It isn't often that a fundraiser is fun, but the Lafayette Regional Association of Realtors held a "fun" fundraiser last Thursday for its Realtor Political Action Committee (RPAC). Before I tell you about the event, let me tell you about RPAC. Our national trade association, the National Association of Realtors (NAR), is one million member strong and has one of the most meaningful and respected governmental affairs activities, both in Washington and Indianapolis.
Although our lobbying efforts are going to be noticeable due to the size of our membership, our real strength comes through the grass roots nature of our businesses, the breadth of home ownership in the United States ("the American dream") and the critical nature of real assets in the success of most commercial enterprises. RPAC certainly uses its monies to support elected officials who support the norms of private property rights, our real value comes in unique quality of information we can aggregate through our individual MLS's. In Indiana, our local Realtor Associations have agreed to share "sold" information with our state trade association (the Indiana Association of Realtors) to create a real property data base. In the most recent quarterly, we began to release monthly information about statewide and county trends in residential real estate.
Last week, the organizers of our local RPAC fundraising efforts, led by Maggie Stark of our office, hosted "Dancing with the R's" at the Outpost. Patterned off of the TV show, six Realtor members of the Lafayette Regional Association of Reatlors took dancing lessons from Arthur Murray's and competed in a dance competion. The 2009 dancers were Eddie Gallegos, Penny Mattingly, Lisa Godby, Ryan Parker, Deb Talbot, Brett Leuken. All of the dancers were great. They demonstrated courage and finesse. I give all six of them credit for being the center point of a great fundraiser. Everybody had a good time and lots of money was thrown at RPAC.
