. The common requirements for prelicense, postlicense and continuing education courses include:

• In establishing an approved course, a school must maintain for at least five years, as a minimum, the following:
  1. a detailed course outline with hours to be spent on each subject area in the course and all planned in-class and homework exercises;
  2. specific learning objectives for each instructional hour;
  3. text materials used;
  4. daily tests, final examinations, or other materials used to evaluate student performance;
  5. records that identify each student, the student's attendance record, a final grade, and scores earned on all graded written exercises that determine whether the student passed a course;
  6. summaries of student evaluations of the course (a school may maintain individual student evaluations for a course if the school prefers to do so)
  7. the resume or other biographical information documenting the knowledge and experience of each postlicense and continuing education instructor;and
  8. copies of Commission authorization of any continuing education course that does not seek to improve knowledge and skills in real estate brokerage activity in the subject areas listed in the curriculum for courses outline in Rule 520-2-.04.

• Hours of Instruction - for all approved courses, an in-class hour is defined as fifty (50) minutes of instruction. In-class instruction and testing in any course shall not exceed seven and one half (7.5) hours per day. The school shall hold all in-class instruction between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. with breaks totaling at least fifteen (15) minutes every two hours. The schedule must allow reasonable time for preparation for each classroom session. All in-class instruction for Broker's Prelicense course students shall be separate from all in-class instruction for Salesperson's Prelicense course students. Instructors shall utilize no more than thirty (30) minutes of audio or video materials toward meeting any required in-class (or make-up) hours of instruction unless the Commission grants written authorization for such material prior to its use.

• Ethics - all courses offered by an approved school for prelicense postlicense or continuing education credit must include acknowledgement and coverage of the ethical implications of the subject matter of the course.

• Georgia Residential Mortgage Fraud Law - all Salesperson's Prelicense Courses and Broker's Prelicense Courses must include a component on Georgia's Residential Mortgage Fraud Law and methods of identifying possible fraud in transactions and properly reported alleged fraud. Sales Postlicense Courses must also include this component if the Courses addresses residential sales.

• Units of Instruction not in Prescribed Curricula - a school may offer units of instruction in prelicensing, postlicensing and continuing education courses that are not within the curricula set forth in Rule 520-2-.04. However, to include such units of instruction within the minimum credit hours for each type of course or to offer credit at all in a continuing education course, the school must obtain prior written authorization from the Commission.

• Attendance Monitoring and Makeup Policy - schools must monitor attendance in all courses. Schools and instructors must notify students that, to receive credit, they must be on time for the course and must be present in class for the entire time of the course. Schools must maintain attendance records. A school may permit a student to make up minutes or hours missed if the student participates in an instruction period with an instructor. The Commission does not permit, without prior approval, make-up time through watching videotapes or listening to audio cassette tapes.

• Notice to Students - all approved classroom courses require a Notice to Students. The contents of the notice depends on the type of course offered, since some aspects of licensing courses are not applicable to continuing education courses.