Course Goal and Learning Objectives
The course is designed to teach the essentials of buying, selling, or managing resort properties and second homes for recreation, investment, and development by U.S. and international clients and customers in the United States.

1. Skills and Knowledge Foundation
- Focus on developing the skills required to be successful in the second-home vacation and investment market. - Use market statistics and knowledge of the motivations for a second-home purchase to develop a business strategy and make business decisions about capturing and serving the market.
- Identify the impact of trends and issues on business strategy and client and customer service.

2. Customers, Clients, and Properties
- Determine your market and customer/client profile.
- Compare and contrast characteristics of types of second-home vacation and investment properties.
- Explain second-home financing and ownership options.
- Help clients and customers evaluate and choose the type of property, form of ownership,and financing options that meet their second-home objectives.

3. Working with Affluent or International Buyers and Sellers
- Adapt customer and client services to work with affluent or international buyers and sellers.
- Make and receive compensated international referrals using the ICREA Transnational Referral System.

4. Building Your Business
- Use information about trends affecting second-home vacation and investment properties to develop and improve marketing strategies and tactics.
- Develop communication and marketing tactics for building customer and client relationships with long-distance and long time-frame buyers and sellers.

5. Overcoming Bad Publicity and Disasters
- Implement strategies to overcome bad publicity about second-home vacation and investment property locations.
- Formulate a disaster-recovery plan.  

• - Explain investment terminology in relation to second-home vacation and investment properties.
• - Explain the IRS guidelines for tax treatment of second-home vacation and investment properties including the fourteen-day rental rule and its implications.
• - Analyze and explain the tax implications of converting investment property to personal useproperty.
• - Recognize the applicability of the Foreign Investment Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA), comply with its regulations, and explain its requirements to clients and customers involved in a transaction with a foreign buyer or seller.
• - Recognize situations in which a tax-deferred 1031 exchange would be possible and advantageous.
• - Help the client or customer analyze the investment value of a property.

7. Regulatory Matters
- Comply with SEC guidelines regarding investment advice.
- Recognize the impact of regulatory, insurance, growth, and environmental issues on the purchase, sale, and ownership of second-home vacation and investment properties.
- Tap into sources of information on complying with local, state, and national regulations of second-home vacation and investment properties.
- Participate in influencing regulatory and tourism entities to shape a favorable environment for the purchase, sale, and ownership of second-home vacation and investment properties.

8. Quiz

A fifty-question multiple choice quiz is offered at the conclusion of the course. The purpose of the exam is to measure the extent of students’ learning and evaluate the effectiveness ofcourse instruction. A passing grade is 70 percent.

RSPS Certification Core Course Delivery Options

To offer this course via Live Lecture, please contact Candace McGranahan at candacem@car.org (213-739-8359).  To offer this course via Face2Face™ video conferencing, contact Ana Montoya at anam@car.org (213 -739-8214).