John Hall & Associates | Successful Agents | Greater Phoenix, AZ Real Estate Agency

RE Barcamp San Diego session: Introduction to RPR

The first session I sat through really wasn’t a technology session at all, but more of an informational session about the newly announced NAR program called RPR (REALTORS® Property Resource).  If you haven’t heard of RPR, I recommend reading the information NAR posted on REALTOR.org.  There you will find a press release, fact sheet, and webinar that goes through some of the screen shots I’ll include below.  Then, if you are a fan of intelligent writing from the dark side, check out Rob Hahn’s post about the Death of RPR.  To tell you the truth, there is much more to learned from those readings than what I can explain here or what was explained at barcamp.  No worries, I’d like to give you a flavor of the session.

Reggie Nicolay (Director of Social Media for RPR), Neil Pinchin (Web-designer for RPR), and Todd Carpenter (Social Media Manager for the NAR) were on the hot seat fielding questions for about half an hour.  They didn’t get too many beginner level questions.  Instead they they got CEO, COO, and MLS Consultant level questions. It seemed to me the majority of the questioneers were looking for definitive answers on, what pieces of the RPR database can be shared and how? Given that RPR was announced about a week prior to this event, it was no surprise that there were a lot of unanswered questions.

Unfortunately, there were no visual aids that could be used to help focus the presentation on the benefits to the REALTORS®.  The most basic way to explain what RPR plans to do is merge MLS data with all the public records data they can get their hands on for the entire country. After the creation of this massive database of information that includes every parcel in the US of A, REALTORS® will be able to login and gain access to an extremely slick portal of information.

With a tool of this magnitude comes fears of a National MLS, among other things. RPR has repeated in several places they have no intention of turning this into an MLS – there will be no offers of compensation within the system.

Once RPR has parcel information for the entire country they are going to have quite the unique product to sell.  Some MLS’s would like to be included in some of the profit sharing.

Like all things, there are pros and cons.  Like all change, it’s scary. The way I look at, I’m glad the NAR is involved some how some way.  To tell you the truth, I’ve gone back and forth on whether I think this is a good idea, but from what I know now – I’m for it.  As local broker Jay Thompson says, “I don’t get, at all, why an agent wouldn’t want as much RE data as possible.”

I’m sure we’ll have more to talk about down the road.  Until then here are a couple of screen shots from the webinar posted on REALTOR.org.

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