5 Best Online Real Estate Schools: Our Top Picks for 2022

Having the inside scoop on the best online real estate school is critical for taking the next step toward a successful real estate career. We evaluated a wide variety of online real estate school options and came up with the top five based on their value, course offerings, and ease of use.

Whether you’re looking for the best online real estate school to help you get your license, a reliable place for all your continuing education needs, or anything in between, here are the best online real estate schools worthy of your consideration.

5 Best Online Real Estate Schools Comparison Chart

We chose our top picks for best online real estate school in several categories. While classes are available in many states across the country, we highlighted pricing in three states: California, Texas, and New York.

Top 5 Online Real Estate Schools 

Best Overall Online Real Estate School: Real Estate Express

You can’t get started in real estate without a license, and you can’t get your license without first taking your prelicensing course and passing your state’s real estate exam. Even though all the online real estate schools on our list offer real estate courses that satisfy these prelicense requirements, Real Estate Express’ options are the best.

Real Estate Express Pros & Cons 

We chose Real Estate Express because their real estate prelicensing courses are designed for students with little or no business experience, making the transition into real estate easier. They also offer comprehensive exam prep courses, allowing their students to transform their class knowledge into success on the exam, as well as a satisfaction guarantee to make sure you get everything you want out of the class.

Real Estate Express does offer other options in terms of continuing education, but from our research, their overwhelming value is in their real estate prelicense education opportunities.

Real Estate Express Pricing

Real Estate Express offers prelicense real estate courses, exam preparation, and continuing education. Here are three states in different geographic areas of the country and examples of the pricing in each. Make sure to check with Real Estate Express for the exact pricing in your state, as well as what current discount promotions are available.

Real Estate Express Pricing Summary

Real Estate Express: Our Favorite Feature

Real Estate Express has the best content and study aids for aspiring real estate agents. They provide options to assist you with the educational requirements of obtaining a license. Their program will also help prepare you for life as a real estate agent after passing your real estate exam.

We particularly like the live chat question and answer (Q&A) available with some of their real estate prelicense packages. Students can join sessions with licensed real estate agents and brokers to ask questions about their material or the upcoming test. They can learn from pros how the information they’re learning can be applied in the real world after they begin their real estate career.

Real Estate Express: Our Pick for Prelicensing Real Estate Courses

Though Real Estate Express’ continuing education content is great, their bread and butter is their prelicensure offerings. Real Estate Express offers several packages—from the more basic self-paced course up to a deluxe package that features a printed textbook and intense professional development coaching after you pass your licensing exam.

Dollar for dollar, Real Estate Express offers the best prelicensure value on the market.

Real Estate Express: Most Useful Real Estate Continuing Education Course

We’ve talked a lot about Real Estate Express’ prelicense options, so let’s turn to their continuing education courses to highlight “The End of the Paper Trail: How to Conduct a Paperless Transaction.”

As technology continues to change and the speed of business increases, staying on the front edge of the real estate process will only become more critical. This course walks you through the step-by-step process of transitioning all your transaction communication and paperwork into the digital realm, creating speedier and more efficient processes. A three-hour elective course, it’s also very affordable, coming in at $25.95.

Where Real Estate Express Could Improve

Real Estate Express offers many great options for real estate agents in just about every leg of their professional journey, except those looking to obtain a broker’s license.

Currently, Florida is the only state where Real Estate Express offers a broker’s prelicense course. Those who live outside of the Sunshine State looking to start their own brokerage have other options available. The next online real estate state school on our list, Mbition, is a great place to start if you’re looking for broker classes.

Check Out Real Estate Express

Real Estate Express offers everything soon-to-be real estate professionals need to launch their careers. If you want to learn more about what Real Estate Express has to offer, check out our full review of their platform, including a behind-the-scenes video walk-through. Visit their website to find out what promotions they may be running to save you even more at the start of your career in real estate.

Check Out Real Estate Express

Best Online Real Estate School for Exam Prep: Mbition

Formally OnCourse Learning, Mbition is a unique option with offerings suited to individual students and brokerages looking for group training solutions. For brokers, they offer programs tailored to ushering your latest crop of new recruits across the prelicense finish line.

Mbition Pros & Cons 

Mbition leads the field with top-notch exam prep, as well as a growing list of continuing education options. Mbition provides packages for students looking for everything from the most basic requirement fulfillment to deluxe preparation packages. With a wide variety of customizable packages, you can combine real estate prelicense offerings with their exam prep solutions.

Mbition Pricing

Mbition offers prelicensure classes, exam preparation, and continuing education, as well as broker prelicense classes (where available). Pricing varies by state, ranging from about $129 to $599 for prelicensing. Make sure to check with Mbition for the exact pricing in your state, as well as what current discount promotions are available.

Mbition’s prices are competitive, and with their package customization options, you don’t pay for things you don’t need.

Mbition Pricing Summary

Mbition: Our Favorite Feature

Mbition offers a wide variety of exam prep packages that really hit the mark.

Specifically, their Master Exam Prep Package includes an adaptive learning interface that tracks the questions you had trouble with during your practice tests and then gears the next round of review toward your weaknesses. With over 1,600 practice questions and eight full-length exams, you’re sure to go into your exam day well-prepared.

Mbition: Our Pick for Exam Preparation Courses

If you’re a nervous test taker or just want to supplement the preparation you’ve received as a part of your prelicensure class, Mbition is the place to do it. Their exam prep options are great for individual students, in a group setting of almost-real estate agents at a local brokerage, or in the context of your prelicense class (where available) with Mbition.

Mbition: Most Useful Real Estate Continuing Education Course

Are you ready to PARTY?! Then you need to sign up for the “Tax-Free Exchanges” course.OK, we know it doesn’t have the most glamorous title, but here’s why we’re excited about it. First, it fulfills two hours of legal-focused continuing education, which most real estate agents need every year. Secondly, it costs $14. Seriously, you’re getting your legal requirement for less than the cost of lunch.

Lastly, 1031 and other tax-free exchange options are powerful buyer techniques that those who have established themselves financially use to leverage their wealth. That’s a crowd you want to hang with as a real estate agent; having some skills in this area will allow you to contribute to those conversations and start landing some investor clients with deep pockets.

Where Mbition Could Improve

Mbition’s continuing education options are relatively slim compared to other online real estate schools we looked at. Mbition has many classes to choose from, but for those looking to further their professional development instead of just fulfilling a requirement, Mbition doesn’t offer many options. This gap limited Mbition’s potential as a familiar place you can return to for continuing education every year.

If fantastic continuing education options are essential to you, we suggest checking The CE Shop.

Check Out Mbition

With so many options to choose from, Mbition is a great option for anyone looking for a customized experience tailored specifically to your learning style. Visit Mbition today and get started building your personalized real estate education experience.

Check Out Mbition

Best Online Real Estate School for Interactive, Live Instruction: Kaplan Real Estate Education

If you’re looking for a company that is synonymous with quality instruction, look no further than Kaplan Real Estate Education. Kaplan has a long track record of preparing students for standardized tests. They are also a long-time provider of prelicensure classes designed to help students fulfill their state requirements in preparation for their real estate license exam.

Kaplan Pros & Cons

Kaplan Real Estate provides several options for agent prelicense classes, exam prep, continuing education, and broker prelicense classes. Many of their classes cross over into live classroom settings, making Kaplan Real Estate Education ideal for students looking for a more traditional learning environment.

Kaplan Real Estate Education Pricing

Because Kaplan’s offerings of format and interaction are so diverse, their pricing is as well. Their completely self-driven, self-paced options start as low as $199, all the way up to a live classroom option (currently available in California and Texas) with an experienced educator (who also happens to be a rock star real estate agent instructor) starting at $989.

Here are three states in different geographic regions of the country and examples of the pricing in each. Make sure to check with Kaplan Real Estate Education for the exact pricing in your state, as well as what current discount promotions are available.

Kaplan Real Estate Education Pricing Summary

Kaplan Real Estate Education: Our Favorite Feature

Kaplan Real Estate Education’s best feature is by far the different options for instruction.

As a Kaplan Real Estate student, you can choose from three different online formats: Home Study, OnDemand, and Live Online.

• The Home Study method is a text-based learning program centered on an e-textbook, completely self-paced—no interaction, and perfect for students who learn best by reading quietly.
• OnDemand takes your nose out of a book and gives you video streaming of prerecorded lessons of instructors in live classrooms, teaching the material while you follow along in your textbook. Jot down your questions, email your instructors, and get clarification about whatever you need.
• Live Online is a virtual classroom with a live instructor where you hear the instructor’s words as they are saying them. Ask questions and interact with your fellow students—this format is like the best webinar you’ve ever attended.

Kaplan Real Estate Education: Our Pick for Interactive Instruction

If you’re completely green to the real estate game, Kaplan Real Estate Education is a great place to go because their instruction options are so varied.

Also, Kaplan provides opportunities to get a jump on some early professional development through a program called Real Estate Accelerator. A two-day intensive course lead by a super-qualified real estate agent with a ton of experience and knowledge to share, their accelerator program jump-starts your business plan and marketing strategy. The program can set graduates up for real success in year one of their careers.

Kaplan Real Estate Education: Most Useful Real Estate Continuing Education Course

Kaplan Real Estate Education’s continuing education selection isn’t huge. Still, they do have some quality offerings. Almost all of them are available in their sought-after OnDemand format, which features fantastic instructors who deliver the material to you. You’ll avoid having to read the materials on a computer screen for hours.

The course that caught our eye was “Millennials: Challenging the Traditional Real Estate Model.”

In this course, you’ll learn about paradigm shifts in communication, how the latest homebuying generation’s views on money and debt affect the homebuying process and go beyond the newspaper headlines to get to the heart of how to close deals with millennial buyers and sellers.

Where Kaplan Real Estate Education Could Improve

Kaplan’s interface for their OnDemand and Live Online formats is a little dated compared to what you’ll find at other online schools we’ve reviewed. Overall, their technology feels a little clunky. Students have reported having trouble running Kaplan’s programs on various web browsers, so a little bit of technology troubleshooting might be necessary.

If a more user-friendly interface and sleeker technology are important to you, both Mbition and Real Estate Express offer modern platforms with excellent user support.

Check Out Kaplan Real Estate Education

If a live, instructor-led experience is what you’re looking for, Kaplan Real Estate is your best option. If you want to learn more about Kaplan Real Estate, check out our full-fledged video walk-through of their on-demand package for our complete review.

Visit their website today to find out which classes are available in your area or if Live Online is the best option for you.

Check Out Kaplan Real Estate

Best All-in-One Online Real Estate School for Prelicensing & Beyond: The CE Shop

The CE Shop offers a wide variety of education options for the real estate field, including prelicense classes, test prep, and post-licensing requirements.

The CE Shop Pros & Cons 

The CE Shop really shines in continuing education (CE), which makes sense since “CE” is in their name. The CE Shop sets itself apart from other schools by working hard to offer classes that real estate agents will want to take—with instruction that supplies valuable, detailed knowledge you can take and apply directly to your real estate career.

Also, with the introduction of Leap 2.0, your real estate courses on The CE Shop are optimized for delivery on just about any platform, so you could knock out continuing education requirements on the train into the office each morning.

The CE Shop Pricing

The CE Shop may be known for its continuing education options, but they also offer good deals on real estate prelicensing classes.

Here are three states in different geographic regions of the country and examples of the pricing in each. Make sure to check with The CE Shop for the exact pricing in your state, as well as which current discount promotions are available.

The CE Shop Pricing Summary

The CE Shop: Our Favorite Feature

The CE Shop has some great continuing education courses in relatively specialized niches, allowing real estate agents in different states to focus their knowledge and advance their careers. Classes in areas like Assistance Animals in Fair Housing, Marijuana Laws in Real Estate, and Land Contract Details are just some of the topics you can study while fulfilling your continuing education requirements and then using that information to serve your real estate community.

The CE Shop: Our Pick for Continuing Education Options

Choosing The CE Shop for your continuing education needs is the way to go. Lots of options in each state, great pricing, and topics relevant to all your real estate needs.

The CE Shop: Most Useful Real Estate Continuing Education Course

Every four years, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) requires its members to take a refresher course in the NAR code of ethics. The CE Shop offers a great option that fulfills this requirement, called “Code of Ethics: Good for Your Clients and Your Business,” which should be one you consider if you’re coming up on needing to complete your ethics training.

Three hours long and only $25, this course reviews some of the recent amendments to the NAR Code of Ethics, including those involving new rules for social media behavior and internet communication in general. Whether you’re a brand-new real estate agent or you’re building your first real estate website on Geocities, this course is a valuable one.

Where The CE Shop Could Improve

Unlike most of their competitors in this space, The CE Shop offers nothing in the way of exam prep for those who are about to take their salesperson license exam. Though it appears that there’s some prep built into the prelicense course, you don’t have the option to purchase only preparation services and materials, a feature that’s relatively standard across the real estate education space.

Check Out The CE Shop

With so many continuing education options available, The CE Shop is a perfect choice for real estate agents who want a reliable place to complete their CE requirements every year without fear of having to repeat courses.

Check Out The CE Shop

Best Online Real Estate School for a Quality Mobile Experience: Aceable Agent

Students looking for flexible options for completing their real estate prelicense education should definitely consider Aceable Agent. Their mobile-first online platform is a flexible option for students fitting their classes in between other priorities. Their PDF-based, long-form option is an excellent approach for anyone will to sit down at a desk and plow through a bunch of material.

Aceable Agent Pros & Cons 

Aceable Agent Pricing

Aceable Agent offers the full gamut of quality real estate education — from prelicensing classes, exam preparation, and continuing education to broker prelicensing classes.

Below, you’ll find Aceable Agent pricing for classes in some of the most populated states in the country, including Texas, California, and New York. Be sure to visit the Aceable Agent website to determine the front-line pricing for their real estate classes in your state, and use the coupon code provided for readers of The Close to save.

Aceable Agent: Our Favorite Feature

Aceable agent isn’t an old-school platform that has been adapted to fit in an internet world. Its platform was developed for a digital-savvy, 21st-century audience. If you want to complete your classes online (either from a computer, tablet, or phone), you can. If you prefer to go old-school, you can work from a well-written PDF. Either way you slice it, Aceable Agent is a solid option for students.

Aceable Agent: Our Pick for Flexible Format Options

Soon-to-be Realtors who need the ability to change up how they consume their classwork will love Aceable. Several schools in the real estate education space offer great course options and perhaps even edge out Aceable when it comes to their overall content offerings. However, Aceable’s value lies in its flexibility. You really can decide day-to-day how you want to be a real estate student and how you consume content.

Aceable Agent: Most Useful Real Estate Continuing Education Course

Aceable Agent doesn’t offer continuing education.

Where Aceable Agent Could Improve

We commend Aceable Agent’s approach of “choose one thing and do it very well,” but the fact is, budding real estate professionals have more than just a single need. We love Aceable’s prelicense classes, but the fact that they don’t really provide any sort of test prep packages, continuing education, or broker licensing makes them a one-trick pony.

For a more complete suite of real estate education, check out Real Estate Express.

Check Out Aceable Agent

If it is time to take the next step in your career and add the title “Realtor” to your business card, we suggest checking out Aceable Agent. They’re an ideal provider of real estate education if you need flexibility and are balancing other priorities.

Check Out Aceable Agent

Online Real Estate School FAQs

Now that we’ve armed you with the best options for online real estate education, let’s look at a few of the most frequently asked questions from real estate agents and soon-to-be real estate agents on the topic.

Need a little more information about what it actually takes to get a real estate license? Start with our comprehensive guide: How to Get a Real Estate License.

Are the requirements for a real estate license different in every state?

Yes. Each state has unique class requirements, testing procedures, and application requirements. We here at The Close are in the process of developing quality guidance for every single state. If you’re in the states of California, Florida, or Texas, we’ve already got state-specific guides for the best real estate school options in your area ready to go.

What if I’m already licensed in another state?

Good news! If you’re currently licensed in a state other than the one you want to do business in, you could have your prelicense education requirements waived thanks to a license reciprocity agreement. Each state is different in how they handle reciprocity, so we’ve put together an entire article dedicated to Real Estate Reciprocity Rules for Each State—check it out.

Online real estate school vs in-person real estate school: which is better?

The answer to this question depends on your learning style and what you need to master new material. If you’re someone who needs face-to-face interaction in a classroom setting, away from the other obligations and distractions at home, an in-person class might be the best bet.

However, if you’ve got some experience with online learning, or are willing to try something different, the online real estate school option is the way to go. When you go online, you benefit from complete flexibility, self-paced courses, and massive online resource libraries where you can find answers to your questions in real time.

Also, if you have a question that you can’t answer yourself, most major online real estate schools offer great instructor support through email, live chat, and even video chat Q&A.

I’ve never done an online class before; is it hard?

If you’ve never participated in an online class before, it can sound a little intimidating at first, but we assure you it isn’t. If you’ve ever gone to YouTube to find out how to change a headlight or fix a leaking sink, you’ve attended a short online class.

The classes you’ll take through any of our five recommended online real estate schools will be involved, interactive, and require your time and attention, but if you can watch and learn from a video on YouTube, you’ll do fine here.

How much does it cost to go to real estate school?

Each state’s prelicense class requirements are different, so there isn’t a set price for everyone across the country. Through our top recommended school Real Estate Express, classes in California start as low as $119, in New York as low as $239, and in Texas, as low as $484. Check out the Real Estate Express website for detailed pricing information for your state.

Best Overall Online Real Estate School: Real Estate Express

Real Estate Express’ affordable prelicense real estate courses, exam preparation options, and continuing education classes lead the way in this space. Their package add-ons like Live Instructor Q&A, a Pass or Don’t Pay Guarantee, and even post-licensing professional development make them a fantastic choice for your real estate education needs.

Visit Real Estate Express