Online CE in NC - unlimited now?

[David Beasley]

Got something in the old email box this morning, says it's from the NCAB. The opening paragraph:

"Effective January 1, 2015, there is no longer any limit on the number of continuing education courses that you can take online. If you have taken more than 14 hours of CE online since July 1, 2013 and were told the additional hours cannot be counted towards your CE hours in 2015, please notify us at once."

Not sure how I missed that since I stay as on top of all the rules/regs that I can, from NC to DC and all in-between. Did they sneak that into some small box in the newsletter? That I often forget I have to go manually find a few times a year online...lol

So we can have 28 hours of online CE come May 30, 2015 and be good to go? That's good to know even if I may still sit for a live class or two, because all I have so far for this cycle is last year's USPAP update.

 

[Andy Taylor]

I wonder if the all on-line rule covers the USPAP Update as well?
I went to the NCAB site and looked at the rule changes and it appeared to imply that all 28 hours CE could be on-line.
It seems like if there was any class that would be required to be live it would be the USPAP Update.

 

[David Beasley]

I used to take USPAP live exclusively - my thinking was it was *the* class to take live so I could raise a hand and ask questions if need be...but this past time (last year, about this time) I took the 2014-2015 USPAP update online (it is allowed) and did OK with it. Since they made CE educators make their online classes more difficult to take (no more 6-8 hour classes completed in 60-90 minutes), making it so that we can take all 28 hours online is going to be nice IMO. No more missed weekdays of work or sacrificed weekends chasing the those few live classes offered on non-weekdays.

 

[Andy Taylor]

Wonder if the CE providers lobbied for the on-line change. Most of the last live CE's that I have attended had only 6-10 appraisers in attendance, Benefit to the CE providers would be the reduced cost of not renting the facility, paper materials, paying the instructors, etc and then basically charge the same for an on-line class as they did the live class.

 

[David Beasley]

I'm sure the providers did agree with the change even if they didn't spearhead it. I just like the fact that I'm not going to have to give up a couple of weekdays, travel, or sacrifice weekend time to take live classes. To that end, I could see where appraisers ourselves would be in favor of it. And, as best I can recall, there have been a number of states where all CE could be taken online for years and years now. In essence, NC is just catching up to where other states have already been for some time in this area. And maybe we can finally get in on some of those "get all 28 hours online for a decent discounted package price" CE deals we couldn't do in the past due to our 14 hour online limit.

 

[EddieB]

I was unaware of this change until I rec'd the same email. Don't know how I will change my CE this period because I do enjoy the live classes.

 

[David Beasley]

I've enjoyed live classes in the past, but recently they've become more of a chore to find, schedule, get to (& stay awake through), and so on...so if I do go all-online, I'm not sure that I'll miss the live setting. Plus, once it got out that I was a "VA appraiser" in a class (of which I was usually the only 1 or 1 of 2), I got a lot of questions, comments, snide remarks and what-not during breaks, meals, even during class discussions - so I definitely will not miss that. The questions on VA appraising are OK/fine, but there are some people out there that think they're owed a spot on the VA fee panel for whatever reason and love to beat up any VA appraiser's they meet over it...I've actually encountered instructors that seem to love to pick on VA guys/gals for whatever reason.