Each new year brings a fresh opportunity to understand how the Vermont real estate landscape is evolving and how you can adapt to these changes in your practice. This course covers the latest updates in Vermont’s real estate regulations, offering insights into adjustments you need to make to stay compliant and effective. In addition, it explores best practices for reviewing and implementing remaining legislative changes, ensuring that you remain up-to-date with the laws that still require attention. You'll gain a solid understanding of how to integrate these changes into your daily work while protecting your clients and your business.

Course highlights include:

• Significant laws passed in the most recent legislative sessions
• Vermont case studies of interest
• Recent Vermont Supreme Court decisions
• Act 250 – Updates on housing development, Road Rule, and Farm Business
• Act 181 – Transfer Tax and Rates updates
• Act 181 – Short-Term Rentals Disclosure and updates
• Flood hazard and lead paint disclosures
• Vermont Zoning Act updates
• Amendments to Aboveground Storage Tank rules
• Education Tax prebates and rebates
• Review of age-restricted housing in Vermont
• Real Estate Withholding Tax review
• Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm Certifications
• Designated vs. Non-Designated Agency
• Service agreements and contract terminations
• Commercial practices and environmental site assessments
• Sign Law and Signage Regulations
• Filing Complaints

Green homes aren’t just the latest trend anymore. Thanks to sky-high energy bills, most homeowners are looking for ways to cut costs by making their homes more energy efficient. This means that understanding the popularity of green homes, being able to detangle the terminology and certifications, and identifying how the improvements impact value is a must for any licensee.

This two-hour course explores the key features found in green homes, as well as an assortment of eco-friendly remodeling strategies to green up a listing. Green features can help a listing stand out from others on the market, so this course prepares licensees to provide their clients with practical suggestions that will help them make their homes more appealing to the environmentally minded without blowing their budgets.

Course highlights include:

• Green and sustainability terms and concepts
• Vermont energy goals
• Green energy ratings, labels, and certifications
• Green home features
• Sellers and green homes
• Buyers and green homes
• Quick and inexpensive green changes
• The Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum
• Green financing and incentives

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

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

If a buyer who's not paying cash can't obtain financing, the transaction will fail. To provide the best service to consumers,it helps to have a clear understanding of the financing process, from loan application through funding. This course provides you with the must-know financing facts to enable you to better serve your  clients who require financing.

Course highlights:

• Key players in financing
• The loan application package and process  
• Consumer options for loan packages and types
• The government’s role in real estate financing
• Loan terminology
• Activities and scenarios to reinforce key concepts

The internet is full of promotional opportunities. Whether it’s a post on Facebook or a tweet linking to your new listing, a status update on LinkedIn, a virtual home tour on YouTube, or photo collage on Pinterest, you can easily promote your professionalism, highlight your expertise, increase your connections, and showcase your listings. Or you can fall flat on your face.

This course shows how to use the unique advertising and marketing opportunities available online to better serve your clients and customers, and further promote your own brand.

Course highlights include:

• How consumers—and agents and agencies—are using social media and how this is impacting the real estate industry
• How to use various social media platforms—including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest—to promote your business and better serve your clients and customers
• How various social media platforms differ and how to select the ones that are best for you and your needs
• Tips for creating an online marketing strategy
• Legal and ethical issues surrounding online marketing
• Copyright law, trademarks, and public domain content
• Tips for avoiding common social media missteps.
• Activities and scenarios to provide real-world context for course content