continuing education (ce)

Must a property manager accept a tenant's emotional support animal, and under what conditions? What proof can a property manager or landlord require of a tenant who claims a need for an emotional support animal? What about homeowners associations—must accommodation be made in these communities?

This course explores the issues and options for landlords and property managers surrounding assistance animals, helping real estate professionals who represent them to ensure that individuals with disabilities have equal access to housing in compliance with the law.

Course highlights include:

• The evolving fair housing law
• How the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act intersect--and don't
• Types of assistance animals
• How to handle reasonable requests for accommodation
• Case studies and legal trends 
• Examples and scenarios to help apply course content to real life

A veteran broker once said, "No one ever failed in this business because of the paperwork." It's true: Real estate is a relationship-based business. However, to protect consumers and yourself, knowing how to manage the paperwork--whether it's cotton bond and ink or bits and bytes--is integral to your role. Maintaining detailed and organized records, even for transactions that don't close, not only satisfies regulatory requirements, it also protects your license. It proves you did what you were supposed to do when you were supposed to do it.  

We can't do anything about paper cuts, but if you're ready to become more comfortable selecting and using documents to ensure on-time, accurate, and litigation-free real estate transactions, let's do this.

Course highlights include:

• Typical transaction documents
• Standard clauses, addenda, and contingencies
• How to practice within the scope of your license (but avoid unauthorized practice of law)
• How to field and manage multiple offers
• Managing signatures, notarizations, and identification
• Best practices in transaction management 
• Best practices in document retention
• Keeping documents secure, both hard copy and digital
• Wire fraud prevention

There’s a reason real estate agents often rank among the least trusted professionals in the U.S. But what can you do to improve the public’s perception? And what should you do when you run into an ethical dilemma or into a licensee who’s not behaving ethically? As a real estate professional, you can help raise the bar and improve the reputation of the industry. You can lead by example.

Revised in January 2022 and designed to meet NAR Cycle 7 requirements, this course will empower you to recognize and respond to ethical dilemmas, inspiring consumer confidence. For answers, we’ll look to several articles of the National Association of REALTORS® Code of Ethics, and draw from real-life ethical scenarios. In four short hours, you’ll be better prepared to exemplify the professionalism and cooperation that’s the true foundation of the real estate industry.

Course highlights include:

• Meets both regular ethics renewal requirements and new licensee ethics course requirements
• The importance of ethical behavior in NAR members and non-members alike, fostering a spirit of cooperation
• History and evolution of the Code, the preamble, and the Code’s influence on state licensing laws
• Structure of the Code
• Review and application of articles 1, 2, 3, 9, 12, 15, and 16 of the NAR Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice
• Case studies of real-life ethical challenges
• Mediation and arbitration, with arbitration as the monetary dispute resolution process between REALTORS®
• Application of Article 17 of the NAR Code of Ethics to the complaints and hearing process
• Grievance committee vs. professional standards committee
• The ethical dilemmas presented by newer technologies
• Best practices for demonstrating ethical behavior every day

*This course was designed by us to meet the REALTOR® Code of Ethics Training Requirement. 

When things go wrong in a real estate transaction, consumers often look to the licensee as the cause. To protect yourself, and to protect your clients, it’s important to understand the areas in which risk occurs and how to employ effective risk management strategies. That's what you'll find in this course.

Course highlights:

• Risk management concepts and key terms
• Common high-risk areas
• How to minimize risk with trust fund handling, contract preparation, and multiple offer situations
• Online risk management strategies
• Risk exposure related to fair housing, advertising, and agency duties
• Checklists for creating a detailed data security and privacy plan for your business
• How errors and omissions insurance can protect you from certain liabilities, and activities it does not protect
• Activities and scenarios to reinforce key concepts

North Carolina Commercial Real Estate Fundamentals provides a solid foundation for your understanding of commercial real estate. The course covers the need-to-know information on a broad range of commercial topics.

If you're an experienced residential licensee, a few of the fundamentals of commercial real estate will be familiar to you—the importance of location, for example. In many other regards, commercial differs sharply from residential real estate. You'll be working with executives, investors, and business owners in commercial real estate, individuals whose focus is squarely on the bottom line. 

Equipped with the information and advice found in this course, you'll be well-prepared to grasp the more complex aspects of commercial real estate as you gain more experience in the industry.

Course highlights include:

• Definitions of key terms and concepts that apply to commercial real estate.
• A detailed explanation of how to identify and meet the various needs of commercial real estate clients.
• An analysis of the main differences between commercial and residential real estate sales.
• A review of North Carolina commercial leases and provisions.
• An overview of the most common valuation methods for real estate and businesses.
• Tips on gathering the market-specific details that clients need to make well-informed decisions.

 The inspection period is a big hurdle to jump over on the way to closing. Protecting your buyer as a buyer's agent means understanding the importance of a home inspection and identifying the need for specialized inspections. Protecting your seller as the listing agent means helping the seller understand disclosure obligations, prepare for the inspection, and respond to a buyer's reasonable repair requests. 

Whether for a buyer or seller, the comparative market analysis, properly done, can mean several thousands extra dollars in their pockets, and can determine whether a deal can be struck at all. But because it’s such a well-worn tool, it’s tempting for a licensee to get complacent with the CMA, and “phone it in.”

Don’t be that licensee!

This course covers the how-tos of a professionally researched  comparative market analysis.          

Course Highlights:

• The three-step approach to market analyses: the market, the property, the numbers
• Sources for subject property data and market data
• How to prioritize criteria when selecting comparables
• How to adjust and homogenize selected comparables 
• How to weight selected comparables when selecting a list price range
• How to use expired and active listings to inform pricing strategy
• Market readiness strategies for the seller and the property
• Listing strategies
• Negotiating strategies for any market (creating win-win transactions)

Technology is a tool. Used wisely, it can free up time usually spent on mundane tasks to allow licensees to work at a higher (and higher touch) level of client service. Used poorly, it can waste a lot of time better spent elsewhere and worse—alienate clients, and even put them and the licensee’s reputation—at risk.

Clients and prospective clients want their real estate professional to be accessible and tech-savvy on their behalf.  According to a National Association of REALTORS® real estate report, staying up to date on new platforms and systems will remain one of the biggest challenges for brokerages in the coming years. The industry is constantly changing, and technology is a big driver of that change.  

This course helps real estate professionals work with technology and reinforces putting client relationships first in the push to provide cutting edge tools and services.

Course highlights include:

• Technology tools to enhance service to sellers, including drones, live streaming, single-property sites, and speaking photos; ways to minimize risks involved in their use
• How to use technology to secure buyer representation agreements, assist buyers with financing qualifications, and pre-showing data to help them make informed purchasing and financing decisions  
• Technological advances in transaction management, including document sharing, electronic signatures, cloud storage, and photo, document, and email organization software, and identify risk management safeguards for online data storage and transaction management
• How to keep online data secure
• Technology tools you can use now to provide enhanced client service, and emerging trends to watch for