The California School of Real Estate was established in 1975 by Donald S. Schwartz who continues to operate it as its owner and Chief Instructor. The school represents the continuation of family involvement in real estate license preparation that began in 1941, when Don's uncle opened the San Francisco School of Real Estate. Three years later in 1944, Don�s father expanded the family business when opening a school on the east side of the Bay in Oakland. Both Don�s uncle and father not only personally taught the class sessions, but also wrote the course materials for their school programs.
Don�s career started in 1960 when just after graduating from high school he began teaching at his father�s school. He taught there for a few years until 1962 when he enlisted for a three year term in the Army. Immediately after being released from the service at age 22, he obtained his real estate salesperson license and become active in the real estate field. Between 1965 and 1973, Don worked in the real estate field and also accumulated 54 units of real estate classes while continuing to instruct part-time at his father�s school. Don went on to acquire his broker license in 1976 and continues to maintain an active license.
When Don�s father retired from the school in 1973, Don continued his career by instructing at locations in San Rafael, Oakland, Hayward and Concord for the newly opened Century 21 Franchised License Prep Schools. In 1974 Don acquired the ownership of the Red Carpet Schools and operated locations in Hayward and Oakland. In 1975 with the prompting of several real estate companies he created the California School of Real Estate in order to serve the entire market for all real estate brokerages. The school has offered classes in 8 locations statewide (Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Fresno, Los Angeles, Anaheim and San Diego), and continues to offer all courses involved in qualifying, preparing for, and maintaining the real estate salesperson and broker licenses.
Over the years, as Don expanded the locations it became necessary to hire additional instructors. Don has interviewed hundreds of instructors and trained many to teach the courses. Due to the fact that license exam preparation is such a specialized area of training, he found that even the best real estate instructors weren�t qualified to teach this type of specialized instruction. In all the years of hiring and training instructors, Don has only found three instructors that he felt were able to present this type of specialized training and each spent months in studying and preparation before teaching.
Between 1989 and 1997 the real estate market slowed up resulting in most real estate schools closing. In turn it caused many of the Real Estate instructors to quit the field, leaving only ones that ran their own schools like Don. When the market opened up in late 1997, schools again began re-open and hire instructors to teach their courses. During that time, Don again had extreme difficulty finding anyone who can teach the classes the way he believes they needed to be presented. This inspired Don to create a program called �The Flex Study System� which provides students continual access to his personal training and written materials.
He maintains his state headquarters in Oakland, California, but offers his program statewide. To accommodate his study program he generously makes himself available to answer questions by students on a toll-free line.
For those truly serious about obtaining their real estate license it should be comforting to know that the owner, Don Schwartz is currently recognized by many, as the State�s most knowledgeable and experienced instructor in the field of Real Estate License Exam Preparation.
