If you’re looking to get more information on the Lumbleau Real Estate School, you’re in the right place. This extensive Lumbleau Real Estate School review will help you decide if this is the right real estate school for you or if you should look for another.
UPDATED: April 2024
Our Overall Rating
(3.4)
Overview Of Lumbleau Real Estate School
The Lumbleau Real Estate School is one of the oldest real estate schools in California. Since 1938 they have been helping people become real estate agents and start a career in real estate.
According to their school’s website they have helped close to 600,000 students pass the California real estate licensing exam.
The school was started by John Lumbleau who had over 40 years of motivational speaking and sales training. He also spent many years creating in-classroom courses on videotape for those looking to succeed in the California real estate market. In these videotapes John also talks about personal success and tries to motivate his students.
John Lumbleau passed aways in 2010 and the real estate school is now managed by Derf Fredericks who himself has had a 40 year real estate career.
In-Depth Look At Lumbleau Real Estate School Course
In this section of our Lumbleau Real Estate School review, we will do our best to take a closer look at the Lumbleau Real Estate School course contents.
There are many real estate schools that offer courses to become a real estate agent in California. The best like Colibri Real Estate and AceableAgent specifically layout what is offered in their courses and specify that their courses meet the 135 hours of state mandated pre-license requirements.
The Lumbleau Real Estate School website mentions nothing about their courses meeting the 135 hours pre-license education requirement.
So here is what we could gather about the courses offered at the Lumbleau Real Estate School.
The courses offered at the Lumbleau Real Estate School are broken down into two packages:
The Salesperson Exam Passing Only Course
This course package includes 2,700 questions and a 3 phase exam preparation all done online. This package also includes 41 hours of streaming video but what exactly is contained in these videos is not clear.
Online Salesperson Pass The Exam Course Plus Three College Equivalent Courses
This course package has three college courses called “Required Principles”, “Required Practice” and the third option allows you to choose from eight other course titles.
The same 2,700 questions, 3 phase exam preparation, and 41 hours of streaming video which are included in the Exam Passing Only course are also included here.
You can add the exam passing workbook and three textbooks for an additional charge.
We are not sure how to know which course should be chosen to meet the state’s 135 hours pre-license requirement but we assume both will do this.
What Does The Course Include?
The course is available only online at this time and can be taken at your own pace. You have 1 year to complete the course from the date you start.
The Lumbleau Real Estate School seems to specialize in exam prep. They have a database of over 3,350 exam prep questions.
These questions are broken down into 14 subjects or lessons and then also include a motivational video. At the end of each lesson there is an interactive 100 to 400 question test. You move on to the next question after you answer a question correctly. If you answer incorrectly twice, you are shown the correct answer with the reasoning about the answer. If you have questions that trip you up you can tag them so you can focus on the questions you are struggling with.
Once all 14 lessons are complete you will be able to review the updated most recent database of 400 questions and tag the ones you are having problems with.
At this point you can apply to take the state exam. While waiting to take the state exam you can access 5 practice exams that contain 150 practice questions which is similar to the state exam.
How The Course Is Structured
The Lumbleau Real Estate School uses what is called the “The Lumbleau Method”. This method is what they call “Saturation Exam Passing” and is what they attribute to their success teaching students. This method uses their concept of “first testing” which they say cost $250,000 and then every question is taught one at a time.
Lumbleau Real Estate School’s course runs for 7.5 weeks with 2 video lectures for the first 6 weeks and then 1 video during weeks 7 and 8. This will take you through the 14 video lessons and then at week 8, you apply for the state exam.
In weeks 9, 10, and 11 you will take 5 exam prep tests each containing 150 questions which are equivalent to the state exam.
Guarantee
The Lumbleau Real Estate School does offer a passing guarantee. If you do not pass the state exam they will refund your purchase price of the course but it appears only up to $99.
Support
There is no mention of support on the Lumbleau Real Estate School website but they do have a phone number that you can call.
Demo Course
The Lumbleau Real Estate School website does offer a look at an example video in the course. You can access that here.
We watched the demo video and it appears this is John Lumbleau doing the teaching. The video appears to have been taken either in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s.
The demo video says it is teaching the concept of “Acquisition and Transfer of Real Property” but the video is like watching a motivational speaker from an Amway convention. Very little is mentioned about the subject of the video so if this is what the lessons are like, that’s not something we would want to take.
It may be that the Lumbleau Real Estate School just needs to provide a better sample video but at this point, this is what they show and it’s not flattering.
Lumbleau Real Estate School Pricing
The course offered at the Lumbleau Real Estate School are two different packages.
The Salesperson Exam Passing Only Course is $99 while the Online Salesperson Pass The Exam Course Plus Three College Equivalent Courses is $189 at the time we wrote this Lumbleau Real Estate School review.
Pros And Cons Of Using Lumbleau Real Estate School
In this section of our review, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using this real estate school.
Pros
- Long track record
- Passing guarantee
- Seem to have a good focus on exam prep
- Cost is very competitive
Cons
- Horrible website design and functionality
- Course information is hard to understand
- Outdated video content
- Must purchase textbooks and workbooks separately
- Would not answer our questions
Conclusion And Verdict
As we dug into the material to compile this Lumbleau Real Estate School review, we found just a few things we like about this school.
First, they do have a long track record. As one of the oldest real estate schools in California and having been around since 1938, we think this is amazing.
Second, they do offer a passing guarantee so if you do not pass, they will refund your money but only for the $99 course from what we could tell.
Third, this real estate school does seem to have a good handle on exam prep and their questions database may work well to prepare for the state exam.
Now let’s look at the downside of Lumbleau Real Estate School.
The fact is, we hate the Lumbleau Real Estate School website. Now hate is a strong word and one that we try not to use, but in this case, we must.
One look at the Lumbleau Real Estate School website and you think you’re back in the 1950s. Everything about the website looks like the 1950s. While this is fine and those who like nostalgic and vintage designs will love the look, the problem is the website also functions as if it was in the 1950s!
The site is quite simply poorly designed. Worse still is the functionality of the website is no better. It’s hard to use and even harder to understand what you’re looking for. You would think that with everything that is offered today to create amazing websites, they could have done something to make their website easier to use.
It’s so hard to understand the course contents by looking at the Lumbleau Real Estate School’s website. Does it provide the necessary 135 hours of pre-licensing education as required by the state of California or not? We are not sure but they do say that they give you everything you need to pass the state exam so it could be that it does meet requirements.
It seems that you must purchase many extras to take full advantage of the course such as textbooks and workbooks. These are extra costs but it’s not clear which ones are needed.
The contents of the course, specifically the video lessons appear to be very outdated. In fact, from what we could see in the demo the video lessons haven’t been updated in at least 30 or more years. On Yelp, it’s mentioned that the video lessons are outdated.
We also contacted this real estate school to have our questions answered prior to compiling this review. We asked them specific questions about their school to try to help us better understand their program. Even though they responded within 8 hours, they refused to answer any of our questions. They told us everything could be found on their website! Imagine that!
After looking at the Lumbleau Real Estate School and trying to get a firm grasp on what they offer, we have to say it’s very hard to understand. Now they may be one of the best real estate schools in California but it’s really hard to tell from their website and since they wouldn’t answer our questions, we have no way to know.
We cannot recommend this real estate school at this time but should that change and they update their info, we will update this Lumbleau Real Estate School review to reflect that.