November is Designation Awareness Month!
The National Association of REALTORS® has designated November as "Designation Awareness Month." I would like to take some time to explain the designations I have earned and also one that I am currently working on.
An ABR is an Accreddited Buyers Representative. Extensive coursework is required and a minimum number of transactions are required in which the agent has represented the buyer. Once the designation is achieved, the agent will have learned many skills such as: negotiating the best deal for the buyer, legal aspects of buyer represntation issues, commission structure, exclusive buyers agreements and many others. INcluded with the desigantion is membership in the Real Estate Buyers Agent Council (REBAC.) This gives the agent access to many tools provided to assist in buyer representation. You can see my profile on REBAC.net at: www.REBAC.net/AlBrucker. Each state has different agency laws governing real estate transactions, however; most states do allow for buyer represebtation. Many buyers choose to represent themselves in a real estate transaction. If you were a defandabt in a court case, would you allow the prosecuting attornet to defend you at the same time? That is clearly a conflict of interest and it makes no sense to let the sellers agent represent you as well.
The e-PRO Designation is NAR's Online Technology Certification program. It consists of 4 modules with an exam after each and a final exam at the end of the course. Skills taught include: proper email ettiquette, email marketing, useful technology tools, website usage and marketing and other technology related marketing skills. The e-PRO course has recently been updated with the all new Web 2.0 & Social Media Course. This facet of the course expands on the original course by teaching Web 2.0 skills. Web 2.0 references Social Media (Facebook, LinkIn, Twitter and others.) I have recently updated my e-PRO designation with the Web 2.0 Social Media course. You cab see my profile on the e-PRO site at: http://www.epronar.com/RosterProfile.aspx?RID=31804
The SFR Certification is new and geared towrd keeping up with current trends in today's market. SFR stands for Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource Certification. Many sales today are Short Sales. What is a short sale? A short sale is when for one reason or another, the market value of the home is less than the amount of the mortgage(s) on the home. In order for a short sale to work, the lender must agree to accept the proceeds of the sale and release the lien(s) on the property. It is a very complex process and many lenders are just overwhelmed with this process. It can sometime take 2-4 months or longer to receive an answer on an offer submitted on a short sale. There are many complexities with short sales and each one is different. In some cases it jusy may not work - in others it is a viable solution instead of allowing the property to go into foreclosure. In the coming months and years we will see many more short sale transactions and only a professional trained in the intrcicies of these types of transactions will be able to actually close them. Throughout the month of November I will be taking the necessary coursework to earn my SFR Certification. I hope to have all the work complet by November 18th and actually have earned the certification by the end of November.
These are only several of the many designations the NAR offers. As a buyer or seller of real estate, why would you not want the most qualified professional available to represent you in the transaction?