Why this matters: Real Estate Principles: Video™ is our most ambitious project to date, including 230+ dynamic videos, audio definitions, text, interactive video game levels and quizzes. It’s a technical juggernaut of information and innovation.
Real estate licensing coursework has finally entered the 21st century — courtesy of firsttuesday.
Introducing Real Estate Principles: Video™
Lights — camera — action — real estate!
The future of real estate education just got reel. Real Estate Principles: Video™ is freshly approved by the California Department of Real Estate (DRE) and is now available for enrollment to aspiring California licensees.
This one-of-a-kind offering is the first — and only — video-based statutory licensing course offered in California, and available only from firsttuesday.
To qualify to take the state licensing exam, an aspiring agent completes Real Estate Principles in conjunction with the mandated Real Estate Practice course and one elective course, like Legal Aspects of Real Estate which covers content frequently appearing on the state exam.
From the same creators who brought you the cult classics in Video Renewal Course (VRC): Real Estate Made Reel™, Video BO-AFTER™ and Video NMLS, Real Estate Principles: Video™ is a treasure trove of information and entertainment. It is built around 230 videos to cover everything a prospective agent needs to know about real estate as a new entrant to the industry.
But the video library which powers the course only scratches the surface.
Now, as you read this, it’s a good bet you are an existing real estate agent or broker licensed by the DRE. As such, you long ago completed your Real Estate Principles course requirement. Further, there’s a better than one-in-six chance you took your Principles course with firsttuesday (and we thank you very much).
Whether you’re an employing broker looking to expand your office or simply have a friend who is interested in obtaining a license and embarking on a profitable career in real estate, this announcement is for you.
Refer your aspiring agents to the most innovative, sensory-rich educational offering available in the fifth largest economy in the world — California. Nearly ten years in the making, Real Estate Principles: Video™ is designed to educate — and provide a little entertainment along the way.
Do your part to ensure aspiring agents get inspired by real estate. Help them get the best education and training available.
Let’s take a quick look at what makes Real Estate Principles: Video™ so unique amongst a crowded field of generically-structured 1970’s-era education.
Each online page of the Real Estate Principles: Video™ course includes:
- a dynamic, fully-acted video shot in brilliant 4K resolution, three to ten minutes in length;
- plain English copy written by California licensees which covers all the fundamentals and rules of conduct;
- audio definitions of the key terms to aid comprehension and ensure retention when newly-minted licensees engage clients (and of course, are sitting for the state licensing exam);
- embedded RPI real estate forms which are engineered to simply structure real estate transactions, seamlessly downloaded for use in professional practice;
- Knowledge Knockout™ video game with achievement levels which enhance a student’s interaction with critical real estate terminology featured in the course and covered on the state exam; and
- quiz questions anchored to each page about the core concepts it covers so students test their comprehension in real time after watching and listening to each page — not bundled after a swath of chapters.
A full-color course e-book is also linked for easy reference while taking the open book final examination for the course. The downloadable e-book is also an ideal study tool when preparing for the state exam, and of course, for use as a real-world resource manual when licensed. [See RPI e-book California Real Estate Principles: Video™]
The star-studded segments in Real Estate Principles: Video™ include:
- ownership and architectural concepts;
- California real estate law and licensing;
- fair housing and risk management;
- agency, ethics and trust funds;
- representation and seller disclosures;
- environmental and natural hazards;
- adjacent owner issues;
- appraisal and title insurance;
- purchase agreements and escrow;
- vesting, deeds and trust deed notes;
- possessory interests and equity homesteads;
- mortgage financing and foreclosure;
- tenancies, tenant improvements and property management;
- rental and lease agreements; and
- real estate mathematics.
Seeing is believing (and understanding)
Correspondence study provides its own unique challenges and opportunities.
In the not-too-distant past, students received physical books (usually hefty tomes) in the mail and read through them. Cumulative quizzes were included in the back of the book, estranged from the chapters related to the questions.
Students read (or at least needed to read) and took quizzes (or at least we recommended they take the quizzes).
The onus was on the student, entirely and with minimal assistance, to ensure they were properly absorbing the content and understanding critical fundamentals likely to be encountered in the first four years of licensed practice. Further, it was presumed the student acted in good faith to fully grasp the written material and be able to confidently respond to topics confronting them on the state exam.
Alternatively, students might have elected to take their courses as live education at a brick-and-mortar location — a community college, private university or DRE-approved school. Live courses provided the advantage of having an instructor who was there to verbally explain topics. Students could hear concepts, in addition to passively reading about them.
However, live courses are incompatible with the busy schedules and daily obligations of most prospective agents. Further, live instruction is very expensive compared to a correspondence course. The live course business model evolved circa 2000 into webinars but with the same drawbacks of scheduled rigidity and high cost of live course instruction.
Enter Real Estate Principles: Video™.
Video courses are unique. Video offers the best of multimedia worlds.
Students log into their account 24/7, day or night, and engage with the study materials however they choose — read/watch just a bit, or binge watch like the latest streaming Netflix show.
In addition to e-book reading, students with video learning are able to watch and listen as real estate concepts are brought to vivid life.
Real Estate Principles: Video™ is narrated by long-time firsttuesday consultant, instructor, former college professor and real estate appraiser, William Mansfield. With video, Mansfield takes on the role of “Professor Bill,” who fully embodies the professorial voice and appearance of the best of educators.
Like a live classroom setting, Professor Bill patiently guides students through all the fundamental concepts of the course. But better than live, Professor Bill can be rewound and rewatched to ensure full comprehension.
Real Estate Principles: Video™ is not a pre-recorded lecture, nor is it a talking-head presentation, whether AI-generated or not. Real Estate Principles: Video™ features scripted content, fully-acted scenarios, animations and graphics which deliver a visual anchor of the points discussed. Seeing is reality and leads to understanding. The firsttuesday staff consists not only of writers, programmers and customer service staff — but also actors.
In addition to the telling of a story in scenarios, human animation of the content ensures the video also entertains. Every storyline engages the student to assure concepts are retained in the student’s knowledge bank. Yes, in addition to the legal digest of real estate law we are known for, there is also a healthy dose of humor and levity.
But you don’t have to take our word for it.
See a full sneak peek of Real Estate Principles: Video™.
Or just sample the first video of the course below.
Full color e-book included
As a DRE-approved course provider and publisher, we love books. And of course, we still do.
That’s the magic of Real Estate Principles: Video™ — it is a fresh product by addition, never subtraction.
To that end, video students still have access to a full e-book of the course materials, just like all our other course offerings. For those who primarily prefer to read, and sample lightly from the multimedia elements, Real Estate Principles: Video™ is for you, too.
Everything critical to the course is covered both in the videos and in the e-book.
Rest assured, the e-book and the videos are designed to work together, both being produced by the same creative team. Thus, everything in the course speaks the same language — versus being grafted together from disparate sources, produced by different individuals at different points in time.
The same people who wrote the e-book also scripted (and acted in) the videos and programmed the course.
Want a closer look? Read the full e-book here.
Knowledge Knockout™
An optional bonus to help students study key terms and have some fun is also included.
Knowledge Knockout™ is an online video game using the terminology students encounter in the course. Real estate jargon is presented at ten stages, intermittently throughout the course. The student may test themself as they move through the material to make sure they retain core terminology — and score points in a race to the highest total.
Knowledge Knockout™ takes real estate terminology and adds the learning power of gamification. Think classic game show, with a real estate twist.
Each stage contains the terminology used in the preceding sections, with custom graphics and a unique soundtrack for each.
Not into video games? No problem. Knowledge Knockout™ is completely optional — an add-on learning element for anyone who chooses to play, but not required to complete the course.
Hear terminology in application
The foundation of any industry is the terminology unique to it. Real estate is no different. It, too, has its jargon, each term possessing a story best understood by practicing licensees.
Real Estate Principles: Video™ also features audio recordings of all critical real estate terms appearing in the course (and of course, also tested on during the state exam). Easy-listening audio files are embedded directly into the course, anchored to the location where the term is used in the context of the discussion.
This treatment gives words a voice as they appear — the ability for students to hear terms spoken, versus simply reading the words.
Listen to a few sample selections below.
Trade fixtures
Department of Real Estate (DRE)
Environmental hazards
Escrow
Vesting
Are you ready for your close-up?
But why take our word for it?
Grab the buttered popcorn, pull up a comfortable chair and see for yourself what the latest blockbuster is all about with a sneak peek into the action.
And when you next have a chat with an aspiring licensee, please point them to Real Estate Principles: Video™ for the premiere educational experience — they’ll be happy and thankful you did.
The video & e-book, three-course, fully digital package is available for $244.50. Visit firsttuesday’s Become an Agent page to order today or call us at 951-781-7300.
Watch and learn with the only DRE-approved video-based Real Estate Principles course.
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