2009 Annual National Association of Realtors Conference

#NARDiego

This week, hundreds of Realtors and Realtor Association Executives will descend upon San Diego to take part in the 2009 National Association of Realtors Conference. 2009 has been a tough year for the market as the economy has tanked, but the nautical theme of the conference, “chart a winning course” aims to help attendees to rise above tough times.

What is interesting however is that despite recent game changing announcements from NAR on the unveiling of HouseLogic.com and Realtor Property Resource, this conference is happening in times much more docile than Mid-Year 2009 when the world was in an uproar. We wanted to bring to light the topics that were on fire in May of this year in preparation for the Annual conference:

Google deemed a scraper:

Did Google Scrape My Website? by Paula Henry: “MIBOR classifies Google as a scraper site and therefore, I am allowing Google to scrape or reproduce the MLS data from my site. This interpretation is supported by the National Association of REALTORS®, based on the MIBOR’s listing service rules and regulations. The entangled web of rules we abide by to be a participating member of our local board and MLS are subject to the interpretation of the local authorities and agents who police the web for offenders. They say scraping and indexing is the exact same thing.”

Related reading:

• If We Disconnected Every IDX Feed in America…
• NAR Responds to Scraping Issue in DC
• Politics Beats Agents in DC, NAR Sides With MIBOR

NAR Code of Ethics Amended to Cover Social Media:

NAR Code of Ethics Rules for Social Media Realtors & Associations by Benn Rosales: “the new wisdom coming from NAR Midyear are new amendments to beef up the existing code of thou shall not talk smack about your fellow agents in blog posts or comments that cannot be backed up by empirical evidence- that’s a good thing, right? Yes, but be careful. First of all, you shouldn’t be writing things that aren’t true on your blog in the first place, stories should be attributed to fact, or you should have possession of absolute fact.”

Related reading:

• Does NAR’s Social Media Attempt Get a Passing Grade? The Honeymoon’s Over

Realtor.org website issues:

11 Questions for the NAR by Lani Rosales: “I challenged several Realtors (even NAR committee members) this week to see if they could answer any or all of these questions by logging into Realtor.org and it was fruitless. There was a relatively unanimous “I dunno” to all these questions which is why a list of links in comments is only a short term solution to this problem of information dissemination.” Update: NAR responded and has started redesigning the site & its structure.

Related reading:

• NAR Communications Committee Finds Realtor.org Difficult to Use
• Do Not Read This if You Hate Using the Internet or Hate NAR

NAR Financial Info

Breaking Down NAR Dues- the NAR’s Value Proposition by Lani Rosales: “It’s intriguing how all monies are allocated and it’s equally interesting what is free. I am personally grateful for all of the volunteer work done for the members and support NAR’s not directly charging for things like Sentrilock. It’s notable that NAR revenue also comes from other sources like advertising dollars from conference vendors and sponsors, advertisers of Realtor Magazine, Realtor Magazine Online, Realtor Magazine E-Newsletters, Realtor AE Magazine and sponsors of the Realtor Magazine Good Neighbor Awards, Realtor Magazine Young Professionals Network, and Realtor Benefits Program.”

Related reading:

• Realtor Magazine Reducing Print Publication in Half

NAR Mid-Year Issues, 6 Months Later:

As you pack your light sweaters for San Diego weather, ask yourself if these issues have been resolved- you’ll be around people that have the answers or who are the most involved, so why not get to know the issues better for when you’re face to face?

Regarding the topics above, NAR has appointed notable bloggers to committee positions, has that changed anything? How is NAR’s social media program going six months later? Has the IDX ruling changed anyone’s business practices? How is the NAR website coming along and how about the Realtor Magazine publication reduction?

We look forward to this year’s coverage. If you have any story tips or juicy news, we accept all tips (simply click the contact button at the bottom of this page) and we will have our ears close to the ground to see what goes on at this year’s conference.