“What is your pass rate on the state exam?”  This is, hands down, the most common question I am asked.  The statewide pass rate is 42% overall.  For first-time takers, it is just a bit over 50%.  It varies a few decimal points each year, but this has been consistent for as long as I’ve been teaching.

As for my personal record or the record of Demetree School of Real Estate?  The answer is that I don’t know, and no real estate instructor in Florida knows.  It is against the law for any school to advertise that.  It is nearly impossible for any school to know.  The only way a school could accurately track it would be to hack into the state’s computer system.

I used to run a school at a timeshare resort.  The school was owned by the resort and the only students of the school were employees of the resort.  The company paid for people to take the state exam.  We let them take the exam during work time.  This was a highly unusual situation.  Because of that, I knew when everyone was taking the exam for the first time.  Even then, it was hard for me to get stats that were 100% accurate.  People left the company before they took the exam.  People could take the exam on their free time and not tell me, if they wanted to.  When you are getting second-hand information, there is always the potential that its inaccurate.

The pass ratio of real estate schools in Florida is unknown. The road to success, however, is obvious – it’s Demetree School of Real Estate.

Yesterday, someone called me and told me that she attended pre-licensing at a popular local school.  She was asking me about my review class.  She said, “[Instructor] told us his pass rate was __%, what is yours?”  I told her that the instructor of that school was violating the law by advertising his alleged passing rate.

There are two reasons why you should be suspicious if your instructor tells you their pass rate…

1. It’s against the law. If your instructor is violating the law to impress you, what else are they telling you that is inaccurate?
2. Short of hacking into the state’s database, it is impossible to know. If you base your sample on people who call to tell you they passed, that is what we call a biased sample.  There is a reason that medical trials have to have a cross section of people before new drugs are approved.

The type of people who call their old instructor to say they passed is probably the type of person who makes extraordinary effort in other parts of their life as well.  The person who took the test eight times may not be too excited about calling to tell you that.

In short, no instructor knows accurately what their pass ratio is.  Even if they somehow knew, they couldn’t tell you.  I’ll write another post soon to talk about other ways, you can evaluate an instructor.

Please note that neither I, nor anyone in the Climer family, have any affiliation with Climer School of Real Estate.  My father, Ron Climer, sold Climer School of Real Estate in 2014.  You can find me at Demetree School of Real Estate.