Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

 This course serves two primary audiences. The largest audience includes students seeking to satisfy State of Oregon Real Estate Agency broker requirements for licensing and the smaller audience includes students wishing to generally expand their knowledge about real estate. To satisfy the licensing education requirements students must pass (75% score or better) a comprehensive multiple choice final examination.

Real Estate Brokerage is an introductory course with the primary goal of exposing the student to the statutory requirements for record keeping, clients’ trust account reconciliation, and other topics, including:

1.      Advertising, including supervision of content, format and layout; public relations, image development, the Internet and relations between competitors; office policy on private transactions of licensees; effect of disciplinary action on licensees.

2.      Financial records such as general checking account and its use for payment of commissions, receipt of appraisal fees; the clients’ trust account, laws and regulations on its use, including documentation required, reconciliation, use of interest-bearing accounts, commingling of funds, the trust accounts’ use in cooperative transactions, earnest money, advance fees and rental fees. Affirmative requirements of an agent to clients and others as set out in ORS 696.805-.815

3.      Office facilities and the regulatory requirement for real estate offices including site selection, space and office layout, furniture and equipment; broker license requirements, and the real estate regulations affecting the office such as signs, requirements for branch offices, limitations on licenses, effect of actions on licenses, and reporting of adverse decisions.

4.      The rules and regulations regarding neutral escrows, and co-op transactions; the mathematics of a real estate closing, such as tax prorations, computing commission splits, and making closing estimates; closing procedures, such as title insurance, recording and acknowledgment of documents, etc.

5.      Financial reports such as income statements, balance sheets, tax returns and payroll records.

6.      Non-financial records such as listing files, transaction records, cooperative transaction records, advertising folders, showing reports, appraisal records and reports, requirements of rules and regulations, such as management review of broker transactions.

7.      Office manuals which set out office policy and procedures, use of the manual in training and to set out grievance procedures.

8.      Office activity other than real estate sales; property management, appraisal, investment counseling, construction and development, including supervisory requirements, as well as the nature of the activities in relation to real estate law and rules.

Students will be assessed by any combination of the following:

1.      Active participation in class

2.      Contextual written tasks (in or outside of class) to assess reading

3.      Oral responses to in class hypotheticals

4.      Request for real life applications of course material

5.      In class, interactive student role-plays

6.      Quizzes and practice exams following State of Oregon Real Estate Agency question format

7.      Final comprehensive examination patterned after Oregon Real Estate Agency license exam

 Themes, Concepts and Issues

Include all or most of the following:

1.Oregon statutory and regulatory provisions relating to advertising

(1) content

(2) format and layout

(3) public relations

(4) image development

(5)use of the Internet

2  Private transactions by licensees in the office

3.Disciplinary actions

4. Financial records

a. checking account

b. clients’ trust account

(1) interest bearing

(2) reconciliation

(3) general documentation

(4) use in co-op transactions

(5 use with earnest money agreements

(6 use with rental agreements

 a. commingling of funds

5. Office facilities

1. site selection
2. space and office layout
3. furniture
4. equipment
5. signs
6. licenses

6.Reporting adverse litigation

7.Financial reports

1. income statements
2. balance sheets
3. tax returns
4. payroll records

8 Non-financial records

a.listing files

b. transaction records

c. cooperative transactions records

d. advertising folders

e. showing reports

f.  appraisal records

9. Office manuals

10. Relationship of office and employees to

a property management

b appraisal

c. investment counseling

d. construction and development