Jay and I just got back home after a busy week in Washington DC where we attended the annual REALTOR midyear conference. It was a jam packed week for me as I pulled double duty, not only did I attend because it is something that I have done for many years and find of tremendous value but also because I am President Elect of the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS.

The week was full of educational sessions, business meetings and hill visits, some of which I needed to attend to fulfill my duties as President Elect but also many sessions that I wanted to attend because doing so benefited my business and added to my knowledge base.

About 8,500 REALTORS from all over the country attended the conference and it was also a great opportunity for us to connect up with many of our  Blogger and Twitter friends from around the country.

The midyear meeting this year held the first  Real Estate Summit: Advancing the U.S. Economy, which was a special day long session and one of the real interesting things that happened during the summit was that Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, announced Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow homeowners (I’m assuming they mean home buyers) to use the $8,000 tax credit as a down payment. That really shook up the crowd of at least a few thousand REALTORS attending the summit meeting.  Using the tax credit as part of closing costs will make a huge  difference to many buyers and I was pretty excited to hear him say that!

You can read the official report/summery at REALTOR.org Updated…there may be some flip flopping going on about whether or not one can use the 8k as down payment.  Stay tuned as I am sure there will be some breaking news on it soon. Updated…Using the tax credit as down payment is now officially off the table.

One other event that really meant a lot to us personally involved a REALTOR/MLS IDX issue that we first heard about when Paula Henry a fellow real estate blogger wrote about her site being targeted because of a so called “google scraping” charge levied against her by her board of  REALTORS.   So,  Paula Henry and fellow Blogger Jay Thompson, flew in to address the MLS committee in DC regarding Google being considered a scraping site.

Paula  talked about the interpretation of the antiquated MLS rule impacting her life and business and Jay spoke passionately on behalf of all real estate bloggers everywhere and more importantly the impact that this rule will have on sellers and buyers! It looked like a viable compromise was reached with the full support of the MLS committee to be presented to the NAR board of directors for final vote on Saturday.   As real estate bloggers this is something that will effect us and our sellers so we were very happy with the outcome of the MLS meeting.

Because I am President Elect of the New Hampshire Association I also serve as an NAR director and my vote would count…or so I thought.

Ultimately a director  of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Board of Realtors (MIBOR) made a motion to table or send the changes back to the MLS Committee for further study. Once a motion is made “To Table” there is no further discussion on the issue. The vote was close but ultimately it was sent back. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the Blogosphere and what comes forward in November when The NAR Board of Directors meet again.

You can read more on the REALTOR.org Blog

Did I say it’s nice to be home?

It is nice to be home and if any of you are ready to take advantage of that $8,000 tax credit/down payment please  give me a call I’d love to help you find a home.