Joining the NAR’s Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee. Lord help me. Or them…

I don’t know who is crazier, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for asking me to serve on the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee, or me for accepting their offer…

Someone out there is reading this and thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

At least that’s what I initially thought. But it’s true. Last week I got a call from Steve Brown, NAR Vice President & Liaison to Committees, asking me if I’d be willing to serve the remainder of the year on the national MLS Policy Committee. Apparently my rather outspoken opinion on various blogs and at the NAR’s Midyear Legislative Conference in Washington spurred someone within the NAR to suggest putting me on the committee, and presumably the “work group” being formed to address IDX policy.

Now I will be the first to admit that I’ve never been what anyone would call a “NAR Poster Boy”. To be frank, sometimes the NAR drives me insane. It’s often cited as the largest trade organization in the country and as such is often mired in politics and bureaucracy.

I’m not a big fan of politics and bureaucracy. Had enough of that over a couple of decades spent in Corporate America.

But whether you love them or hate them, the NAR helps set policy and direction and greatly influences how real estate agents and brokers can run their business. And that is really important to me, politics and bureaucracy be damned.

This latest flap from MIBOR ruling that the indexing of listings by search engines violates policy is a big deal. The potential ramifications are enormous. So rather than just sit back and bitch and moan about it, I’m going to do whatever I can to get the policy clarified. My stance is clear – search engine indexing is not evil, it’s good for agents and brokers and more importantly real estate consumers.

I do have to give credit to the NAR for offering up a spot on the MLS Committee. It says they are at least willing to try to get things right, and this has not always been the case. I thank them for the opportunity to represent my fellow like-minded agents and brokers.

I’m just one guy on a committee of one hundred, and one realtor out of a million plus. I don’t have any grand visions of fundamentally changing the NAR. Yet. Let’s take some baby steps and see if we can get silly policies clarified first. As Todd Carpenter, the NAR’s Social Media Manager, once said, “the way to eat an elephant is one bite at time”.

And I’m hungry.

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Have no idea what the “latest flap from MIBOR” is? Read these posts and comments:

• Did Google Scrape My Website? You Be The Judge. Rules Threaten Realtors & IDX Providers. (the seminal post)

• NAR Responds in DC- The MLS Committee to recommend Google policy change

• MIBOR Blocks Change, NAR Committee Agrees- Politics Beats Agents In DC

• Can’t We All Just Get Along?

• Online Home Search Technology Heading Back to the Ice Age if NAR / MIBOR Ruling Stands

• Calling @crtweet for clarification, please!

• NAR and MIBOR at odds with reality of what Google is

• Real Estate’s Deep Dark Secret: NAR (and Many Brokers) Don’t Want You the Public to See the Data

• Newspapers and Realtors

• NAR’s IDX Rule Changes Need More Study

• Cliff Niersbach NAR response to Google spidering listings in Mibor

• MIBOR and NAR need an internet education

• Lots of links on Google is not a scraper dot com

• RSS Updates
• Email Updates

ARMLS Takes a Stand on “Scraping” and “Indexing”

Thoughts on the NAR IDX Enhancement Work Group

DOJ vs. NAR: Point2 Agent Weighs In