Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

This week I’m down in New Orleans for the National Association of Realtor’s (NAR) annual convention.

Nothin says “New Orleans” quite a well as Jackson Square and the St. Louis Cathedral in the heart of the Famed French Quarter. The mounted rider is General Andrew Jackson; the statue commerates his victory over the French during the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

There was some doubts early on about holding it in New Orleans because of the horrible damage done to this are by Hurricane Katrina.

I’m delighted to report the Big Easy is well on its way to recovery and was able to very graciously accomodate close to 30,000 of my fellow Realtors for our convention and trade show.

Here’s a video NAR President Tom Stevens made in April of 2006 to show where New Orleans was then. It was doing well then; its doing GREAT now!

It was touching to have my cabdriver from the airport and several other local employees say “Thank you” for taking a chance and having your convention here.

This is the biggest event to take place in New Orleans post Katrina.

Great gathering; our keynote speakers were former Presidents Bush and Clinton; an odd couple who oddly enough work very well together.

For those of you that may be concerned about water quality, air, etc., the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has sampled most everything that could be sampled around New Orleans and pronounced it safe.

“We basically sampled the entire Lake Pontchartrain, and we never found anything that would cause any concern,” he said.The same holds true for air quality and other supposed threats to normal life and health, DEQ toxicologist Tom Harris said.“There really are not environmental conditions that would keep people from coming back and moving back to New Orleans, coming here and raising a family, but I talk to people every day that haven’t gotten that message,” Harris said. “If you hear once that it’s not safe, you have to hear it three times that it’s safe before it finally sinks in.”

NAR dubbed their New Orleans convention “NARdi Gras” and it was a show. Friday night we had a huge street parade through the French Quarter with floats and all. Each state had supplies of NARdi Gras beads made up with a state theme on each one. Georgia’s beads were judged best of show with their two peaches dangling.

Saturday night Harry Connick Jr. entertained with a concert attened by around 6,000 fans.

But it wasn’t all play and no work. We left 55 Habitat for Humanity homes either built or framed up for New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents. In addition, we helped clean up City Park, sorted books at the public library, worked on De La Salle High School, and much more.

Monday we had our Board of Directors meeting to finish up the convention business, so today & tomorrow its back home and back to work for a bunch of tired and happy Realtors; NARdi Gras was a smash success and so is New Orleans.

The world famous Cafe du Monde is still serving those same wonderful Beignets & Chicory cafe au lait you remember from your last visit.

Thank you New Orleans for having us and showing us such a great time.