West Babylon, NY Agents have been packing the Long Island Board of Realtors (LIBOR) and the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors (HGAR) classrooms to take a new three-day program, to become recognized as being Commercial and Investment Real Estate Certified (CIREC) agents. LIBORS first class in October was sold out; they ran another class in November which was also packed to capacity; now another program is scheduled for April 2016. HGAR had the same sold out experience and has scheduled another program in its Goshen office in May 2016. The agents taking this program demonstrate a strong desire to become even more professional by learning the foundations needed to provide commercial and investment real estate brokerage services. These (over 200) agents are unique, as they are the first groups to have earned CIREC. This CIREC program was developed and instructed by Edward Smith Jr., CREI, ITI, CIC, GREEN, MICP, and CNE. Smith is the author of more than a dozen real estate continuing education courses, six books on commercial and investment real estate and over 150 published articles. He has taught 1,000’s of agents to do commercial brokerage. In this program agents expanded their skills learning about: financial analysis, advanced investment analysis, internal rate of return functions, taxation, lease structures and clauses, green concepts and much more. Their abilities to work better with their clients and customers were enhanced with seminars on: fair housing as applied to commercial properties, inadvertent discrimination, commercial marketing resources, generational marketing, tenant and buyer representation, requests for proposal, negotiation skills and other topics. These agents also demonstrated a commitment to ethical conduct by complying with the National Association of Realtors Code of Ethics requirement; to receive proper training before providing specialized real estate services, such as commercial and investment brokerage. Tags: