The reason was about the association, not the software
At Inman Connect San Diego, Judd Hoffman asked Phil Hawkins, CEO of the California Association of REALTORS®, what made C.A.R. decide this was something every member should have.
His answer never described a feature.
"All of our members do transactions at some point, maybe not every year, but all of our members do transactions."
That sentence is doing more work than it appears. A member benefit has to clear a bar an ordinary product doesn't: it has to be worth something to the whole membership, not just the members who would get the most out of it. Most real estate software fails that test honestly, because it's built for the agents doing the most volume.
The transaction is the exception. It's the one thing every member touches, in whatever year they touch it, and the part-time agent doing two deals has more at stake in getting one right than the agent doing forty.
Then Hawkins named the standard he was applying.
"A trade association is to make our members' lives better, and we're always looking for products such as this that makes our members' lives better."
That's a test the association applies to the product, not a claim the product makes about itself. It's also the reason C.A.R. put member dues behind Ethica rather than negotiating a discount and calling it a partnership. A discount is available to whoever chooses to spend; a member benefit is already theirs.
The full conversation is here.
