Cameron Academy Adds Five Greater Orlando Campuses | Now Has Largest Footprint in Florida

Dr. Phillips, Hunters Creek, Waterford Lakes, Downtown Kissimmee and Clermont join the network, each with a firm that asked for a campus.

ORLANDO, FL, UNITED STATES, September 21, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Cameron Academy of Real Estate, headquartered in Orlando since 2003, has opened five campuses across Greater Orlando as part of an expansion to 15 sites statewide.

The three rooms offering real estate classes in Orlando are at Dr. Phillips, Waterford Lakes and Hunters Creek, with Market Connect Realty, Red Door Title and The Firm RE. Downtown, RE/MAX Premier Properties has named the school its exclusive education provider for real estate classes in Kissimmee, and the academy also runs real estate classes in Clermont, with RE/MAX Heritage – A Bardell Real Estate Company.

“This is our home market and we took our time with it,” said Michael Cameron Sidawi, whose mother founded the school in Orlando in 2003. “We wanted rooms where a student walks out of class and onto a working brokerage floor.”

THE FIVE FIRMS

These are the firms that wanted a campus, and they are not short of options.

RE/MAX Premier Properties in Kissimmee is led by broker-owner Daisy Lopez-Cid, who served as national president of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals in 2018 and has been a member of its national board since 2013. She is a RE/MAX Hall of Fame member, ranked among the top 250 RE/MAX agents nationally four consecutive years, and was named Humanitarian of the Year by the Osceola County Association of REALTORS for her Hurricane Maria relief work.

The Firm RE was founded in 2019 by broker Amer Lababidi, who has been recognized among Orlando’s top 300 Realtors out of more than 30,000 in the market and named to a Top 35 Under 35 list.

Market Connect Realty is a boutique Dr. Phillips brokerage led by managing broker Ryan Barnett.

Red Door Title is a licensed Florida title agency with offices in Waterford Lakes, South Tampa, St. Cloud and Inverness.

RE/MAX Heritage – A Bardell Real Estate Company, founded in 1989, was the first real estate brokerage in the Four Corners area. Broker-owner Steve Silcock, who emigrated to Florida from Yorkshire, England in 2004 and holds an M.B.A. from Sheffield Business School, served as president of the East Polk County Association of REALTORS in 2021. The firm specializes in vacation and second homes near Disney and works extensively with overseas buyers.

“Four Corners is one of the most international housing markets in the country and it has never had a licensing classroom of its own,” Sidawi said. “Steve has been selling to buyers from three continents out of that office since before most of our competitors existed.”

THE HOME MARKET

The school has been family owned since 2003 and has put more than 100,000 students through 800-plus licensing and continuing education courses, offered in all fifty states through its partner network. It stayed open through 2008. Over the past decade, while most of the state’s independent schools were acquired by national education companies, Cameron Academy declined and expanded. The last of Central Florida’s other independents changed hands after that, which leaves this the oldest real estate school in the region still under independent ownership, and the oldest in Florida. Sidawi doesn’t treat it as a trophy. “That’s not something we won,” he said. “It’s what’s left after everybody else sold.”

The school’s history is a series of early bets it never publicized: computerized testing first in the state, the first mobile exam-prep app of its kind in the United States in 2013, and livestreamed classes years before anyone had to have them. That app is being rebuilt into something broader. No date yet.

Sidawi has been the school’s owner and director since January 2013 and has never stopped teaching. His two books are “Real Estate Agent Guide: Thriving in a Down Market” and “The Midlife Method: Life’s Too Short for Later”. Any Florida student between 15 and 17 can take the licensing coursework free.

WHY IT MATTERS

The department’s own annual report counts 357,638 active real estate licensees in Florida and 94,473 inactive, and the inactive number has climbed in every year it has been published. The May 2025 examination results ran with the pattern, 1,944 passes out of 5,012 sales associate exams graded.

THE METHOD THIS MARKET GREW UP ON

Central Florida has been the test kitchen for the way Cameron Academy teaches.

The school built a mnemonic method here decades ago, songs, rhythms, phrasing and stories, aimed at retention and application rather than recall, and it has since been absorbed into the industry’s leading course materials and adopted widely by instructors and education providers.

“We were doing this in Orlando when people thought it was a gimmick,” Sidawi said. “Now it’s in the books everybody teaches from.”

TWENTY-THREE YEARS IN ONE MARKET

None of the Greater Orlando rooms came from a pitch.

“This is our home market. People here have known us for twenty-three years and they’ve watched how we treat students,” Sidawi said. “You can’t shortcut that and you can’t buy it. You earn it slowly and then you get very busy all at once.”

WHO SITS IN THESE ROOMS FREE

Cameron Academy gives its licensing coursework to Florida 15-to-17-year-olds at no cost and holds free seats for adults rebuilding after domestic violence or incarceration.

“Orlando gave this school everything it has,” Sidawi said. “Handing seats back to people here who need a door isn’t charity. It’s paying attention.”

WHAT COMES BACK IN THIS TOWN

“People stop me constantly around here,” he said. “They tell me they bought a house, or got their family out of something. That’s the return on twenty-three years, and it doesn’t show up on any statement.”

ABOUT CAMERON ACADEMY OF REAL ESTATE

Cameron Academy of Real Estate runs the largest real estate campus network in Florida, is the oldest independently owned real estate school in the state, and has been family owned and operated since Linda Cameron founded the school in 2003. 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. 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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