What Are The 2020 CE Requirements for Arkansas Real Estate Licensees?

Written by Kacie Goff

If you’re a real estate professional in Arkansas, you probably have the date September 30 fixed in your mind. This is the date by which you have to renew your license. Even though your license won’t expire until December 31, if you miss that date, you have to pay an extra fee to keep your license active.

On top of that, the Arkansas Real Estate Commission (AREC) mandates that you complete continuing education during each renewal period. Those requirements can vary from year to year, so let’s look at what you need to do in 2020. 

2020 Arkansas real estate continuing education hours requirements

This year, real estate agents need to complete seven total hours of continuing education. You need to have these hours completed before you renew your license, so make sure you take them before September 30 to avoid the additional renewal fee. 

Also, be sure you take your hours from an AREC-approved continuing education provider. AREC keeps a running, regularly updated list of education providers. Choose your continuing education hours from a provider on that list to make sure they count toward your renewal process.

Fortunately, AREC has approved some providers to offer the hours you need online. This way, you can complete your hours from any device with an internet connection whenever you find time in your calendar over the next several months. 

2020 Arkansas real estate continuing education topics requirements 

In addition to specifying the number of continuing education hours you need and providers with which you can get them, AREC also requires your hours to cover specific topics.

Specifically, this year, you need:

• 1 hour on safety (they call this “limiting risk to preserve personal safety for agents and clients”) 

• 6 hours of elective education

Just because the other six hours can be on an elective topic doesn’t mean you can choose something random to learn, though. AREC recommends specific topics for your remaining hours. In particular, they strongly suggest that you take three hours on best practices in real estate cooperative brokerage. 

On their website, they provide a robust list of other recommended topics. Their top five additional topic recommendations are:

1. License law and commission regulations 

2. Agent and broker responsibility

3. Regulatory compliance with trust account recordkeeping and transaction file maintenance

4. Real estate policies and procedures

5. Real estate contracts and forms

That’s just the start, though. AREC lists 25 topic recommendations for 2020 continuing education for their real estate agents. 

You don’t necessarily have to piece together your continuing education hours on your own. AREC has approved education providers to offer complete 7-hour course packages that align with all of this year’s requirements. 

Although AREC’s recommendations and regulations may vary from year to year, they do a good job of keeping the Education page of their website updated, along with subpages that have information on the current year (look at the menu on the left-hand side of the page to find these subpages). 

At the same time, we’ll work to keep you updated on the Arkansas real estate continuing education requirements each year so you can stay in the know and on top of maintaining your license.