Ancient NAR & MIBOR Leaders Carve Out New Laws In Stone

A highly respected tribe leader that had settled in Indiana was upset over a competing tribe member advertising his caves for sale.  He brought his grievance up with his local higher powers named MIBOR.

MIBOR wasn't sure how to interpret these ancient scrolls and they contacted the highest powers that be  called NAR.  Together, they reviewed these ancient scrolls to come to an agreed upon interpretation.

Even though the complaining tribe leader had signed an agreement of reciprocity, he did not understand what that meant.  He did not like sharing his wares with others.  He wanted to be the only tribe allowed to sell his inventory of caves.  Any cave buyers had to come directly to him to purchase his inventory.

Smoke Signals

You see, this ancient tribe leader had heard about and had even witnessed communication via smoke signals, which allowed tribes to speak far and wide instead of face to face.  But he never anticipated that his cave selling business would be affected by this method of communication. 

He was angry that this competing tribe member learned of a way to make her communications stand out above his own.  He did not think it was fair, hence his complaint.

The competing tribe member was forced to change her method of sending smoke signals.  This new law affected all cave sellers that worked under the higher power of MIBOR.  This law could affect all cave sellers in other areas of our great land.

Back to the Future

I cannot help but laugh at what is occurring over at MIBOR because it is so backward and ridiculous.  Yet it is not a laughing matter and if we don't band together it could happen to all of us, even in 2009.

To think that one member had enough clout to create such an interpretation of existing rules is unbelievable.  This one member does not want another member in his board to have an advantage over him and instead of learning how to compete he “tattles” in a successful attempt to pull this competitor (and others) down.  Is this really happening?  Pinch me, I must be sleeping and having a nightmare.

And for any broker or agent that says this isn't a big deal and what's all the fuss, don't even bother.  I have had many top and first place positions in Google for my important keywords and am constantly working on more.  I attained these serps before I ever instituted my custom idx.  So I agree that allowing individual listings to be indexed isn't necessary to compete in the search engines.  But what is happening is a big deal and it's an idiotic ruling.

If we choose to set-up and pay for a custom idx, what is the harm?  Why can't an SEO savvy real estate webmaster try to improve their website and improve their search for local buyers and sellers?  And don't give me that stupid scraping excuse.  In fact, out of the many wonderful posts and articles out there, this is one of my favorites by Ryan Hartman telling how he easily scraped Realtor.com.

Some say that's the only reason for this stupid rule – that NAR is trying to protect Realtor.com.  But this started with MIBOR.  So I don't buy that.  Read Morgan Carey's post about MIBOR.

I wrote my letter of concern to Cliff Niersbach.  I guess I really need to think about joining a committee although I'm going to have to speak with someone at the board as I don't see anything related to the MLS or technology.

I hope Paula Henry and Jay Thompson get through to someone at today's committee meeting.  I do not see how this ruling is protecting the public.  It is only protecting those dinosaur brokers/agents that refuse to learn how to compete online.