NEW COURSE: 8 Creative Strategies for a Slow Market:
Helping Consumers Achieve Their Buying/Selling Goals |
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NC Elective Course 2925 |
| By the end of the program, students will be able to apply creative strategies to help consumers in a slow or slowing market, such as: |
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Seller/owner financing |
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Discounting mortgages |
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Using the time value of money
Seller-paid buyer incentives |
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Buyer financing techniques
Seller pricing techniques |
| This class involves math techniques. Students must bring pencils and calculators |
| E Commerce and Internet Issues |
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| This is a course for computer-literate real estate professionals. Participants will learn how to: |
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Search for a real estate subject using a search engine and techniques to widen or narrow a search. The advanced functionalities of Google will be demonstrated. |
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Develop due diligence in a buyer by identifying significant real estate resources for consumers on the Internet. |
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Avoid "virtual violations" of license law, such as copyright infringement, use of links, failure to identify brokerage firm on advertising/disclosure; unlicensed activity, and spamming. |
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Become familiar with critical federal legislation governing electronic commerce/ transactions. |
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Define terms such as Boolean operators, virtual violations, electronic, digitized, and digital signatures, spamming, and copyright infringement. |
| International Real Estate: A Primer |
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| NC Elective Course 2887 |
| This four-hour course covers the following topics: |
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Factors influencing international buyers to invest in U.S. real estate and those which influence Americans to buy overseas. |
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Behaviors to overcome communication barriers when dealing with international clients. |
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U.S. restrictions on foreign investment as well as restrictions on U.S. citizens buying overseas. |
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U.S. laws which affect international real estate purchasers and discuss their impact. |
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Issues regarding culture, documentation, and financing which affect foreign borrowers and Americans buying overseas. |
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Resources for developing an international real estate brokerage business. |
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Inappropriate business behavior from the perspective of an international clientele. |
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| Healthy, Accessible and Affordable Homes
(aka Home and Community Design Issues for Real Estate Professionals) |
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| This course was written to respond to four critical areas of community and housing design: universal design issues; affordable housing; transit-oriented design; and healthy homes. |
| Each one of these design issues focuses on consumers who have special needs: e.g., universal design affects people with disabilities and seniors; affordable housing design affects working Americans who cannot participate in the American Dream because they do not earn enough income; transit-oriented design responds to those affected by increasing energy costs; and healthy home design involves homeowners who have environmental sensitivities or who wish to build homes with healthier materials. This continuing education program hopes to accomplish two major goals: |
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one, to familiarize real estate licensees with critical issues in universal design issues; affordable housing; transit-oriented design; and healthy homes, and |
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two, to familiarize real estate licensees with resources about universal design, affordable housing, transit-oriented design; and healthy homes. |
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| Mold, Moisture and Mildew–Oh My! |
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| Did you know the Irish fled to America because of the potato famine? It was caused by mold! Several of the plagues that Moses "visited" on the Pharaoh involved mold, including the Nile River red. Mold-induced poisoning probably caused the strange behavior of the girls involved in the Salem witch trials. The curse of the tomb raiders? You guessed it--mold. |
| Mold is a natural part of the environment, but the dramatic increase in recent lawsuits and insurance claims have made mold an occupational hazard for real estate agents. This three or four-hour course on the latest environmental and health issue facing real estate professionals will help agents: |
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Define and describe mold. |
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Describe litigation and insurance issues. |
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Identify those conditions which contribute to the growth of mold. |
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Describe prevention and remediation methods. |
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Identify the potential health hazards associated with exposure to mold. |
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Identify the real estate licensee’s obligations re: mold issues. |
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| Money Talks: Compensation Issues |
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| NC Elective Course 2804 |
| The subject of commissions and other fees generates a lot of confusion. Real estate licensees face increasingly more difficult questions from consumers requiring them to defend their fees and to contrast them with other firms who advertise their commissions in the marketplace. “Minimum services companies” and virtual office websites (VOWs) have entered the market in increasing numbers, and they typically charge non-traditional professional fees, such as hourly compensation or menu-driven fees. Inappropriate answers by licensees regarding fees could lead to price-fixing and antitrust violations. |
Licensees are also confused about paying and receiving referral fees and rebates. Whether the payment or receipt of fees is lawful depends on a myriad of state and federal laws and rules as well as ethics. Some states permit referral fees to non-licensees; most states do not. Some states have attempted to regulate minimum services companies but have incurred the wrath of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission for doing so.
By the end of this four-hour program, participants will be able to describe and comply with federal and state laws & rules regarding: |
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Vendors’ kickbacks or rebates |
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Minimum/discount brokers |
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Referral fees |
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Competitor’s fees |
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North Carolina Broker-In-Charge Annual Review Course for 2008-09
(BICAR) |
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| This course expires June 10, 2009. |
| Virtually all brokers-in-charge (BIC) who wish to maintain their BIC status must take this course (plus the Mandatory Update--see above) every year. This is a new licensing requirement as of July 1, 2006. This year's course content is unknown at this time |
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