I've been attending the NAR Mid-year Governance meetings for years, and this year I can tell some big differences.

For years, technology companies showcased "the next big thing" at trade shows. While the mid-year trade show is never as large as the annual convention (attendance is usually about one-third) there were considerably fewer tech companies in attendance.

At the hotel, coming into the trade area there are normally 10 to 15 banners (companies pay anywhere from $3000 to $5000 to get noticed on the way to the show). This year there was only one.

Many vendors were conspicuous in their absence, particularly the major portals for real estate promotion - HomeAdvisor, Yahoo!, Homes.com, and HomeSeekers. There was also no CountryWide, Intuit, and Lendingtree. And then there is the dead pool, all major participants from the past - RealEstate.com, OnePipeline, PREP, and many others.

Even Realtor.com's booth was smaller and had much less hype around it compared to previous years. However, it is interesting to note that all promotion was about Realtor.com, not HomeStore. Kudos for Mike Long for that.

Gone was the entourage from HomeStore whisking in and out of rooms like British royalty, blowing past all the peons, heading to another important high-level meeting. Gone was the lavish party HomeStore used to throw only to show that they were indeed the Big Boys with the Big Money.

There was a more relaxed NAR leadership now that the Homestore animal has been neutered.

Gone were the “off the record “ meetings of the past with non-real estate people with their new ideas and new VC millions preaching how the Realtors had better get on the bandwagon or they'll be run over.

Now all of them are doing something else -- heck, some may even get to “do time”.

What I did see were experienced real estate people in charge -- in charge of the companies and in charge of the conference. Even FNIS – the new major technology company – is managed by people with vast real estate experience.

It is apparent by the trade show that Realtors are firmly back in control of the real estate industry. They probably never lost control -- it's just that many predicted they would.

The tail is no longer wagging the dog.

Oh, and one more thing. The orange and mustard bowling shirts the Supra folks wore to go with their red plastic 1950's themed booth were the ugliest shirts I've ever seen in my life.

has been in the real estate industry in Texas for over 15 years in both commercial and residential brokerage and is a past member of National Association of Realtors. Jody is the President, Publisher and majority owner of Realty Times, which first launched as Agent News on October 15, 1997. Jody's wife, Nora Lane, is a very successful Realtor in Dallas, Texas.

Published: May 22, 2002

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