Certificate of Advanced Study in Commercial Real Estate Development

NAIOP core competencies are specialized categories of applied skills and established industry practices, organized into the body of knowledge, that are essential to delivering financially successful projects.

We strongly recommend you submit your application as soon as you decide to participate in the Certificate Program. NAIOP will grandfather credit for any NAIOP Corporate course(s) that are completed during the twelve months prior to submitting an approved certificate application. One must complete the test for the course(s) with a passing score of 80% for credit.

A full array of courses are accessible either live online or on-demand. If you are taking the on-demand courses, Certificate candidates must register and complete the full course in order to receive credit. The on-demand short courses do not count towards the certificate.

The completion of four courses is required to earn the finance certificate for a total of sixty-four (64) hours.

Yes, exams are required. One of the fundamental elements of establishing certificate program credibility is the added rigor of summary course exams. Satisfactory completion of certificate work requires demonstrated knowledge of course content which is measured by written comprehensive exams. Exams are administered by NAIOP confidentially online to certificate candidates immediately following the conclusion of NAIOP courses and webinars, as well as eligible chapter courses. A minimum exam score of 80 percent (24 out of 30 correct) is required to pass a course. A post-course exam may be taken up to three times to satisfy requirements.

A certificate candidate is required to attend all classes either live or via the archived recording. Late arrival and or early departure may require you to retake the course before credit is granted.

The Center for Education maintains records of all the offerings you complete, as well as exam scores, in a confidential transcript. You will be able to print your own course transcript after you complete the course.

Yes. The Center for Education assigns an educational credit value for all its offerings. Credit value is based on the number of elapsed hours for each offering. Values are measured in the form of both Professional Development Hours (PDH) and Continuing Education Units (CEU). In addition, NAIOP is a registered provider of Learning Units (LU) through the American Institute of Architects' Continuing Education Service which regulates the LU. Educational credit is earned once completion of an offering is confirmed. Credit is recorded in a transcript by The Center for each student. Transcripts are available to you upon request for use as documentation of your work when applying to licensing authorities for approved educational credit.

You have two (2) years (24 months from the start of the first course) to complete the 64 hours of coursework. One extension of one (1) additional year may be taken to complete coursework.

All NAIOP courses are scheduled annually in their online versions or are available on-demand. See Certificate Programs for dates of all offerings and events.

You must submit a certificate application along with a resume and a one-time application fee. The program is open to member and nonmember applicants.

You will receive a transcript of your coursework, and the NAIOP Certificate of Advanced Study in Commercial Real Estate Finance that states your name, accomplishment and date the coursework was completed. In addition, all new certificate recipients are publicized to the industry media by NAIOP.

Yes. If after reviewing the agenda for the Basic Real Estate Finance (BREF) course, you believe that you have already acquired the necessary knowledge from formal education and/or work experience, you may request a waiver and take the final course exam. In order for the BREF course requirement to be waived you must pass the exam in one attempt, with a score of 80 percent or better. If you pass the test and a waiver is approved, you must replace BREF with an elective course from the NAIOP curriculum to complete the required total of 64 hours to earn the certificate.

No. Credit from another training or educational organization is not accepted for transfer to the NAIOP certificate program.

NAIOP uses Citrix as our online learning platform, enabling students to access classes via an Internet-enabled computer. Onsite education is conducted face-to-face at a dedicated site (e.g. in a traditional classroom setting).

The interactive sessions will be accessed via the NAIOP Center for Education. You will need to log in to the NAIOP website in order to access the live or on-demand courses.

You will need to download the most recent version of Zoom to participate in the online courses. Please use the list below to determine if your computer meets the minimum requirements recommended to participate in the online courses:

To attend on a PC, the following is required:

• Internet Explorer® 6.0 or newer, Mozilla® Firefox® 2.0 or newer (JavaScript™ and Java™ enabled)
• Windows® 2000, XP, 2003 Server or Vista
• Cable modem, DSL or better Internet connection
• Minimum of Pentium® class 1GHz CPU with 512 MB of RAM (Recommended) (2 GB of RAM for Windows® Vista)

To attend on a Mac®, the following is required:

• Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer
• Safari 3.0 or newer, Firefox 2.0 or newer (JavaScript™ and Java™ enabled)
• Cable modem, DSL or better Internet connection
• Power PC G4/G5 or Intel processor (521 MB of RAM or better recommended)

Participants wishing to connect to audio using VoIP will need a fast Internet connection, a microphone and speakers (a USB headset is recommended).

Contact Sandy Hudson at hudson@naiop.org for more information.