National Realtor Mid-Year Convention

I recently attended the National Association of Realtors Mid-Year Convention at the Wardham Marriott Convention Center. The mid-year meetings are business meetings where leadership teams, committee leaders and members from all over the U.S. convene to finish old business, work on existing business and plan on projects that are coming up at aannual and future conventions.

The Race for the White House by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post was the first meeting that I attended. He was quite interesting, since he has a long history of covering political candidates. Even though his presentation was entertaining, it was politically slanted. Regardless, he acknowledged that sometimes reporters - as with all of us - can get things wrong by making assumptions about people. Following some networking, I went to the trade expo to meet with our MLS vendor, Black Night Financial Services, as well as many other vendors offering a wide variety of services.

The next day began with a presentation of the residential issues and trends forum, hosted by Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. His research and statistical data and graphs are always on point. He was looking at long-term national trends and comparing them to regional trends. He was also talking about areas like Puerto Rico and certain states that are in financial strife. He discussed millennial buying habits and how they are sometimes related to student debt issues and how many households are multi-generational as a result of issues such as this. His presentation was followed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, but I had to fill my obligation to attend the Multiple Listings Issues and Policies Committee meeting on which I serve.

The MLS Committee addressed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is designed to protect copyrighted images uploaded into MLS systems. They also spoke about upcoming rules relating to ADA compliance for websites. Realtors and their vendors need to be actively working to ensure that their websites can be navigated by people with disabilites. There was a presentation by Move Inc., the company tasked with operating realtor.com, the most visited real estate website with the most up-to-date information.

There was also an update from RESO about the Data Dictionary. RESO is trying to standardize the terminology that Realtors use to describe properties. They are working in tandem with the Realtors Property Resource to develop a project called Upstream. Upstream is being designed so that brokers can opt to enter their data once and then log in to a control panel, where they can direct where their data goes. This project is a massive undertaking and will take at least another year to complete.

The following day began by exchanging ideas at the MLS Forum Breakout Sessions for boards with less than 1,500 members. It was extremely informative to hear about what other associations are doing and sharing with them projects that we are working on in St. Augustine.

After a lunch break, I went to the Leadership Express: Selling Your Story: Media Communications in a YouTube World presentation, in which a 30-year veteran of television and radio discussed how and how not to deal with the media as a leader within the Realtor organization.

We finished the convention by attending the Region 5 Caucus. Region 5 represents the Southeast and consists of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In the Caucus, the leader of Region 5 introduced state leadership and any urgent business affecting each state.

The convention was interesting as always, and I have submitted my name for consideration to be nominated for two committees for 2017. It is a pleasure and an honor to serve at national, state and local Realtor committees. I always get a chance to learn from others and to share my experiences as well. It's also a wonderful networking opportunity.