Argus Enterprise (AE) Certification

I am currently taking the Argus Certification course using the e-learnings. Does anyone know how difficult the certification exam is?

Has anyone taken the exam?
I got through the material without much trouble but I would appreciate any insight/help I could get.

I really would prefer not spending the $149 for the 14 additional case study's considering the course already has cost over $1k, but would you happen to know if its absolutely necessary?

Finally, how close is the difficulty of the prep exam to the real thing?

Please share, and thank you!

 

I've only taken the DCF exam and it was actually pretty tough (because of time). You need to have a good understanding of real estate concepts and know your way around software pretty well....Hopefully someone can chime in on the AE exam.

 
Best Response

Plan on it being more difficult than it should be. I took the DCF class with my program and regularly finished early, with no errors, and in just a few days could crank out Argus like it was my job. The test had barely anything to do with that though and was more nitpicky questions about how Argus runs their calculations as well as general finance problems I had to whip out the HP12C for. Really stupid way to test, IMO.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

I would just go for the AE cert at this point. Not sure why my program put us through DCF instead.

As far the certification's value - I'm in multifamily right now so I don't use it at all, but it's still on my resume because employers certainly take notice.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

I took an Argus Enterprise class (as a part of my program) a little while ago. Our instructor (who is a pretty seasoned professional in real estate) said that the certification doesn't necessarily prepare you to use it well. Apparently his experience has been that AE-certified folk have often underperformed to his standards.

I am not fully sure whether having the certificate will be a determining factor between passing and not passing the initial HR filter that there may or may not be.

 
Debtlift:

I am not fully sure whether having the certificate will be a determining factor between passing and not passing the initial HR filter that there may or may not be.

Perhaps not HR, but I've been told by two executives that it gets your resume placed into one "pile" versus another.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

So I ended up taking the exam last week. I passed by a decent margin. The extra case studies are not necessary if you are comfortable enough by the end of the course. I now am trained on both DCF and AE however as Debtlift said, go for AE as the industry will be moving in that direction over the next two years (a few executives in the NYC CRE industry confirmed this).

 

Trying to revive this old thread. I am almost done with AE certification and wanted to know if there is any value add to getting Argus developer software certification as well? I am trying to break into the Capital Advisors/RE IB groups for FT, currently interning as a Summer (MBA) Intern at one of the top CRE firms (think CBRE, JLL, Cushman etc) in their facilities management side.

 

I took this exam about two years ago - you definitely have to know your way around AE, and I had used it mostly in an an academic setting at that point and thought it was relatively difficult (but still passed). Honestly, you can learn most of it on the job, but I do think that it makes a pretty big difference on your resume when applying for analyst/associate jobs - employers just like to see that "stamp" of approval from ARGUS.

 

I took it about a 1.5 yrs ago. It not difficult but you have to be pretty familiar with it. All in I spent about 50 hours in it in an academic setting running through cases from the training manual and tracing my errors. No you cant google everything for the test and it helps to have all resources available and in front of you for the multiple choice

 

I study materials are awful and do not prepare you for the actual certification exam. The actual test is 90 questions, the prep exam is 45 questions. Many questions you review in the learning modules are different than what is in the actual test. I am asking for a refund or a better set of study materials from the Argus.

 

What does cost look like? I got it during my undergrad studies and def was a nice talking point when meeting with people and interviews. It just shows a sense of understanding, even if you arent a master at it.

 

I don't think there are many jobs out there that will require argus but won't also require 1-3 years of work experience. The reality is argus is just software and can be learned to relative competency in a few days, but actual experience is much more rare/valuable. I think it would be rare for you to land a job that wouldn't train you on argus but would hire you with zero RE experience and an unrelated degree.

I understand the goal of differentiating yourself and proving your intent to persue real estate, but I think something more hollistic would be better serving than a very specific and expensive software cert.

That said, for $300 or even $500 I would bite the bullet.

 

Thanks for the reply. I have experience multiple internships in real estate, so it's not a total crapshoot. The unrelated degree is what I think is really holding me back. I reached out to Argus directly and they said that students can get the certification for $570. Makes the decision a little in their favor.

 

Is this for an intership?

For internships its going to be all about personality and fit. My company interviews ivy league kids for internships all the time and they all are either way too nervous or act like they know everything because they go to Wharton. Certs won't hurt but you are far from being a skilled Argus user with a cert. It takes time and reps to get good at it. Same with excel modeling.

 

In my experience, for full time jobs, employers (developers) are generally impressed with you getting it and then make some comment to the effect of "but you won't really use that here."

I'll second the sentiment that internship interviews are almost entirely fit though.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Somewhat relieved that it's generally a fit thing, although I tend to get nervous before interviews.

I come from down in the valley, where mister when you're young, they bring you up to do like your daddy done
 

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