ABOUT US

​Real Estate Trainers (RET) was founded in 1972 when Bob Morris and Larry McHarg approached Century 21 about providing educational services for them. Since then, RET has expanded its reach to many other real estate companies. In 1982, RET expanded its services to include appraisal education and began offering live appraisal courses in 1991. In 2010 RET began offering NMLS courses for Mortgage Loan Originators who hold their license through the DRE. From Salespersons to Brokers, and Appraisers to Mortgage Loan Originators, RET is full-service real estate school for all real estate educational needs.

Real Estate Trainers is a pioneer in California real estate licensing education for all types of licenses, but our crash courses are what really set us apart. RET challenged the standard real estate crash course, using a more defined and license-specific teaching method. RET has helped thousands of students pass their state exams. Our Salesperson and Broker crash courses are so effective that other real estate schools refer them to their students! Our Appraiser crash course is so popular we often get students coming from other states to learn how to pass their exam! Our MLO crash course has helped a high percentage of students pass their exams the first time!

Today, Larry’s son, Lance McHarg, serves as the company’s President. Remaining family-owned and operated, and committed to family-values, Real Estate Trainers is all about you, the student. We are continuously developing our educational services to give you the easiest, most practical way to understand the content and enjoyable as possible.

MEET OUR INSTRUCTORS

Armen Makasjian

Armen is a California native. He received his bachelor’s degree in real estate from California State University in 1987. That same year, he received his California real estate broker license and became actively engaged in real estate sales for his father’s real estate company which was established in 1963. In 1992, Armen received his residential appraisal license specializing in FHA appraisals, divorces, partnership dissolutions, purchase transactions and appraisal field review for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Upon receiving his Certified General appraisal license, his appraisal expertise expanded to various commercial and industrial site, and special use properties which include schools, churches and partial interest valuations. Armen is currently active in real estate sales and appraisals, and he frequently provides consulting for various neighborhood councils and attorneys on new projects involving project entitlements, pro-forma analysis and highest and best use analysis. 
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Armen enjoys spending time with his family. His hobbies include playing the piano, hiking and collecting coins.

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Elba “Elvie” Peña

Elvie has always had an interest and love for real estate. She feels blessed to know she is helping other individuals accomplish and meet their goals whether it be success and/or financial. Being an Instructor, with the Real Estate Trainers family has made her feel as if she’s not working since she enjoys and loves what she does; she doesn’t think of it as a job. Elvie feels passionate about each student when she teaches, knowing this is key to their new career/journey in life. She also has her real estate license which she enjoys very much with helping others find their dream home, or investment property.

When she’s not teaching or showing properties, Elvie is very involved with her ministry and family time. They enjoy outdoor actives, sports and family vacations. With all this she tries to carry an overall healthy balance between ministry, family, work, play and relaxation.

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Rhonda McCune

​After earning a BA degree in Business from CSUF, Rhonda worked for a mortgage banker and it was there she learned the art/science of appraisal. Over the years she appraised many income producing properties from shopping centers to office buildings.  
 
Licensing of appraisers began in the 1990's and subsequently she started teaching appraisal classes part-time for Real Estate Trainers.  She had a real estate license also and would occasionally teach the Principles class.  She has represented many buyers and sellers in real estate transactions, worked as a consultant for developers and takes this experience to the weekend Salesperson State Exam Prep course.
 
Rhonda enjoys spending quality time with her daughters and grandchildren.  She is a former city Councilwoman and Mayor and has served on many commissions and committees which, again, gives her insight to helping our students obtain their license and become real estate professionals.

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George Haines

Dr. Haines was born and raised on the East Coast, the oldest son of 8 children.  His degrees include BS from Penn State U, BD and ThM from Princeton, PhD from New York University, 2 post doctorates from UCLA and a JD doctor of juris prudence from Western State University College of Law.  He has been teaching 25 different courses in Real Estate Education for 48 years. 

As a real estate licensee Dr. Haines has been a real estate broker in both the residential and commercial fields.  In the residential side he has sold homes in Orange, LA, Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties as well as out of state in Nashville, Tennessee.

On the commercial side, Dr. Haines has sold an office building, a US Post Office, a ranch for custom housing development, land for residential development, land for development for a business park, a church and a number of multi housing complexes in Houston, Texas, gravel quarry in Maryland with a road construction business and a granite quarry in Pennsylvania.
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Dr. Haines has been a consultant to a hospital personnel supply corp, churches, ambulance company, construction contractors and businesses for sale of their receivables and he is involved in new ventures in the health field.

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Dwight Norris

Dwight had held a Broker’s License for 25 years and was also a Certified Residential Appraiser. He began teaching for Real Estate Trainers in 1993. Through the years he has taught just about everything the school has offered, from Appraisal Courses, to the Mortgage Loan Origination (MLO) crash course, to Broker Exam Prep, as well as Sales License Exam Prep, and back in the day, Real Estate Principles for part of the basic education requirements. Throughout the years, Dwight has helped literally thousands of students pass their various tests. Dwight is also a writer and has contributed to revisions of various books and courses as time has gone by. Dwight tutors people upon request, and has a grown son and daughter who live in Southern California

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Lance McHarg

​Lance joined the Real Estate Trainers family October, 1999, starting as a Counselor helping individuals determine which courses & what paths to take to become licensed and/or to keep their license. At that same time, Lance expressed an interest in teaching real estate courses. By 2000, Lance had taken his required courses to take not only the state exam for sales, but for broker licensing also. Shortly thereafter Lance became an instructor for Real Estate Trainers.
 
Lance is proficient in teaching pre-license education as well as salesperson & broker exam review. Lance brings an infectious style to his presentation that the majority of students enjoy. His style of storytelling and examples really helps the student to understand the concepts to be able to pass their exam.
 
In his off-time, Lance enjoys spending quality time with his daughters & grandchildren. He is also active in his church, and loves taking long rides on his motorcycle. Lance has done many motorcycle trips to the east coast, most of our national parks, Canada and Mexico.  

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