The door for Wynd Realty was opened by the National Association of Realtors’ inability to articulate its value-added message. It was — and continues to be today — easy to craft an agnostic board pitch; it writes itself.
Even in 2008, there were plenty of websites pointing to anti-NAR information. The fact that in the previous decade NAR outspent the good ole’ boys of the oil and gas lobby was always good for a quote.
The ongoing legal battles of the newly installed NAR president of the time — elected to turn things around — always got an eye roll. Even today, NAR’s spending turns stomachs.
Koch Industries spent $14 million lobbying in 2014? Comcast and Google, both large lobbyists, combined to spend only $34 million.
Ask an agent with four or five sales a year what he thinks of the $55 million NAR spent on lobbying last year? You will hear agents say: “Why do we have to pay for that? Shouldn’t the franchises and brokerage houses pay for the care and feeding of the industry?”
We had no idea our common sense, anti-board approach would create such anger. We got a lot of negativity. We also got, “Your agents don’t have to pay NAR dues, how did you do that?”
We had more than a few small independent brokers admit to us they thought they were “required” to offer board affiliation. They were shocked to learn they didn’t.
Today, only franchise brokerages in Atlanta force their agents to join realty boards. I suspect because they have to per their franchise agreements.
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