Alana Gates’ passion lies in providing the tools needed to succeed in the multifaceted field of real estate.
With years of experience working in real estate from multiple sides, Gates said, she discovered her passion as an educator after witnessing the struggles of other industry professionals who had not received the proper training.
“You get your license, and you’re literally thrown to the wolves,” Gates said. “It’s like sink or swim, and so many people sink.”
Now, as a full-time professor and chair of the Real Estate program at Santiago Canyon College, Gates is being recognized for her many contributions to the field.
She is the recipient of the Advancing Real Estate Education Award for 2024.
Given by the California Community Colleges Real Estate Education Center, the award “recognizes faculty who have made exceptional contributions to advancing real estate and appraisal education.”
Funded by a grant from the California Community College Real Estate Education Endowment, the center provides resources for educators and students seeking vocational real estate and appraisal education.
Of the 116 community colleges in California, 68 offer real estate courses.
Receiving the award is an honor, said Gates, who has served as both department chair and professor for five years.
“And, then, when I had grown the program enough to warrant a full-time faculty member to be hired, I was fortunate enough that I was the one who was chosen to be the full-time faculty,” Gates said. “So, I was very proud to be hired on full time.”
Gates has played a key role in developing new and specialized courses in the real estate curriculum on legal compliance, transaction coordination, tenant/landlord rights and responsibilities, and buyers and sellers seminars.
She has also streamlined the process of enrolling in courses.
“Alana is so collaborative across the state,” said Emily Maynard, director of the real estate education center. “I think that’s something that made her stand out in this year’s pool. When she creates something, she’s willing to share it with other faculty as well, so that adds to the development of real estate education. She’s in so many of our collaborative efforts, not only on the real estate side, but also on the appraisal side.”
Recognizing the diverse student demographics at SCC, Gates is working with instructor Barbar Cox in spearheading initiatives to support Hispanic students, including the development of an English/Spanish dictionary and offering select courses in Spanish.
“Alana is very open and receptive to any ideas that are going to help her students learn and help them in their endeavors,” Cox said. “She just never shies away from a challenge, whether it’s to develop a new program or a new course.”
A native of Australia, Gates immigrated to California with her husband and two sons in 1999 when her husband was hired by Panasonic Avionics after developing the first in-flight on-demand entertainment system, she said.
“He always wanted to come to America, so we did,” she said. “We upended our kids and said we’re moving to America.”
After navigating through the challenges of finding a place in a new country for her family to live, Gates started guiding some of her husband’s colleagues, who had also relocated from other countries, through the process.
“And, because I was doing that, (my husband) said, ‘You’re really good at this, but you’re throwing money away. You need to go and get your license to be a real estate agent,’ ” she said.
Gates followed her husband’s suggestion, acquiring a real estate sales license and starting to sell homes.
But when health issues made it difficult to be out in the field selling, Gates’ broker suggested she work in the office as compliance manager.
“The other thing that kind of motivated me was being in a compliance role where I was checking files and auditing files. I was seeing from a transaction coordinator’s point of view and an auditing point of view the amount of people out there that didn’t know what they were doing, had been thrown to the wolves and were trying to find their feet.”
She discovered a love of the legal side of the business and “got a bee in my bonnet and said I want to get a degree.”
Gates attended Irvine Valley College, where her counselor suggested she should pursue teaching.
Why not? she thought, and so it was off to college, where Gates earned an associate degree in real estate and then a business administration degree from Cal State Fullerton.
By 2016, she was teaching at a community college.
“And so, I thought, OK, and I was hyper-focused on that and just ran with it, and I love it,” she said.
Gates developed curricula with classes focusing on all aspects of real estate.
“People don’t know about all the wonderful crossover,” she said. “We have photography, drones. We have attorneys, people who love to decorate. We had the staging and design company.”
Gates does outreach on and off campus.
In an event planned for October, 40 industry professionals will be set up on campus from whom students will be able to gather information.
“We did one in April,” she said. “We did one in October last year. It just amazes students.”
