The NAR “Value Proposition”

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

It pays to be a REALTOR®. That was the message from NAR CEO Dale Stinton at the Board of Directors meeting Saturday at the 2009 Midyear Legislative Meetings in Washington D.C.

Addressing the board during the 2010 budget proposal presentation, Stinton said any REALTOR® who had maintained continuous membership between 1991-2010 would have paid $1,282 in total national dues.

“What have the last 20 years been like for you?” he asked the audience. “You’ve probably had your ups and downs, but you’ve probably had a good 20 years. What would you have paid for all the services you got [from NAR]?”

Stinton also explained how NAR stacked up against other national professional associations. Read more

A Monument to Fair Housing

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Many of today’s REALTORS® might not realize it, but 1968 was a tough year. Dr. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, the Tet Offensive was launched against U.S. forces in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union crushed the Prague Spring liberalization movement in Czechoslovakia.

Yet it was also a year of hope. One bright spot was the passage of the Fair Housing Act, which outlaws discrimination against home buyers on the basis of their background.

Now, more than four decades later, the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® will commemorate Fair Housing with a monument located in a park adjacent to its Washington D.C. offices at 500 New Jersey Ave., NW. Read more

NAR’s IDX Rule Changes Need More Study

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

The NAR Board of Directors voted Saturday to send two recommendations regarding acceptable use of IDX data back to the Multiple Listing Policy Committee because the committee is currently reviewing all IDX policies with an eye toward updating them. The action came at the board meeting that concluded the national association’s 2009 NAR Midyear Legislation Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington, D.C.

IDX, or Internet Data Exchange, refers to a system and process that allows multiple listing service participants to display each others’ property listings on their web sites.

The recommended changes to the IDX rules were as follows (underlined sections indicate proposed additions, strikeouts indicate proposed deletions): Read more

Helping Homeowners Stay Put

By Stacey Moncrieff, Editor in Chief, REALTOR® Magazine

Tucson, Ariz., practitioner Frances Flynn Thorsen is fighting mad — and she’s not sparing any punches. She wants the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and state REALTOR® organizations to do more to help homeowners with underwater mortgages keep their homes.

“All the education programs and certifications that exist today are sales centric,” she says, “not a single word about loan modifications.”

Frances has taken her crusade to the airwaves with “Truth in Housing Matters,” a weekly show on Access Tucson. She’s also written an education program on home retention and has applied for CE credit through the state of Arizona.

Read more

Build Your Own Home Buyer Tax Credit

Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Perhaps unsurprisingly, discussions about the $8,000 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit dominated the Federal Taxation Committee’s assembly at NAR’s 2009 Midyear Meetings. While most of the people present were very happy with the fact that they could use this as a promotional tool, and many welcomed HUD Secretary Donovan’s announcement about monetizing the tax credit, they didn’t think the measure went far enough.

Specifically, their criticism of the tax credit related to two things: Read more