Come On People — NAR Hasn’t Made A Hill Of Beans Difference Since I Was 18

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

There’s been so much talk about what the National Association of Realtors (or Real – I – tors as often mispronounced) should be, is now, and/or should become, I finally couldn’t stay quiet any longer. This subject is as important to the industry, any particular agent or broker, or the public in general, as what color rag I use to check my car’s oil.

They’re surely an easy target with their latest, and some, (including me) would call their weakest PR moves. But who has ever taken them seriously? Pick a real estate related subject, any subject. What lasting or even temporarily lasting and meaningful change has emerged from the fruitless womb of NAR?

I would submit three — Nada, Zip, and None. The industry itself has made things happen from day one.

Whenever they’ve gone up directly against lobbies which actually wield real life political power, they lose far more than they win. And so many of their claimed wins were in the bag anyway. I know, as I’ve been forced to be a member since 1969.

Education? Are you on drugs? With exceptions that wouldn’t take up all the fingers on one hand, what they offer is embarrassing to thinking people. Want a for instance? Ask your cousin the Realtor about his blog, and watch the instantaneous RCA Dog look on his face. Want another one? The dropout rate of agents in any market, good or bad, is always high, as most of them couldn’t find their butts with two helpers, a map, and a GPS.

Having a discussion on which way the NAR should be going is almost, but not quite a waste of time. They’ve never stopped me from doing anything but using my Mac to access the MLS systems around the country. Why? Because they’re either to damn lazy to hire my 16 year old next door neighbor to make the changes, they’re apathetic, or they don’t want me using a Mac. It’s still a non-issue to me, as it’s just to easy to circumvent.

NAR has simply been a non-entity in my career.

I’ve taken one course of education they’ve offered that was actually worth the time and the money. Since the subject matter was beyond most of them, they’ve left it alone, more or less. The instructors were, without exception, highly successful at doing exactly what they were teaching — a refreshing change from the norm.

The NAR has one thing of value period — the MLS. It was created by local groups to enhance their efforts to serve the public. It’s a private entity. It’s grown into something that everyone is now attempting to pirate, using flowery words, and moral concepts, which blow warm and hard, but say nothing about their actual agenda.

They want access to the brokers’ information, in order to avoid paying for services rendered. Anyone who doesn’t see that has been drinking far too much kool-aid.

And yet, I still don’t care. Ask Russell Shaw what he says about all the help the MLS has been to his operation. After he stops laughing, his answer may surprise you. That guy markets his listings like is hair’s on fire. He uses all the latest technology he deems will get his paying clients what they’re paying for — Results.

What’s gonna happen with our industry? In one sense I couldn’t care less, as they can’t take away my expertise, experience, performance track record, and/or knowledge. On the other hand, all the talk about brokers already disseminating their listings to the public in every way imaginable, is not on topic. It’s the brokers’ property to pass on in any way they deem fit — as long as they’re motivated by the best interests of their client. You remember them, right? The one who pays them for actual results?

Successful licensees will not tell you they owe their success to NAR. If NAR went away tomorrow I wouldn’t know it ’till someone told me. Don’t mistake my valuation of them as antipathy. I’ve been inside my local board, a state/national function, without coercion, less than two dozen times in what will be 38 years next month.

They simply don’t matter. It reminds me of the sports conversation that pops up every few years. It’s about how, pretty soon, soccer will be a major sport in the U.S. I’ve been hearing this pap for almost three decades now. It might happen, but not in Boomers’ lifetimes. It’s a wasted discussion.

Allow me to point you to something of far more enduring value. Even attempting to point out how worthless this topic has become, is boring me. Read Lani’s letter to her husband. Redeem some of your valued time. At least her letter will add the value of a smile.

Enjoy your weeeekennnnnnd.

 
More viewpoints, pro and con, on supplanting the NAR:

< ?php c2c_get_recent_posts(9999, "
• %post_URL%”, ’30’); ?>