Primary market
Pages: [1] 2
N.A.R."s Incoming President Outlines His Focus For The Year Ahead
National Association of REALTORS®" president-elect Richard Mendenhall, C.I.P.S., C.R.B., G.R.I. may come from the "Show Me" state of Missouri, but it will be he who will be showing the N.A.R. membership a thing or two. With experience that ranges from Eagle Scout to the Green Berets, from the National Honors Society student to a Masters degree in education, and from real estate broker and local and state chapter committee grunt to the presidency of the world"s largest trade organization, Mendenhall comes to the job with a wide range of leadership skills. He is also equipped with a solid well-rounded knowledge of politics, economics and the latest developments on the Internet. Affable and straightforward in personality, Mendenhall is candid and accessible, and believes in "honest, open communication." Mendenhall will be taking the reins of leadership at the November N.A.R. convention and plans to hit the ground running on three topics that are all connected by the Internet - its new business models, the global community, and how the N.A.R."s partners such as Homestore are serving the trade organization"s members. B.E.: What issues do you consider the most important for you to work on during your presidency of the N.A.R.? R.M.: I"ve got a number of things that are critical to me. One thing I want members to be aware of is the new business models ( the Internet.) Some of these businesses will survive and some won"t, but I want them to think about them and react appropriately. The two statistics that are driving the industry is one that came out about four years ago - that two percent of the American public looked at property online before contacting a Realtor. Then, six months ago, that number jumped to 38 percent. My guess is that now that number is over 40 percent. That is a huge increase. Consumers are using the Internet. The other statistic I speak about is that in the U.S. every 8.5 seconds a baby is born. Every 3.5 seconds, America Online (AOL) gets a new subscriber. That is not an N.A.R. statistic, but I am pretty sure that it is accurate. B.E.: It probably is. Every hour, 720 new people join the online community, and AOL has the greatest market share. R.M.: Those are huge driving statistical numbers. Another number that has my attention in terms of the future is that the N.A.R. did a study that in the last 5 years, where it was found that between 1994 and 1997, immigrants and minority households represented 42 percent of the four million first- time homeowners. We know that first-time homeowners accounted for over 30 percent of sales in the U.S. If one-third of our sales was to first time homebuyers and 42 percent are immigrants and minorities, we have an industry that has to embrace cultural diversity. So one statistic is about the Internet and the other is about people. We have to think about and react to that. There is an opportunity to think about globalization. B.E.: And the third thing you like to talk about? R.M.: I talk about new business models, globalization, and the other thing I talk about is the relationship between the N.A.R. and Homestore. It isn"t just Homestore but anybody we have an agreement with. We have to insure that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing and that is providing leads to our members. You can evaluate partnerships in all sorts of ways, but in my mind, the debate centers on leads. B.E.: I can"t believe my ears. That"s what we have been preaching on Agent News. I feel like I"ve found another missionary in the jungle. R.M.: I know, I read Realty Times everyday and I get on the list-servs(tm.) (laughs.) I like to communicate with agents and that is what they are concerned about. I give them my email address and I get emails from people - I get as many as 150 a day. I like to hear from grass roots. I can"t solve every problem but I can listen and carry those concerns forward. The only real purpose for our outside partner is to increase traffic and leads to our members. All the other debates are mute. If they don"t do that then..... B.E.: What about the Domainia issue? How do agents feel about Homestore buying Domainia? R.M.: I asked N.A.R. to prepare technology reports so we can talk about this Domainia issue. I am reading an excerpt from the Milwaukee Journal that all the property information is going to be put on the Internet. That is going to be there and we can"t ignore that. There are several legislative points we have to pay attention to. I want agents to have an open honest dialogue and not hide from the issues. There is just not a one-size-fits-all answer to that issue. Homestore has made a decision that they want to provide this information. It will upset a number of Realtors, that when they meet with sellers, that the pricing information will be wrong. But if the information is accurate, it might help the Realtor have an objective source to show the seller. My concern is that they (Homestore, et al) are getting that data from the tax records and I don"t know how well they make the comparables. I"m reading a lot of emails. The Chicago Tribune says a lot of information on the Internet is outdated and of poor quality. That kind of data will only come from two places - the public information or a board of Realtors who will provide that data. I don"t remember the number but there are about eight states left that don"t require the public recording of sold data. Where the data is public, that data is there, and the states and online companies are making that and other data public. So the question is, do you want that data to exist on other sites or is it better to put it on Realtor.com and achieve the highest level of quality you can. In the areas where the data doesn"t exist, they need to be very careful what they put up there. Don"t put data that is not accurate or it will be worse for the consumer. I think the states who don"t want it public have every right to keep it. In the states that do have it, the Realtor.com has a right to show it. B.E.: The Domainia is being presented as a referral tool for agents. R.M.: Their operating agreement with the N.A.R. restricts them from selling the referrals to agents or sending the referrals other places. There are other sites that have them and they capture the consumer and sell them as a referral to the Realtor. Realtor.com tries to capture the consumer first and with our operating agreement they can only do so much. B.E.: Can they steer consumers to agents who have paid to be on the Domainia list? R.M.: We asked them how to address that issue - how are you going to generate leads to all of our members. They haven"t come back to us yet. We met a month or so ago and we all agreed that the number one issue was to generate more leads for members. They will come back with their business plan shortly. B.E.: What about the new business models, do you mean the e-brokers? Homestore? Or whom do you mean? R.M.: All of them are new business models, I saw a presentation at the beginning of a conference once where eight brokers gave presentations and they presented their models and they talked about the e-enabled broker, down to the eighth person who represented the traditional firm communicating with customers using the Internet. In the middle was a model that was completely different, SOMA Living, that has a storefront where they only dealt with buyers, and had agents on salary, and their return on investment was high. Everybody says the Internet is just a tool. It is a powerful tool but it can also be a successful model. People have to adapt. If a group of Realtors sit around and don"t like a new business model and decide they are going to keep them out of the MLS or the association, we have to remind them of Federal laws that they can"t do that and that they shouldn"t be overreacting. The stock market has shown that we can get a lot of hype but if it can"t generate revenues it won"t survive. You have to make a profit to stay alive. We need to have a lot of dialog about it. Discussions of information. Things they can do and look intelligently at these new models. We have to have a technological competency with staff and volunteers who understand the issues of the Net and present accurate information to them. There are multiple perspectives and if you watch the email strings, someone can make a false statement and it might take 20 people responding before the information is corrected. If they don"t go to the end of the email, they won"t get the right information. B.E.: An example? R.M.: The flap over the new e-brokers. What people say may or may not be true, and they may pass information along because they feel threatened and it may not be accurate. I"m just saying we need objectivity and dialog and that"s why we need a free press. B.E.: I"m all for that (laughs.) R.M.: I"m getting ready for high speed access. We"ve started a site called www.egri.com. Here in Missouri, we have decided that a GRI has to demonstrate ability to use the Net. B.E.: That"s amazing. Are we close to requiring Internet basics before issuing a sales license to agents? R.M.: We are talking about eGRI, it is really basic. It evolved from the fact I hear that only 15 percent of Realtors respond to email within 48 hours. That is horrible. I crafted a contest in my own company and I sent out an email, with attached signature, the ability to hperlink, send an electronic postcard, things like that. The consequence was they found their emails got late because of archaic ISPs, outdated browsers, we had tons of discussions about multiple signature lines. We did this over a 60-day period, I got about 50 percent response, and I thought that was slow. After six months, I had a 25 percent response in two hours or less. I wasn"t trying to compete with e-PRO, but I presented the concept to the education committee of Missouri Association of Realtors. It is not the issue whether agents own a computer, they have to be able to communicate.Pages: [1] 2