Georgia’s licensing law exists to protect the public from incompetent, dishonest licensees, establish minimum standards for the licensing of brokers and salespersons (including licensee education and qualifications), establish and uphold high standards within the profession, and ensure that the profession allows healthy and fair competition for its licensees.

This three-hour course covers these topics under Title 43, Chapter 40, of Georgia’s Statutes and Codes, and the rules and regulations of the Georgia Real Estate Commission, specifically under 520-1.

Course highlights include:

• License status as it relates to prohibited conduct
• Requirements when transferring a license from one firm to another
• Trust/escrow account management requirements
• Unfair trade practices and violations, including advertising
• Brokerage relationships and their agreements
• Management responsibilities of real estate firms
• Rules and regulations for advertising
• Proper handling of real estate transactions
• Licensees acting as principals
• Activities and scenarios to provide real-world context for course content

While conducting real estate business, have you encountered a situation in which you weren’t sure what the proper course of action was? What the right thing to do might be? Or maybe you’ve heard your colleagues’ stories and got that uncomfortable, itchy feeling that an action they took wasn’t quite on the up and up.

Let’s look at an uncomfortable truth: real estate agents have a small tarnished image problem. With every transaction being unique, real estate licensees often face ethical gray areas. Some real estate professionals simply don’t understand how to handle complex issues in the most ethical manner, and others bend the rules if they think it’ll keep a transaction on track or a commission in their bank account and not a competitor’s.

Aligned to the requirements of the current NAR cycle, this three-hour course helps licensees deepen their knowledge—and practice—of ethical rules of conduct according to the National Association of REALTORS® Code of Ethics & Standards of Practice. The code isn’t applicable to REALTORS® only, who are duty-bound to uphold the code as a privilege of membership. The code’s guidance serves anyone possessing a real estate license, and licensees who heed the code’s various articles and standards of practice can do the greatest good of all: protecting consumers while also bolstering the reputation of all the industry’s professionals.

Course highlights include:

• Laws vs. morals vs. ethics
• Top articles of the code involved in the most complaints (plus a few more)
• A candid look at the industry’s image problem
• Common ethical dilemmas and using the code to solve them
• Foundation and enforcement of the code
• Competency in real estate practice as a matter of ethics
• Steering clear of procuring cause disputes
• Ethics concerns with technology and social media
• Tips and best practices to keep your reputation polished to a high shine

*This course was designed by us to meet the REALTOR® Code of Ethics Training Requirement. Please confirm that your local association, who administers the Code of Ethics training, will accept this course.

In this course, you’ll learn about the history of housing discrimination and its lasting impact in order to better understand why fair housing laws are necessary. You’ll review the federal laws that provide protection against housing discrimination and what actions are prohibited and required by these laws in the business of real estate. This will include reviewing the personal characteristics—race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, and disability--that federal law protects from discrimination in housing. Besides these federal protections, there are state and local government fair housing laws that protect additional personal characteristics from discrimination in housing and you’ll find out where to get more fair housing information for your clients.

You’ll also learn some best practices for fair housing marketing and some strategies to avoid steering and making assumptions based on stereotypes. You’ll role play some scenarios to practice interrupting any implicit biases so that consumers are treated with equal concern, respect, and fairness. By allowing consumers to choose which communities/neighborhoods they want to live in, you can do your part to uphold fair housing laws and end housing discrimination.

This course was designed to meet the REALTOR® Fair Housing Training Requirement. Please confirm that your local association, who administers the Fair Housing training, will accept this course.

Proper document management provides proof that a licensee did what was required, when it was required. It serves to protect the consumer and it reduces the licensee's risk of litigation.

Get ready to become more comfortable with selecting and using transactional documents. 

Course highlights include:

• Common documents used in real estate transactions
• Common contract clauses, addenda, and contingencies
• Avoiding the unauthorized practice of law
• Multiple offer management
• Document signatures, notarizations, and identification
• Transaction management methods and best practices
• Document management and retention methods and best practices
• Technology and security for document management
• Legalities of electronic communication
• Activities and scenarios to reinforce key concepts

Financing is integral to real estate transactions, and the more you know about how buyers qualify, the better you'll be able to help both buyers and sellers in your practice. 

Course highlights include:

• Roles and regulations of FNMA, GNMA, FHLMC, FHA, and VA
• Affordability Worksheet, to assist clients in calculating their maximum affordable purchase price
• Homebuyer Do's and Don'ts 
• Calculating LTV, front-end and back-end ratios, and monthly mortgage payments
• Details and qualification requirements for several popular financing options

Whether you're representing a seller who's listing a high-efficiency home or working with a buyer to find one, it's important to be able to recognize a home's green features and the value they bring to the property. This means understanding the benefit of big-ticket green items such as solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal heating and cooling systems, solar water heaters, or even energy-efficient windows, as well as knowing the value in quick-and-easy updates like low-flow faucets, LED lighting, and smart thermostats. It also means knowing the difference between HERS and HES and SEER and LEED. Of course, greening up a home isn't cheap. Letting your clients know about available federal and state programs and incentives is another way you can ensure your clients are getting the best service around.

Course highlights include:

• An overview of the green home movement
• Green terminology, certifications, and ratings
• A review of energy-efficient upgrades, including solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal heating and cooling systems, solar water heaters, and more
• Tips for assisting green homebuyers and sellers
• A review of the FHA's Energy Efficient Mortgage and the 203(k) Rehabilitation Mortgage programs
• Qualifications for the DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program
• Interactive activities and scenarios to seal in the new information and frame it in everyday context

Attacks on real estate professionals have made headlines at an alarmingly more frequent rate in recent years. After an incident where a licensee is harmed, everyone vows to do better, and the topic of safety is pushed to the front of training schedules. Then complacency sets in.

Criminals count on complacency.

This course reviews studies and statistics of safety issues in the real estate industry, and best practices for personal safety.       

Course highlights include:

• Crime statistics and studies that challenge preconceived notions
• Risk factors and vulnerabilities that unique to real estate professionals
• Case studies to illustrate how criminals target their victims
• How to develop a personal warning system and trust your instincts when something feels “off”
• Activities and scenarios to provide real-world context for course content

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
• Using expired and active listings to inform pricing strategy
• 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

The inspection period is a big hurdle to jump over on the way to closing. The inspector’s job is to call out defects. The buyer agent’s job is to negotiate repairs. The seller agent’s job is to mitigate damage. It can sometimes be hard to hold a deal together.

Protecting your buyer as a buyer’s agent means understanding the importance of the home inspection contingency and its deadlines, 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.

Course highlights:

• The importance of the inspection contingency
• The licensee’s role in the inspection process
• Licensee and seller disclosure obligations
• Red flags related to common structural, plumbing, and electrical issues
• Specialized inspection types addressing radon, asbestos, sewer lines, septic tanks, mold, lead, and wells
• Interactive activities and scenarios

For many real estate professionals, property management is a natural extension of their expertise. Whether you’re thinking about taking on your first property or looking to grow your property management business, this is a niche business requiring specialized skills and knowledge.

Explore the role of the property manager, common tenant issues, and federal laws.

Course highlights include:

• Property management contracts
• Property types and evaluating factors
• Tips for building a successful working relationship with property owners
• Landlord and tenant obligations
• Tips for screening and retaining tenants
• Informal rental agreements and the risks involved
• How to deal with delinquent tenants
• Fair housing guidelines and exemptions

Note: This is an introduction and overview of property management.

The Fundamentals of Commercial Real Estate 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 other regards, commercial differs sharply from residential real estate. Executives, investors, and business owners in commercial real estate focus squarely on the bottom line.

This course will provide a foundation for the more complex aspects of commercial real estate as you gain more experience in the industry.

Course highlights include:

• Key terms and concepts of commercial real estate
• How to identify and meet the needs of commercial real estate clients
• How commercial and residential sales differ
• Valuation methods for real estate and businesses
• Tips on gathering the demographic and location-related details that clients need to make well-informed decisions