The red and blue badges at the 2010 National Association of REALTORS (NAR) Midyear Conference took on a different meaning for me this year.
Fort Sumter as many of you know was the place where the first shots were fired in the Civil War. The Civil War I’m talking about was first written about by Rob Hahn, entitled “The coming Civil War in Real Estate.”
I believe that Rob’s predictions are coming true, and the first shots fired were here in D.C. The vibe from a lot of vendors that I spoke with was that they are feeding the beast (NAR) that might eventually bite them.
NAR, thru RPR and other entities either own or have a significant interest in a data and analytics business, an association management business , not to mention a web portal (Realtor.com), a lock box company (Sentrilock), and a forms company (Zipforms).
In a nutshell just take a look at the exhibitor list to the conference and you basically have a list of NAR competitors.
With the deck so completely stacked against them why do vendors who have products that compete with NAR even bother to show up to NAR events?
NAR has also cranked up the pressure on their competitor/exhibitors too. Tactics such as kicking vendors out of Suites if they don’t pony up more money (in the form of registrations and booth space), and enforcing a “no meeting” rule in Suites when official NAR business is being done.
These heavy handed tactics could end up doing more harm than good. Other conferences could grow or new conferences could be created that cater more towards exhibitors wants and needs.
