New York Real Estate Institute

Attorney Steve Goldberg knows his stuff. Thanks to his bringing the boring study material disseminated by New York State to life for me, I am going to take the test tomorrow — finally– and am confident I will pass. Thanks Steve!

The teachers are hit or miss. What I like about NYREI is that they have three classes a day so you can choose which ones fits your schedule best. You also get a break halfway through and there’s a Starbucks a half a block away. So if you need to get coffee or a snack during the break you can make a dash there and back.
I suggest getting there early, at least the 6pm classes since those are the only ones I’ve attended. It gets full pretty quickly, and also you have to clock in, and that either adds or subtracts from the amount of hours you’ve attended. And you need at least 75 hours to complete the class.
You can take the school test (as well as state test) as many times you need until you pass. The school test is available to take once a week.
Classroom isn’t too big or too small and it’s not like high school where you have to participate.

Kristen Bacorn is the best teacher! If you are planning to take this course, stay with her class as much as possible. She is very inspirational. In addition of her knowledge and experience, I am so enjoying her sense of humor in her class. Thanks Kristen for making classes very exciting and meaningful.

I just got my license in August, and I owe it to Bill Plunkett. He was a great instructor, he motivated me to keep pushing through despite having a very difficult summer. He made the class very interesting. And went out of his way to come up with ways to help us remember material. He is very funny, and his sarcasm makes the class very entertaining, and go quickly. He gave us tips to pass the state test and answered every question we asked. Other instructors put no effort and read straight out of the textbook making it unbearable. Make sure he’s your teacher otherwise get ready to be bored to tears.

5 stars for Kristin Bacorn and NYREI.
Although I am only half way through the RE sales agent licensing course, I couldn’t help but laud the efficiency of Kristin for both in time and in technique. Her method of drawing personal experience to relative material on exams illustrates the technical writing from the text making it feel almost tangible.
We all know how precious our weekends are, however, NYREI makes me feel confident that such commitments will be a great investment. With that in mind, how valuable is your time to you? What is your worth in getting a RE license? Solidify your investment with another: get Kristin’s book! It’s a meat and potatoes review, a culmination of what you need to know to pass that state exam.
Get there early to get comfortable as the seats are, ahem, snug.

very disconnected, unclear and rude management. I bought the pro package thinking i was safe and saving but that was not the case. They wanted me to pay for test and classes again.

This review is based on the online course not the school course. I took the online course and it was very time consuming. The cram practice tests were very helpful. Looking back I should have taken the course in person. I took the school exam review with John Peitler. The review handouts he gave us was extremely useful for both the school and state exam. I also took a state exam with Kristen Bacorn. Her real estate practice exam offered online on her website was useful. While her exam review itself was interesting it did not help me prepare for the state exam.

So I just attended NYREI this month of Sept 2015 and it was actually a very pleasent and smooth experience.
I had read really bad and negative reviews here so i was very hesitant BUT gladly i did not experience any if them.
Pros:
*Everyone was nice, including office staff.
*Instructors were extremely knowledgable (Kristen is the BEST and actually gives you exam questions and only covers necessary materials. Maria is also very good).
*Building is nice, well kept, clean.
*I was able to finish courses in 10 days and take the exam immediately.
Cons:
*DONT BUY KRISTENS BOOK
Although shes a great instructor, her book was USELESS and is extremely overpriced ($ 75) for literally 20 small pages worth. It DID NOT come useful for the exam.
*there are instructors who just read the chapter and wont give you any hints on whats on the exam, and class could be SO boring.
*GROUPON — If you do a groupon deal they will make you wait a month until you can start attending, I refunded my groupon and had to pay the $ 400 to start immediately. For me it was worth it because I wanted to get licenses asap, but if you are not in a rush get the groupon for $ 140.
Overall it was a 9 out if 10 experience, recommended.
I have REALLY USEFUL AND SPECIFIC help for your test, reach out if you need it.

Recently came here to take the remedial courses and get my salesperson license. I purchased the book for $ 45 (ugh) only to be told by instructors in the class how useless the book is, how inaccurate the book is, or that the book contains typos. Some of the instructors spent a lot of time reading the book to us, which we couldve done on our own. The material is supposed to prepare us for the state exam, but it didnt. I studied and failed the exam on ⁹⁄₈. Then I spent $ 75 for a tutoring session (On a Sunday) w/​Kristin. She is pretty hippie, but overall very nice. However, after about 30 mins into the session, she was asking us what we want her to review. Ummmm… wasnt the session supposed to be her prepping us for the state exam? So that was a bit awkward. The class ended up being 2 hrs. I re-​took the state exam on ⁹⁄₁₅ and passed, but not because of anything that was taught at NYREI. I found an old test and studied that. That made a HUGE difference the 2^nd time around. Only 2 questions out of everything Kristin «taught» us was on the state exam.
What I have surmised is that NONE of the instructors have recently taken the exam, sigh. Anywho… I passed so it doesnt matter anymore.
The only great thing about the school is the flexibility.

There are some great instructors here, and some average ones. Spend a day or two here and you’ll start to understand the distinctions… As others have alluded to, the head of the school isn’t the most socially adept individual. He is passionate about what he does, however, and when not condescending to those perceived as ungrateful, he is enthusiastic and learned on the subject. He just has a lot of skin in the whole «quest for recognition» game.
Just as with instructors, certain chapters were more exciting than others. Some easier, some more difficult. A lot of this is simply memorization and vocabulary. Many of the concepts are common sense or are universal to RE. Many students sleep in class, which I fail to understand. You have a lot of freedom at NYREI though, to take more classes than necessary, to attend the classes you want, to attend online or in-​person, etc. Now, when you have a question or need something outside that flexible framework, it isn’t all that easy to always get a quick and satisfying response. Get to classes early here, so you can get a good seat. Sit in the front or near the front if you really want to take good notes and listen, which I recommend.
The seminars they hold are worthy of your attention and attendance. While its true that they «push these down your throat» at times, the classes can become invaluable later on. At the least, one will want to have a record of attending such events if they go forward and become a RE salesperson in NYC. The office staff isn’t as helpful or as personable as they could be. They often act as though any student stopping in is a big waste of time, a drain of their resources. They help but almost reluctantly.
Recommended, with some caveats. I have not had experience with their competitors.

Purchased a class that was never used for my fiancé. Asked for a refund (minus a admin fee) and was ignored by several employees for over two weeks via email. Finally someone emailed back and claimed to be handling the check process… nothing happens. It’s now been two weeks since that last contact.
As this point, it has nothing to do with the small monetary amount. I just want to warn other New Yorker’s to the way NYREI handles their business.

Took the Real Estate Salesperson course at the school and just passed the NYS Real Estate exam, thanks to Jim Watson. Unfortunately, Jim no longer works at NYREI, but he was their best instructor. Cannot really comment on the other instructors there.

My routine is working out better than I imagined and it’s because the caliber of people at NYREI are unlike anything I have ever experienced.
Had it not been for these instructors, finishing the hours would have been difficult and I don’t know how I would feel about the business overall. NYREI broker-​instructors left me feeling above all, lucky. If you are starting from scratch you can grab the schedule both online and at school and try to find out when & if these people are teaching:
Kristen Bacorn: KB got me excited about the business. Period. She is positive, clear in her style and keeps everyone laser focused on the material sharing her own experience as a broker (not just repeating the book). So I bought her book from the office right away and the rest is history.
Bill Seto: great humor, highly intelligent & engaging, teaches at night– he is very clear and concise in his teaching style which is unusual and interesting. (learned a ton from him– wish he taught more)
Jordan Cooper (Condo’s & Co-​Ops) very fun, wealth of knowledge, also wish he taught more.
Richard Lovell– nothing better than an attorney to answer everyone’s what if questions. he should definitely teach more.
Based on how much information we are responsible for knowing and the personal investment in terms of time to get it done, they also offer tutoring which for me personally has been tremendously helpful.

This school offered a Groupon which they do not honor. It has been a nightmare getting a start date with this school. I’ve been trying to get a start date for exactly one month, I’ve emailed and emailed, and followed instructions on how to redeem the Groupon and no one from this school has gotten back to me about a start date. I even went there in person just to be told once again to email
. My Groupon is gonna expire soon. It is laughable how unprofessionally they’ve handled this situation. Why do they even offer the Groupon if they won’t honor it? Seems like a scam.

There are some great instructors. However, The office staff are not helpful, do not respond to your questions and have an attitude.

Kristen is a great teacher. Find her class!

Convenient way to fulfill your salesperson requirements. The teachers provide real world experience and they try to focus on the topics you will see on the test. Sometime the discussion can veer off track so it’s important to ask questions if you don’t understand something. It’s helpful if you read the book and show up to class with questions.

This school was odd.
They sell you a thick textbook for your classes, $ 40. Most of the teachers will then tell you that the book has incorrect information in it and that you won’t ever use it again after that class. They also said that the book is so large because the state requires a certain amount of words per chapter. So most of it was filler.
A few of the teachers spend most of their time talking about themselves and how great they are, and repeating the same stories and jokes class after class. It gets exhausting. It wasn’t just me either, a lot of the other students in the class were rolling their eyes and mumbling under their breaths.
After you spend two hours sitting in the class while they speed through the current chapter in the book they told you is basically useless, they do sales pitches for you to pay for their tutoring course. Each teacher seems to have their own tutoring course that you have to pay extra for. They all tell you that is where they will give you the information to pass the test. So not in the class you already paid for, but in the tutoring course. And one of the teachers trashes the other teachers and assures you that the others only claim to have the answers but they don’t, only he does.
You will not pass the tests just by taking the classes, unless you already have real estate experience. I have worked in real estate for ten years and I had difficulty with the test. I passed the school test and failed the state test.
Despite the weird infighting they seem to have and all of the bragging, most of them were nice enough. But I wouldn’t recommend this school and I’ll be looking elsewhere for my broker courses.

Two words: Jim Watson.
Some more words: while all of the school’s instructors were solid, Jim’s classes were not only my favorites (he’s a bit of a showman, and very engaging), but by far the ones from which I learned and retained the most relevant information (RELEVANT: terms and concepts which would be appearing on both the school and state exams).
Foremost, I recommend Jim’s exam tutoring sessions. In spite of the fact that my exams were scheduled for weeks after I completed the salesperson courses (ample time to forget things like what «intestate» means, and how to calculate cash-​on-​cash returns) his sessions condensed 75 hours of coursework into four hours (each session is two hours), and helped me pass each exam on my first attempt, without once needing to revisit my old foe, the NYREI textbook.

On July 10^th, I purchased a groupon deal to attend classes at this school, and immediately followed the instructions on the groupon to contact the school via email.
By the 14^th, I had not received a response, so I called the school early that morning. I was asked to leave a message for Paul and I was given his extension number. I left the message, but did not receive a response. Today I called and thankfully someone was able to help me… or so I thought.
He sent me instructions to come to the school to register, but included the following statement: «Unfortunately due to overwhelming response from our Groupon deal we have had to set start dates for our students, something we don’t normally do. The earliest you would be able to start is August 18^th, or any day after that.»
REALLY!!! Over a month away??? Why is the special still running without mentioning this? They already have my money, but I can’t start for over a month??? I am so disappointed, that I emailed the person who sent me that email, to inquire about a refund.