After committing $15M, NAR walks away from Upstream

Company will announce new vendor in January

NAR CEO Bob Goldberg
NAR CEO Bob Goldberg

After pumping $15 million into UpstreamRE, the National Association of Realtors is ditching the data management platform.

The organization announced on Wednesday that it will no longer serve as Upstream’s vendor, Inman reported.

“As I’ve said since the beginning of my tenure as CEO, we are not in the business of inventing at NAR; we’ve supported Upstream to the extent that makes sense for both our strategic missions and now it is time for them step out on their own,” NAR CEO Bob Goldberg said in a statement.

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NAR began committing money to Upstream in 2015, billing the portal as a single point of entry for residential listings nationwide. But members became frustrated with the delayed rollout of the platform as their dues continued to flow to Upstream with little progress. The task of building Upstream fell to Realtors Property Resource, a property database and NAR subsidiary. In August, NAR cut RPR’s staff by 10 percent.

Upstream plans to announce a new vendor in January. [Inman] — Kathryn Brenzel