What I learned at Mid-Year

Again, there was a tremendous focus on RPR (REALTORS Property Resource) and on the REALTORS Federal Credit Union. I think what NAR is trying to do is to encompass the real estate industry from creating mortgages to provided valuation services. At the Management Conference this June 8th NAR will be here at OKCMAR to do a live demo and Q&A of  RPR. Member really cannot afford to miss this session as the board will be voting later this summer on whether or not OKCMAR & MLSOK will participate- YOUR EDUCATED INPUT IS NEEDED AND BEING ASKED FOR- attend the conference!

I spent a lot of time perusing the trade show and I can say with confidence MLSOK has the core services covered with its top of the line systems. While many of the tech tools being displayed were awesome I believe that these are programs REALTORS or firms can use to set themselves apart and should not be offered to all through the MLS.

At the MLS Executives Session, we were treated with many presentations about tools MLS's have developed and different things MLS's are doing. The one that tweaked my interest the most was a new group (Association of MLS's) that were purchasing a top level domain (like. com, .net, .org) called .MLS to be available only to Association/Broker Owned MLS's. The idea is to ensure that MLS can distinguish the real MLS from companies that pretend to be MLS's but are private sites. An example is a REALTOR member site that calls itself an MLS or a web search company that promotes "Search the MLS" but only provides a small sub-set of data provided by a cooperating MLS.

I focused quite a bit on the social media classes, attended RETS Training, and attended the Supra training session. Big news.... Supra has developed an Ibox that is operated by Bluetooth (OKC probably will not see until 2013) and the release of an I Phone app device for sale at $54.95 so that your Iphone can open the boxes. We will be ordering the app device and it will be available for sale in the R-Store soon.

Unfortunately, the OK hill visits were scheduled at the same time as the MLS Executives session. After speaking with my counterparts in Tulsa and Norman the decision was made that it was far more important to attend the session geared for preparing our MLS's for the future and knowing what is out there and its pitfalls than attending the hill visit. However, OK had a great turnout to speak to legislators without its Association staff members.

Usually when I attend an event I have a whole bunch of tools and programs for the boards and the committees to look at and ideas I can implement at the offices right away however DC never really is that type of conference. It is much more about governance at the national level and about national committee meetings. Its more of an educational event to prepare us to work with NAR to accomplish national objectives.