Proptech developers launch free alternative online real estate school

Arti is a proptech company that offers a transaction management platform for real estate brokerages. It was developed by two agents in St. George, Utah, and was noteworthy for the level of transparency it provided buyers and sellers.

The software has processed more than 10,000 transactions to date.

This year, Arti’s developers and brothers Matt and Neil Walter have taken their real estate services in a unique direction: an online real estate school.

Arti CTO Matt Walter

The pair recently launched Arti Academics, a school that goes beyond typical licensing and continuing education classes to help agents understand topics such as iBuyers and Unassisted Transactions, Understanding the Dynamics of Finance, Real Estate Market Cycles, and Farm and Ranch Transactions.

Best of all: Classes offered by Arti Academics are free, and, in keeping with their theme of industry transparency, the classes are also free for the non-licensed public.

Arti CTO Matt Walter said that they want to see agents educated in what’s happening now, not just in the topics required to stay licensed.

“Our goal is to transform real estate education into something that agents want to engage with and help them grow their business, instead of simply regulatory compliance,” Matt Walter said.

Courses are currently open to Utah and Nevada licensees. They are working on being able to offer it other states in the west.

“That’s the No. 1 question we get asked,” Matt Walter said over the phone in reference to the no-fee model. “People can’t wrap their heads around it, but there’s just no real money in real estate education, and we’re very passionate about education in general.”

Matt Walter said that the low profits of most real estate schools are reflected in what students take away from it. He also made it clear he and his brother aren’t fans of PowerPoints and handouts being passed off as education.

To further remedy that, the Walters hired Dr. Amanda Wickra as the school’s director of education. Wickra holds a doctor of education degree from Pepperdine’s Graduate school of Education and Psychology, where she was named one of the university’s “40 under 40” in 2016. She joins Arti Academics from ERA Brokers Consolidated of Las Vegas.

“One of our primary instructors and pre-licensing instructor for the state of Utah, Cheryl Knowlton, is a certified speaking professional from the National Speakers Association,” Matt Walter said. Knowlton holds a Distinguished Real Estate Instructor (DREI) designation and presented twice at the NAR conference last week.

The brothers have built two recording studios to create content and have more than 50 classes in various stages of development.

“We offer video learning from people with real experience in the space and who want to give back,” Matt Walter said.

An app is in the works, and the school’s learning management platform is their own, developed in-house.

The Walters believe that consumers are eschewing traditional models because they’re not liking what they’re getting.

“We want people to be better at the trade, because having untrained people affects the industry as a whole,” Matt Walter said.

The school is expecting to end the year with 2,000 enrollees. It launched in the early summer.

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