The Maine Real Estate Commission's new core course is effective April 1, 2025. The focus of this year's core course is reasonable care and diligence. It emphasizes the importance of operating with heightened awareness and adherence to professional standards, guiding handling various situations with competence and care.

This three-hour course helps licensees master these concepts allowing them to gain the skills to meet their clients' needs, efficiently manage risks, and raise the bar in their professional practice.

The course meets Maine's mandatory requirement for the Reasonable Care and Diligence Core course.

Course highlights include:

• Distinguishing reasonable care for customers and clients
• Identifying the red flags of title fraud
• Verifying property information through research
• Scenarios to avoid diligence errors and violations
• Protecting personal safety of licensees
• Avoiding misrepresentation of all types
• Risks and responsibilities in property disclosures
• Flood risk and other specialized disclosures
• Understanding real estate documents

With more than 20 million veterans living in the U.S. today, real estate professionals can provide a valuable service to a strong client base by walking in their eligibility shoes.

If the answer to “Did You Serve?” is yes, this can open the doors of homeownership for Veterans and service members who may not qualify to purchase a home through conventional financing.

Course highlights include:

• A glimpse into the military lifestyle, what it means to serve, and how best to communicate with those who served
• Tools and techniques for informing veterans on the benefits available to them
• VA home loan program benefits, qualifications, and process
• Strategies for identifying appropriate home options for Veterans  
• Myths and misconceptions about VA loans
• Activities and scenarios to reinforce key concepts

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

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.