VanEd Newslog

Have a Happy and Safe Independence Day Holiday! Day Holiday!

To honor America and to allow our staff and instructors time to be with their families, Van Education Center offices will be closed on July 4th, 2014 in honor of Independence Day. We wish you and yours a happy and safe long holiday. We continue our ongoing support of our Veteran's by offering a 10% discount on our online products to those who have served our country. We Thank You for your service.

Our offices will re-open on July 7th for regular business hours to serve our members. Students may continue to work on their online courses during this time, and questions may be posted online in the Q&A's. We will respond as quickly as possible. You can also follow us on Twitter and our team will be able to respond there as well. Just click the handy blue button.

Want to learn more cool stuff about Independence Day? Check out the USA.Gov page on Independence day where you will find a link to the U.S. Census Bureau's Fourth of July Fun Fact Information Sheet where you will find that Eleven places have "Independence" in their names (which we agree is...well...a fun fact!) >>> Click Here

 

How do I get a Hefty Discount on my next course?

If you are looking for a hefty discount on an online CE course or a pre-license course that we might offer, tweet us @vaneducation with the answer to our poll question:

What is your favorite "Fun Fact"? (This means you will have to locate a "Fun Fact" from the "Fun Facts" page - our pick is that only one place is named "Patriot")  To make this a better contest, anyone who posts an entry before Monday July 7th wins something!

You can also click that other nifty blue button to visit our Facebook page and then simply post your answer on our wall to enter! (We'll also accept responses on LinkedIn or even a comment on this Newslog post!) That's all there is to it! Everyone's a winner so everyone should play! All winners will be contacted next week.

The most successful people in real estate choose VanEd. To learn more about the family of courses offered by VanEd, visit us online at http://www.vaned.com. 

Our Favorite Stories from June included the Alient Robots from Calvin and Hobbes and ... yep ... Zombies.

Here we share our top stories from the month that was. Notably, our favorite stories don't always center around real estate, appraisal or mortgage. We do not like Zombies. Not one little bit.

Drones are NOT a hobby!

Perhaps the biggest news in real estate this past month was the FAA warning that real estate professionals use of drones is not a hobby, and thus the FAA can regulate the use.  The final rules still pending, we can't understand why anyone would be concerned.

It's also been an interesting month to gauge reaction to the new NAR core standards for associations. It was reported by Real Trends that NAR will conduct an assessment to determine understanding of the value of membership at all three levels of the association. Ethics, Education and Advocacy come to mind for us, but we'll see what the assessment turns up. Read more at http://realtrends.com/blog/guidance-with-nars-mandatory-core-standards-program

 

Did you notice the Aliens from Calvin & Hobbes?

"Calvin & Hobbes" creator comes out of retirement, briefly" - Bill Watterson, silent for almost two decades, drew three strips with "Pearls Before Swine" creator Stephan Pastis - space alien attack included. We loved it and the best part was the mystery surrounding who drew the strips.   http://vaned.co/TAlrc6 (via @Time)  #lovethis

 

Extension for the Making Home Affordable Program announced

The Making Home Affordable program was extended to December of 2016 this past month, and according to the article from Reuters news service Treasury funds will be used to increase the construction of affordable housing and extend the program. Fun fact from the article was that 1.3 million homeowners have modified mortgages under the program with an payment reduction of around $540 per month. Not too shabby...

Read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/26/us-usa-housing-idUSKBN0F12QA20140626?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews.

 

Then after Flag Day...

REEA and AFIRE joined forces! The result was the premier confernence for women in leadership roles in the real estate industry sharing ideas and trends with the top real estate instructors in the industry. Inman News ran a story that included the top four takeaways from four days of industry leaders gathering in Arizona. We got stuck on #1: Sleep More, Achieve More.  (We really do like the idea of sleeping more)

Read the entire story of the event(s) on Inman News at http://www.inman.com/2014/06/30/real-estate-pros-secrets-to-success-invest-in-sleep-take-to-twitter-embrace-uniqueness/.

 

And we concluded this month by revisiting our biggest fear - Zombies 

At the end of the month the Realtor Magazine headline Zombies Make Up 21% of Foreclosures freaked us out. Those of you who have stopped by here before know of our fear of zombies, so learning that they are involved in the foreclosure process was hair raising.

In actually reading the article we learned that this is also a term used when a homeowner vacates a house after the foreclosure process starts but then learn that the foreclosure was never completed. In essence, this makes the homeowner still responsible for a property they have abandoned. Facsinating stuff, and we weren't very scared at the end.

Read more at Realtor Magazine.

 

Think we missed a story that we shouldn't have? Let us know by leaving a comment or tell us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/vaneducation) because we want to make sure we are up on everything!

We're "Graduating" our Favorite Stories from May

Each month VanEd recaps the best (or less-than-the-best) stories from the month. Our favorites, the most commented on, most Retweeted... these are the stories that captured us enough to read and re-read them this past month.

 

Former Treasury Secretary writes about the Crisis 

To promote his memoir, Stress Test: Reflections on a Financial Crisis former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has gone on a book tour. After leaning toward resigning multiple times, Geithner finally did last year. Now he has put his thoughts on the crisis on paper. In a TV interview aired on CBS This Morning he was asked about the current state of the housing industry. He said he would put it in baseball terms, saying "It's still the early innings in housing."  Reviews say the book is dark with the main message being things "could have been worse". Should be a great read. Uplifting. Right?

 

Do Street Names Affect Price?

According to one survey, yes. If the sreet name offends potential buyers then they are not as likely to pay as much for the home. Author Stephen Dubner (who uses Shades of Death Road as an example) says an unattractive street name does in fact cost sellers money. We reported this in the Finance Friday series at the start of the month, and we're still concerned. Click here to watch.

 

ARELLO Conference/NAR meets in D.C.

Both of these major events happened this month, and Affiliate Anne Woody helped us get to the heart of one of them. In her post on the ARELLO Conference Anne noted that Property Management remains a top concern for the regulators around the country. This has been true for some time, but Anne spells out the concerns in her post for the Newslog. Read that post by clicking here.

 

NAR meetings get new name, then change ALL the rest of the rules!

We traveled to Washington D.C. for the annual half-year conference (don't call it Mid-year! It's the Legislative Meetings!) and learned three or four key things. First, no more 10 year runs to be NAR President. Now you will have 10 months.  Second, MLSs are going to have to make data feeds available to members who want to develop new uses for those feeds. And Third, Associations are going to have to dig a little deeper if they want to remain ... well ... Associations.  The new Core Competency Standards for Boards may very well have the effect of turning 400 local associations into "Chapters" of other (read: Larger) Associations.

 

Every Celeb gets an invite - and a few go to Prom

Seems every celebrity gets an invite to prom these days. Most have to turn down the inventive requests. And when Caitlyn, a cheerleader for the Houston Texans, agreed to go to the prom in February with a high school junior if he hit 10,000 retweets, who wouldv'e thought he'd hit that number in about a day? Well, he did, and on May 10th the cheerleader made good on the date and went to prom.

http://mashable.com/2014/05/11/twitter-nfl-cheerleader-prom-date/

 

And VanEd says Congrats to one of our own!

Around 9:40am on Saturday May 24th Kyla Hilty, the oldest granddaughter of our Founder, C. Vann Hilty, graduated from Peak to Peak High School in Lafayette, Colorado. She will be attending Coastal Carolina University in the honors program and is a recipient of the President's Award for incoming Freshman.

VanEd celebrated other graduations as well this past week, with staff attending four separate events. Congradulations to all graduation high school Seniors! It has been a joy and honor to watch you grow, mature and develop into some of the most amazing people we know! We are so proud of you and know that you will do amazing things as you move forward!

(Side Note: The Grad Party starts in about 15 minutes, so some of the team will be out early today. Instructors will be making up the time this weekend so students should post those in the Q&As online! Have a great weekend and we'll see you next month!)

FBI Annual Report on Mortgage Fraud

The number of pending investgations into cases of suspected mortgage fraud increased by 12% last year over 2009 numbers, according to the FBI's recently released annual report on mortgage fraud.

The report also notes that data collected from Core Logic indicates that more than $10 billion in total loans were closed last year where fraudulent application data is suspected of being used.

The report, just like last year's, concludes that mortgage fraud remains widespread due to the depressed housing market and overall economy. The most common fraud schemes involve the falsification of application data used to qualify borrowers, and inflated appraisals used to increase prices.

The FBI report says that mortgage fraud remains prevelent due to the potential for high profits and the low risk of being caught. They also point out that licensed brokers, loan officers, appraisers and real estate professionals in many cases use their knowledge of the system to find vulnerable areas where they themselves can commit the fraud.

To learn more, take VanEd's recently updated Mortgage Fraud course online anytime!