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.
Kevin
“And FYI, in case you weren’t aware, Nicaragua is the new hot-spot for US real estate investment.”
An article from last weeks SF Chronicle on buying south of the border (examples in Mexico and Panama):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/11/BU12T8UPN.DTL
Jay Thompson
My sentiments exactly Diane.
BTW, Kristal Kraft has a photo from the AR party with BOTH of us in it….
Tell Guy I need a roomie for Inman NYC.
Gena Riede
Diane,
It’s nice to get your take…not surprising. I’m off to read all the links now. Thanks for sharing.
stjoe
I cannot talk about buying property in Mexico, but one of the classic cons is property sales in Costa Rica. It appears adverse possession in Costa Rica is much more lenient than the US.
The rich american buys the property and leaves town. Squatters move in and quickly cloud the title via adverse possession. See
http://www.quatloos.com/traps/costaric.htm
for more details.
ines
Diane, I missed the convention, but I hear a lot of people feel the same way you do. It’s pretty amazing that Realtors are not embracing Internet technology….hey….more power to us.
Now I have to find the time to go to Inman but more to meet all of the great bloggers.
Boomer
Glad to see you folks “left Las Vegas” in better shape than Nicholas Cage and Elisabeth Shue.