As we finish the month of May I would like to bring you up to date on some of the meetings I have attended since our last Directors meeting. The spring legislative meetings at OAR were well attended and filled with information on the State bi-annual budget as prepared by Governor Kasich. The budget was first sent to the house of approval and after extensive meetings most of the proposed tax increases proposed by the Governor were removed. The specific issue that our Association has concerns with is inclusion of sales tax collection on real estate commissions. The budget was amended with that provision removed and passed the House. The Bill is now in the Senate and they are holding hearings to determine the direction they want to pursue. The Senate is more in line with the Governor as to tax policy, so OAR will be monitoring this bill closely.
Our legislative dinner was held in Columbus and we had 4 of our 6 State elected officials in attendance. The dinner allows the members to interact with the legislators in a relaxed environment and helps to build relationships. Our local officials attending were State Senator Randy Gardner, and State Representatives Terry Boose, Bill Reineke, and Steve Krause. Senators Gayle Manning and David Burke were not able to attend due to last minute scheduling conflicts.
On April 28th thru May 1st I attended the NAR Mediation training in Chicago. This training was some of the best I have ever attended and gave me a better understanding of both the process and NAR’s goals for the program. The training also touched on the Ombudsman program that will be required by Core Standards effective January 1st,2016.
I attended the local campaign for Senator Randy Gardner, held on May 7th along with several members of the Association who are in his district. We had a good chance to see the Senator and it was timely coming so close to our Columbus event.
On May 11th I traveled to Washington DC to attend NAR’s legislative and Mid-year meetings. On the 12th I attended the Council of Multiple Listing Services workshop. The RESO data dictionary was one of the main topics of discussion at the CMLS meeting. This dictionary is required to standardize data input fields so they transfer to websites. We are required to be in compliance by January 1, 2016. Our vendor Rapattoni is working to ensure we are compliant by the deadline. Another topic was the best practices and MLS certifications that CLMS is developing to ensure all MLS’s are delivering quality services to members.
We had an afternoon meeting with Rapattoni to go over new services and features that are being added to our system. One new feature is the syndication manger, or dashboard that they have added to our system. This feature has the potential to allow Brokers total control of where their data is going. We have the capability of uploading our privacy agreement to this area of the MLS and streamline the data fee process.
On Wednesday I attended the Federal Issues briefing to understand NAR’s positions on policy and legislative issues. A late addition to our legislative efforts was to ask our legislators to sign a letter requesting that Congress approve a grace period for the enforcement of a new closing process for residential transactions, which is to take effect Aug. 1, so parties can become accustomed to the changes. We did ask for their support on this request to delay the penalties on the regulations.
I attended the Association Executives committee meeting next on Wednesday morning. An update on Move Inc. changes to REALTOR.com was presented by Sr. Vice President Russ Cofano. He demonstrated some of the new agent tools that they are providing to associations to give them a fast start. He also discussed the agent ranking system they are promoting. They are requesting sold data to add to the agent rankings. Every listing on realtor.com now prominently displays the listing firm and agent’s name below the primary photo. Realtors also have the opportunity to include up to 36 photos, a marketing paragraph, contact information, showing details, open house dates and more. Brokerage firms now have the capability to include an SEO-friendly hyperlink to the listing display page on that firm’s website. Realtor.com also recently launched new agent profiles. When an agent claims his or her profile, they will receive a free link on their listing page. The profiles are a fully responsive design and allow for social media connectivity.
NAR CEO Dale Stinton then addressed the committee and gave a general overview of the challenges of the changing real estate industry. He reported that 220 of the 1100 local boards have been certified as core standards compliant. He also reported that 710 others are working to meet the June 30th deadline. They have not had any contact from 170 boards and they are in danger of failing to meet the deadline.
RPR had an update on their mission of being a property database for REALTORS. They provide technology and analytics for members and work to reinforce the REALTOR brand. They also provide detailed legislative resources for members to use in working with government officials. RPR Mobile was launched in November and allows easy access to RPR’s property information, reports and tools. It has been designed for Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones. RPR for tablets is scheduled to be launched in 2quarter of this year. It will allow access to RPR via Apple iOS or Android tablet platforms and will include new drawing tools for custom searches.
RPR integration with zipForms was announced at AEI on March 15, 2015. ZipForm Embedded will be integrated directly with RPR Web and mobile via single sign on (SSO). With this partnership zipForm users will be able to generate RPR Reports directly from their forms library. NAR feels this is a high-value combination of two member benefit products with national scale.
My afternoon was spent in my in the AEC workgroup that I am part of. The purpose of this group is review and update NAR’s association management resources to ensure all Core Standards initiatives are incorporated. We were assigned sections to review and worked with NAR staff to rewrite sections that needed additional information. This was the second meeting of this group and we will be working throughout the rest of the year on sections and will meet again at the convention.
Thursday was our hill visit day and we had appointments with all of our representatives.
Congressman Jim Jordan May 14 @ 12:30 pm
Congressman Bob Gibbs May 14 at 1 pm
Congressman Bob Latta May 14 @ 1:15 pm
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur May 14 @ 3:00 pm
The meetings were attended by President Corder, Vice President Riesen, District Vice President Partin and I.
On Friday I attended the Association Executives roundtables and the MLs forum.
In conclusion the past month has been filled with many meetings and professional development classes and I will be digesting the knowledge I have obtained. We are also working on putting the finishing details together on the RPAC fundraiser scheduled for May 28th.
Respectfully submitted,
David W Freitag RCE, CEO