What can I say about the NAR convention? I’ve never been to one, so I guess it was an accurate glimpse of the state-of-the-industry.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the  whole thing. For 100 years, NAR has been doing a good job creating and maintaining industry standards, and they’ve created the REALTOR brand, of which I am proud to be associated with as it does endeavor to provide superior client experience.

That said, this organization is old. And seriously behind the times, it seems. 95% of the people I met were good people running their businesses in very traditional ways, working hard to make their clients happy. This is good, but with all the inefficiencies I see behind the scenes, there’s this constant, gnawing feeling that this industry can be done better.

How? I’m not sure. But it eats at me constantly, and I want to figure it out. I want the magic answer. 83% of buyers and sellers are online? No problem, says the average agent, it’s covered, I have a template website. Blog? What’s that, and why should I care?

Here’s a nice wrap-up assembled by a colleague, so check it out and see what you think. The presentations by Seth Godin and Scott Bedbury, not to mention the Active Rain party, made the whole event worthwhile. Too bad I missed the Google/Zillow session… apparently the hordes became hostile with its consumer-centric presenters.

And FYI, in case you weren’t aware, Nicaragua is the new hot-spot for US real estate investment. As for the rest of the sessions I attended, they were a nice refresher on classic sales practices designed to grow my business in the old-school, usual ways.

But in the end, I much prefer the smaller conferences like Inman… that’s where the future of real estate truly makes its first appearances.