'NAR needs to suck less'

Hey, that's a direct quote and we didn't say it so don't shoot the messenger. We bring it up because it was the quote that stood out most from the blogosphere this week and it came from one of NAR's own members, Athol Kay, a real estate agent in Connecticut.

Kay's quote stands out because of the context it comes from. A post this week over at the NAR Wisdom blog pontificates on why the National Association of Realtors needs a social media director. NAR hasn't exactly embraced the real estate blogging community with open arms and some bloggers have been criticizing the organization for not only this, but also for what appears to be a serious misunderstanding of what blogs are and how to use them effectively.

The topic sparked an involved discussion among commenters and even drew NAR's own CEO Dale Stinton to comment:

"I have been reading a lot of blogger comments about social media lately that suggest NAR is late to the blogosphere party. I guess the way I see it, we’ve actually been going to a lot of consumer and communication parties lately – but the bottom line is: most of these folks’ observations about our participation in blogs (no matter how kind or unflattering) are right!

"We need to engage in the real estate conversation everywhere, not so much to convince, but to show we give a hoot."

This feels like a pretty significant development -- NAR's CEO is now engaging directly with the blogging community. (We presume Stinton actually wrote the comments and they didn't come from a handler.)

While many real estate blogs are set up to be consumer-reaching channels and SEO prize-winners, the medium also presents an opportunity for the real estate industry to engage in informal and genuine conversations about serious issues that affect everyone in the business. Formerly more of a back-hallway-type discussion, blogs pull these points of view to the Internet, where agents from all over the world can read and participate.

And now we know that these discussions can get loud enough to reach NAR's upper echelons. Surely, that means something.

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