Real Estate Information. The Business of Status Quo.

As an industry leader, NAR’s role is to continue to promote and enhance the REALTOR® value proposition and ensure that consumers continue to receive the best, most accurate and comprehensive real property information directly from the professionals who create it, REALTORS®. https://www.nar.realtor/2020-nar-strategic-priorities

Accurate information is valuable to the user regardless of the provider. Owning and sharing accurate information is necessary for the provider to remain relevant. Sharing information is not something the REALTOR Associations have do well. Is being the first point of contact essential to the REALTOR’s place in the transaction? Probably not unless keeping the status quo is the objective of the Association.

Maintaining the status quo is dependent upon the leadership’s ability to be the enforcer. The trouble with the enforcement of standards that protect a business’s position in a consumer transaction is the pesky fair trade laws. Whether the consumer is best off with the REALTORS being the first point of contact in a real estate transaction is determined by the consumer. If demand is a driving force behind business development and businesses are competing for the point position in real estate information, we might conclude the public is not satisfied with the status quo.

If REALTORS want the public to see them as essential to the real estate transaction the REALTORS will have to find ways to be exceptional. Data has value. So does intelligence and creativity. If data is your intelligence, you’re not very creative. Or, essential.