While some think yesterday’s approval of changes to the operating agreement between the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) and MOVE,Inc. are incremental I’m pretty impressed. Here’s why.
As reported by Andrea V. Brambila from Inman News:
NAR approves ‘historic’ changes to realtor.com operating agreement
“At a much-anticipated special meeting in Chicago, the board of directors of the National Association of Realtors voted today to give realtor.com operator Move Inc. more flexibility to publish listings from sources beyond those provided by Realtors, including additional new homes and rental properties”
I’m calling out this one section of the agreement because I think its significant. This is going to make the loyal REALTOR blue members bat-shit crazy. You can already see it in the comments of article itself. They are all screaming what about our “code of ethics!” You are destroying our brand. Blah, blah, blah. NAR knew this was going to be a big issue with a vocal portion of their members and and they still did it. That my friend is what you call leadership.
NAR also caught a ton of shit from their membership for the rebranding of REALTOR.com. Some of their members lost their freaking minds because the letter “R” wasn’t capitalized. WTF?
The issues facing REALTORS are not ethics or capitalization, the issue is relevance. It seems NAR is finally getting it.
Oooh, not so fast, the rancher is standing right outside the pen with the rubber bands to turn that bull into a steer. There will be NO National MLS as Gary Thomas had first proposed when he chaired the workgroup in 2007.
This is a business and MLS is a product to be sold to real estate licensees. Forget that the name infers a NAR member service, it is an advertising website from MOVE, Inc., just like the National Home Builders’, the Property Managers’, and the Senior and Assisted Living portals that you pay to use.
Just as Mark Zuckerberg learned at The Facebook, something has to be in place to make money and keep the lights on.