Certificate of achievement helps students enter growing, lucrative field
More than 50 years ago, real estate was one of the first career technical education opportunities offered by Citrus College. Since that time, the program has grown significantly. An example of this growth is the college's new certificate of achievement in real estate appraisal.
First offered during the fall 2021 semester, the real estate appraisal program prepares students to evaluate properties to establish market values and property ratings. It fulfills most of the educational requirements to sit for the California Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers (BREA) appraisal licensing exam.
Faculty members Dr. Timothy Durfield and Nick Paulson developed the program after they reviewed the appraisal profession market data and saw there was a declining number of licensed appraisers in California.
"Our research indicated that there was a large number of appraisal retirees and a limited number of licensed appraisers to mentor new appraiser trainees," Dr. Durfield said. "We decided to develop the appraisal curriculum to provide Citrus College students with the option of entering this growing field."
The program's first cohort of 11 students all completed the 150 hours of college-level education that was required to earn their certificates. Most of the cohort also completed additional training that was funded by the state's Strong Workforce program.
All three classes in the real estate appraisal program are approved by BREA. The program is 100% online and offered in a fast-track accelerated format, which means that all of the courses can be completed in 12 weeks.
"Spring 2022 enrollment in the real estate appraisal certificate program has been robust, with 23 students participating," said Dr. Joumana McGowan, vice president of academic affairs. "We expect this to continue to be a very popular program at Citrus College."
This article originally appeared in the June 2022 edition of the Citrus View.