I’m in San Diego for the 2009 National Association of Realtors  (NAR) Convention.  I go to quite a few real estate conferences each year to find out what other agents are doing successfully in their markets, what is new and hot technology wise, and to drum-up some business.  When I speak, I usually get a couple of referrals that week.  I’m not speaking this time, so it has been more relaxing connecting with old friends and rumaging through the expo which is the best collection of vendors catering to the real estate trade in the world.  The number of vendors focusing on short sales  has dramatically risen, which is another indicator of the national real estate market.

Condoleezza Rice was the featured keynote speaker.  U.S. realtors are politically conservative for the most part, so she was welcomed as a hero receiving multiple standing ovations.  Being the good New Yorker, I was skeptical.  After playing to the crowd with references to our country’s greatness and her gratitude for our servicemen, I was pleasantly surprised to hear her express her views on our viability and security as a nation.  She strayed from the ex-administration’s policies and put forth her beliefs that our security depends on finding a way to make life better in the most depressed areas of the world, for that is where unrest and terrorism thrives, especially if those countries’ governments cannot control their boders; and, the American Dream of improving your lot in life, or your children’s lot in life, is key to our continued viability.  She focused on quality education for the economically depressed in our country as the means of keeping the dream alive. 

On a side note, both the keynote speaker and the current President of NAR, Charles McMillan, are African Americans.  Times are changing.

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