NNEREN Talking Points
November 19, 2014
- The NNEREN Board of Directors, staff leadership and representatives of NNEREN’s 26 Shareholder Boards of Realtors® met for two days at a company retreat designed to examine the state of the industry and plan NNEREN’s path forward. With the experienced guidance of a leading industry consultant, Kevin McQueen, the future services and technology of the MLS was considered in depth. The initial stages of an action plan were agreed upon and will be the basis of further strategic discussions and initiatives throughout the year. Transition to a state of the art MLS software system, seeking to expand partnering opportunities with neighboring MLS’s, improvements to member services and changes to our public facing website are all to be part of the activities planned for 2015.
- As the Board considered the action plan items from the retreat, there was a discussion and analysis of existing company resources available to implement these and other future changes. Recognizing a clear need to carry out various improvements and objectives for this year and beyond, the Board approved re-instating a 3 manager organizational staffing model, feeling the current 2 manager model would limit the ability of NNEREN to enact changes quickly and efficiently. This new vacancy in our senior management will be filled within the earliest possible timeframe. The Board further authorized an addition to the member service team staffing as it saw benefits to bolstering technical expertise that are increasingly required to keep the MLS on pace with new technologies.
- Staff provided the Board with an update on recent meetings and events at this year’s NAR convention. Changes to NAR policy on member website displays, and several data feed contract options were discussed. Specifically, NAR has made changes that now require MLS’s to permit sold listing displays on members websites, increased the requirement to refresh data displays from 3 days to 12 hours and will now permit co-mingling of MLS data with other MLS listings on member display sites. An update on Core Logic’s Realist public records service was also provided, and staff is currently testing the extent of which any improvements to that service are helping to resolve past data coverage concerns.