Best Online Real Estate Schools in Pennsylvania

Choosing a real estate school is critical to your success as a real estate professional. Not only does your real estate school provide the education on which you will build your career, but it is also a critical resource in passing your Pennsylvania real estate exam so you can earn your real estate license. Without passing your exam, you can’t get your license, and you can’t practice real estate.

So when creating a list of the best online real estate schools in Pennsylvania, we chose to focus on the schools that best prepare you to pass your Pennsylvania real estate exam. These are schools with solid:

• Curriculum (so you can easily learn and retain the material),
• Access (to your coursework and to experts who can answer real estate-related questions), and
• Pricing (because you still need your real estate education to be affordable).

We looked at real estate schools large and small, old and new, and we have compiled a list of the top five best online real estate schools in Pennsylvania.

Here are the Best Online Real Estate Schools in Pennsylvania:

1. AceableAgent
2. Colibri Real Estate
3. The CE Shop
4. RealEstateU
5. Kaplan (KAPRE)

1. AceableAgent

When you want a guarantee that you will pass your Pennsylvania real estate exam so you can get your real estate license, choose AceableAgent.

We know, it’s bold of us to give ourselves the top spot on our list of the best online real estate schools in Pennsylvania. But we’re the only online real estate school in the state that offers a guarantee that you will pass the exam with our base-level Pennsylvania pre-license course. If our course doesn’t prepare you to pass your real estate exam within three attempts, we’ll refund the full price of your course! That’s our Ace the Test Promise.

We can be confident in our ability to prepare you to pass your exam because we offer a few things most other real estate schools don’t offer:

• Engaging curriculum: While many online real estate schools offer a digital textbook and maybe a few online quizzes, AceableAgent uses engaging graphics and videos to make the content easier to understand and more memorable.
• Exam prep is included in the base-level package: Unlike most other schools, you don’t have to pay extra to get exam prep with AceableAgent.
• Access to industry experts in the base-level package: When you have a question, you can easily ask one of our industry experts. We would never require you to upgrade to a more expensive package for this kind of access.

This is the system that has been helping AceableAgent students pass their exams. While we’re fairly new to Pennsylvania, AceableAgent has consistently boasted some of the highest real estate exam pass rates ever since being founded in Texas in 2012.

You should also know that AceableAgent is the only online real estate school to offer mobile-first course design. This means your course materials will display just as well on your phone or tablet as they will on your computer. And since the course syncs on all your devices, you can always easily pick up where you left off. So when you have to interrupt your at-home study session to take the kids to soccer practice, you’ll be able to continue your study session from your phone at the field.

If you’re still not convinced that AceableAgent is the best online real estate school in Pennsylvania, take a look at Trustpilot, Google Reviews, and Facebook Reviews to see what real-world AceableAgent students are saying about their education experience.

Where AceableAgent excels: With AceableAgent’s Ace the Test Promise, you can be confident that you’ll be prepared to pass your real estate exam and get your new career started. Our built-in exam prep, expert access, and engaging curriculum all work together to help you ace your exam.

Where AceableAgent could use a little work: AceableAgent is fairly new to Pennsylvania so we don’t have the name recognition that many of the other schools on our list enjoy.

2. Colibri Real Estate

Colibri Real Estate, formerly Real Estate Express, is currently the most popular online real estate school in Pennsylvania. And while it may not be the very best, there’s a good reason why it’s so popular. Colibri Real Estate was one of the first online real estate course providers. Established in 1996, Colibri Real Estate currently offers online courses in more than 30 states. So it’s not only popular in Pennsylvania; it’s popular all over the country.

We applaud Colibri Real Estate for keeping their student enrollment experience up-to-date with modern technologies. Many schools that have been around for so long have outdated websites and an overall disappointing interface, but Colibri Real Estate provides a seamless experience for students to enroll in their courses.

But can Colibri Real Estate prepare you to pass your real estate exam so you can get your Pennsylvania real estate license?

As long as you upgrade from the base-level package to a package that includes exam prep, yes, Colibri Real Estate is likely to help you pass your exam. With the Exam Preparation and Exam Preparation Plus packages, you get a Pass or Don’t Pay Guarantee.

But, again, you’ll have to pay extra for the exam prep, around $50 extra at regular prices and around $30 extra at reduced rates. And if you want access to instructors when you have questions, you need to pay another $70 at regular prices (or $40 at discounted prices).

Where Colibri Real Estate excels: Colibri Real Estate is a recognizable name and offers Pass or Don’t Pay Guarantees (as long as you upgrade to the more expensive course packages).

Where Colibri Real Estate could use a little work: Colibri Real Estate's course materials alone probably won’t prepare you for your real estate exam. As one Trustpilot reviewer noted, “The course content will never help you with the exam.” So be prepared to spend more to get the exam prep.

3. The CE Shop

While The CE Shop doesn’t guarantee that you’ll pass your state exam, they do have comparatively high exam pass rates. According to their Pennsylvania website, 89% of their students pass the national portion of the real estate exam on the first try (compared to the 69% state average), and 71% pass the state-specific portion of the exam on the first try (compared to the 51% state average).

The CE Shop offers interactive coursework, and most of their students report being happy with their educational experience. We just wish that exam prep was included in the base-level package. You would need to upgrade to a higher-level package if you want access to exam prep.

You should also pay close attention to the course expiration dates. Some Trustpilot reviewers were surprised when they were charged extra to extend the course expiration dates. With The CE Shop, students have six months to complete the pre-license course. You can get a one-month extension without an additional charge, but all subsequent months will cost 20% of the course’s current retail price.

Where The CE Shop excels: The CE Shop has high exam pass rates compared to most other online real estate schools in Pennsylvania (just make sure you purchase the more expensive package that includes exam prep). Where The CE Shop could use a little work: The CE Shop charges extra for exam prep and courses expire after six months.

Where The CE Shop could use a little work: The CE Shop charges extra for exam prep and courses expire after six months.

4. RealEstateU

RealEstateU stands out from the other best online real estate schools in Pennsylvania because it is the only school with an audio-first format.

That’s right, instead of using engaging video content or standard textbook content, RealEstateU focuses on audio lessons. With this inexpensive-to-produce format, RealEstateU is able to offer some of the most affordable online real estate classes in Pennsylvania.

RealEstateU is ideal for auditory learners. It’s super affordable, and it allows you to multitask, listening to your course content while driving, cooking, or cleaning.

But there’s an obvious and important downside to RealEstateU. It doesn’t work well for visual learners. In most states in which RealEstateU operates, students just get a few visual graphics, while the rest is audio. But in Pennsylvania, RealEstateU offers transcripts of the audio lessons, so you can read them if you prefer. Of course, that text is pretty dry without visual elements to break it up, so you might want to purchase a PDF textbook package from RealEstateU for an additional $20.

You may get low pricing with RealEstateU, but you may not get enough guidance to pass your real estate exam. Where RealEstateU excels: RealEstateU is one of the most affordable online real estate schools in Pennsylvania and allows auditory learners to multitask while listening to their lessons.

Where RealEstateU could use a little work: The unique audio-first format doesn’t work for visual learners, and there’s no guarantee from RealEstateU that you’ll be able to pass your real estate exam.

5. Kaplan (KAPRE)

Kaplan Real Estate Education (commonly known as KAPRE) is more popular in Pennsylvania than The CE Shop and RealEstateU, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a better option.

The reason KAPRE rounds out our list of the best online real estate schools in Pennsylvania is that it is so well-known and established. KAPRE is the real estate branch of Kaplan Inc., which offers professional licensure courses in all 50 states, across multiple industries including banking, medicine, and law. KAPRE has online real estate course offerings in all 50 states, and expands into multiple real estate-related career paths, including brokerage, appraisal, and home inspection.

But KAPRE is an example of an established online school that got comfortable and forgot to keep changing with the times. The website is dated and doesn’t inspire confidence in the user experience students would get from the online course. And because KAPRE is such a well-known name, they charge more for their courses than any other school on this list.

We do appreciate that exam prep is included in the base-level package, but again, with that package costing substantially more than the exam prep packages of other online real estate schools, this isn’t much of a positive. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to pass your exam.

Where Kaplan excels: Kaplan is a long-established educational provider with multiple licensure and certificate courses available in all 50 states.

Where Kaplan could use a little work: The dated tech, unimpressive customer service, and lack of a pass-the-test guarantee don’t justify the high price tag.

Enroll Today!

You need to pass your real estate exam so you can get your real estate license and start practicing real estate. So make sure you choose the real estate school that will give you the best chance of passing your exam. The last thing you want is to pay for a course that doesn’t prepare you for the exam, only to have to pay for another course at another real estate school so you can actually pass the exam.

While AceableAgent might not be the lowest-cost real estate school, the Ace the Test Promise guarantees that you’ll pass your real estate exam within three attempts, or you get your money back. Of all the best online real estate schools in Pennsylvania, AceableAgent is the clear winner when it comes to passing your real estate exam.