Visualization of The Slow Death of NAR

This is NAR Expo Week in Boston. I have mixed feelings as we gear up for the trip. I used to get so stoked for the NAR conference week. It was THE event of the year. THE place to be. It’s the mile marker that I use to measure year over year growth of the company, the industry and … the event.

My first NAR Annual was in 2003. That show helped me fall in love with our industry. It was hailed as “the mother lode for real estate industry professionals, greenhorns and grizzled veterans alike”  and featured speakers included Dr. Phil and Guy Kawasaki and a performance by Glenn Frey of The Eagles.

I was astonished at the scale of the event. It was massive – on both sides of the street in both huge halls of the Moscone center in San Francisco, with exhibitors jammed everywhere. Over the years, attendance  continued to grow and peaked at around 30,000 attendees before the great financial crisis.

The conversations were non stop and back to back. It was shoulder to shoulder in the aisles. There was so much energy there was lightning in the air. To harness this awesomeness, we created elaborate stages at our booths, and invited the best and brightest to speak on our stage. You can view the last event we did in Boston, 2019 here)

And while I will still attend this week in Boston, now it is a shadow of its former self. Back in 2019 I started writing about the decline of the NAR Expo / NXT when I wrote The End of the NAR Expo Era. But now I can show you specifically how far the event has fallen.

This is the 2019 NAR EXPO in Boston floorplan, overlaid with the 2024 NAR Boston floorplan from this week. While I knew it was bad – It’s Astonishing to compare apples to apples and see the drastic shrinkage.

Its really quite sad to see a once awesome event in its late stages of decline. But as MLS’s began to consolidate – there were fewer attendees. Fewer attendees leads to fewer vendors. And yet the cost kept climbing. They shortened the event a day, reducing its impact. The pandemic forced a year without an event. And now, with CCP and post NAR settlement – it seems the event, the associations and the industry are moving on. We have as well. Rather than a 20×20 island booth with the full team and rented helpers + a DJ, just two of us will attend. Katrina, who you may know runs operations for Revaluate will be joining me at the event.

NAR Expo Death is on the horizon.