Cameron Academy Plants Campuses in Kendall and Key Largo, Anchoring a 380-Mile Network

RE/MAX Advance Realty II and RE/MAX All Keys Real Estate named Cameron Academy their exclusive education provider at the south end of a 380-mile network.

MIAMI, FL, UNITED STATES, September 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Cameron Academy of Real Estate has opened campuses in Kendall and Key Largo, anchoring the southern end of a statewide network that now runs 15 locations as far north as Palm Coast.

RE/MAX Advance Realty II has named Cameron Academy its exclusive education provider for real estate classes in Kendall, on SW 88th Street in Miami-Dade County. RE/MAX All Keys did the same for real estate classes in Key Largo, the academy’s southernmost campus. Start dates for both rooms are listed on the Florida real estate class schedule.

“Key Largo to Palm Coast is about three hundred and eighty miles,” said Michael Cameron Sidawi, who has been with the school for all twenty-three of its years. “You don’t get to call yourself a statewide school until both ends of that line have a classroom in them.”

FAST FACTS

• RE/MAX Advance Realty II recorded $521.7 million in sales volume across 794 transaction sides in 2025 (RealTrends).

• Monroe County has one active real estate licensee for every 49 residents, the third-highest concentration of Florida’s 67 counties (DBPR licensee records and U.S. Census Bureau 2025 estimates, September 2026).

• Cameron Academy’s 15 campuses run roughly 380 miles, from Key Largo to Palm Coast.

• Florida’s May 2026 exam results: 4,225 sales associate exams graded, 1,671 passed (DBPR/Pearson VUE monthly exam summary).

THE TWO FIRMS

Two of the strongest operators in South Florida and the Keys wanted a campus. Neither had to.

RE/MAX Advance Realty II is led by owner and chief executive officer Melanie De Armas, who acquired the brokerage in 2024, becoming one of the youngest Hispanic women to own a RE/MAX franchise of its scale, and by broker Anthony Askowitz, who has closed more than $2 billion in career sales and has written a monthly column for Inman since 2016. The brokerage recorded $521.7 million in sales volume across 794 transaction sides in 2025.

RE/MAX All Keys Real Estate in Key Largo is owned by Melanie De Armas and led by broker Curtis A. Skomp, CCIM, who has brokered more than a billion dollars of commercial and residential real estate in the Florida Keys across three decades and has been recognized as the top RE/MAX commercial agent in the Keys. He earned his CCIM designation in 1997 and has been a National Association of Realtors member since 1992. The two brokerages operate together as a group spanning Miami to the Keys.

“A student in Kendall is learning from a company somebody built and bought,” Sidawi said. “A student in Key Largo is learning the Keys from someone who’s closed a billion dollars of it. That’s the whole reason to teach this way.”

THE SCHOOL BEHIND THE CAMPUSES

Behind the network is a school that has never left the family since 2003 and has taught more than 100,000 students across 800-plus licensing and continuing education courses offered in all fifty states through its partner network. It kept its doors open through 2008, and as most of Florida’s independent real estate schools were bought over the past decade, it added campuses instead of selling.

The school moved testing onto computers before any other in Florida, released the first mobile exam-prep app for real estate students in the United States in 2013, and was first in the state to livestream. The app is being rebuilt into a broader student platform, due by the end of Q4 2026.

Sidawi has been the school’s owner and director since January 2013 and still teaches. He is the author of “Real Estate Agent Guide: Thriving in a Down Market” and “The Midlife Method: Life’s Too Short for Later”, and the school gives its licensing coursework to Florida students aged 15 to 17 for free.

Florida’s published figures show 357,638 active real estate licensees against 94,473 inactive, and the inactive column has grown three years running. The exam thins the field before that: of 4,225 sales associate examinations graded in May 2026, 1,671 passed.

THE SAME METHOD AT BOTH ENDS

What connects a room in Kendall to a room in Key Largo isn’t the furniture.

Cameron Academy teaches with songs, rhythms, repeated phrasing and stories, a method it developed itself for retention and application rather than short-term recall. Enough of it has been folded into the industry’s leading course materials that instructors and providers across the field now rely on it. The school’s educators also produced the first Spanish-language version of the Florida real estate pre-license course, which matters at the Miami end of that line.

“A student in Key Largo and a student in Kendall get the identical thing,” Sidawi said. “That’s harder than it sounds and it’s most of what we do.”

WHAT STRETCHED THE MAP

Sidawi says the 380 miles weren’t drawn in a boardroom.

“Every one of these rooms started with somebody calling us,” he said. “You don’t get called unless the people who sat in your classrooms went out and spoke well of you. That’s the only growth engine this school has ever had.”

THE FREE SEATS AT BOTH ENDS

From Kendall to Key Largo the school holds no-cost seats for people restarting their working lives, including survivors of domestic violence and people rebuilding after incarceration, and teaches Florida 15-to-17-year-olds free.

“Same offer in every room on that line,” Sidawi said. “It doesn’t shrink because the town does.”

WHAT IS ACTUALLY AT BOTH ENDS

“Three hundred and eighty miles sounds like a map,” he said. “It’s really a student in Key Largo and a student in Kendall learning the same law, the same way. That’s what a statewide school is supposed to mean.”

ABOUT CAMERON ACADEMY OF REAL ESTATE

Cameron Academy of Real Estate runs the largest real estate campus network in Florida, is the oldest real estate school in Central Florida still under independent ownership, and has been family owned and operated since Linda Cameron founded the school in 2003. Its mission: “Teach it so it stays. Treat every student like the point. Keep a seat open for anyone starting over.” It has been licensed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation as a real estate school under permit ZH1002075 since June 9 of that year, stayed open through the 2008 housing crisis, and employs 35 people today. That permit is one of the 40 oldest of Florida’s 558 active real estate school permits. Her son, Michael Cameron Sidawi, helped run the school from the start and became its owner and director in January 2013. He holds its state permit, is a licensed Florida real estate broker (BK3198873) with an active Florida real estate instructor license (ZH1002785), and still teaches his own classes. Linda Cameron remains with the school as its instructor coordinator. Cameron Academy has taught more than 100,000 students across a catalog of 800-plus licensing and continuing education courses, offered in all fifty states through its partner network, and holds a 5-star average across more than 3,000 reviews on various platforms, such as Google, Yelp, and others; more than 150 student testimonials have been filmed in its classrooms and published. It was among the first schools in the country to put real estate testing on computers, shipped the first mobile exam-prep app for real estate students in the United States, and ran livestreamed classes in Florida years before remote learning became standard. Its educators built the school’s mnemonic teaching method of song, rhythm, phrasing and story, since adopted into the industry’s leading course materials, and created the first Spanish-language version of the Florida real estate pre-license course; Linda Cameron is credited as an editor of earlier editions of Dearborn’s “Florida Real Estate Principles, Practices and Law.” It teaches from 15 Florida campuses spanning roughly 380 miles from Key Largo to Palm Coast, with brokerages, real estate law firms and title agencies that have named it their exclusive education provider, and hired 18 instructors statewide this year. The school provides its coursework free of charge to Florida students aged 15 to 17, and runs no-cost seats for people re-entering the workforce, including survivors of domestic violence and people rebuilding after incarceration. Cameron Academy is a registered trademark of Cameron Academy LLC, USPTO Reg. 5610857, in continuous use since June 9, 2003. The school turned down an acquisition approach from a national education company and is not for sale. It’s growing through exclusive education partnerships and welcomes conversations with brokerages, title agencies and law firms in new markets, in Florida and beyond. Main office: 7009 Dr. Phillips Blvd., Suite 110A, Orlando, FL 32819. Telephone (407) 251-0051. Web: cameronacademy.com

Michael Cameron Sidawi
Cameron Academy of Real Estate
407 251 0051
info@cameronacademy.com
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