The headlines might suggest that National Association of Realtors (NAR) members are struggling to find common ground on many issues. But any hint of division was nowhere to be seen during Monday morning’s NAR Board of Directors meeting.
According to NAR president Kevin Sears, 886 directors attended the meeting at the NAR NXT annual conference in person, with another 100 directors attending virtually.
Although Sears has already acknowledged that 2025 may be a financially challenging year for NAR, the trade organization should be in good financial shape in the long term if the commission lawsuit settlement is approved later this month, said NAR treasurer Greg Hrabcak.
He said the 2025 budget will maintain NAR’s current reserve level, and there are no dues increases scheduled for the year.
“Through the budget reductions that were incorporated in the other proposal, there is minimal impact on our products, services and advocacy support,” Hrabcak said. “Nearly all areas of NAR contributed to the reductions, without any on area feel a disproportionate impact. The 2025 budget moves NAR forward on the path to settlement fulfillment in a very disciplined and responsible fashion.”
The positive news about NAR’s budget comes from the fact that the trade association’s anticipated big drop in membership has not materialized — it had 1.526 million members at the end of October, the fourth-highest all-time. NAR is forecasting 1.4 million members in 2025, an 8% decline but not nearly as stark has many outside observers have anticipated.
All three budget related proposals presented by Hrabcak easily passed with no discussion.
NAR’s board also heard and voted on proposals presented by the trade group’s recently established Culture Transformation Commission (CTC), which was led by Ryan Davis and Christina Pappas.
The CTC presented one item for vote to the Board, which was a new requirement for NAR volunteer members and staff to complete annual training on all the policies and procedures related to accountability. The requirement would go into place in 2026, and it would ensure NAR leaders and staff “understand” how to properly handle and process sexual harassment complaints, among other things. The Board approved the rule 858 to 47.
Other votes:
- The board voted to amend the application for NAR elected and appointed office to include a question on whether the candidate has had a professional audit of their social media within the last three years. Additionally, candidates will have to agree to the NAR Leader’s social media guidelines and all elected and appointed officials will be subject to at least an annual audit of their social media. Candidates running for President-Elect, First Vice President and Treasurer will be subject to a “media audit.”
- In addition to this recommendation, the Board also approved a measure to extend the application submission period for NAR elected officials to run for four months from January 1 to April 1, beginning in 2026. Committee chair Leslie Rouda-Smith said this change would allow the trade group to properly vet potential candidates.
- The final measure brought before the board was an item presented by the Leadership Team to allow the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) a non-voting member on NAR’s leadership team. According to NAR leadership, CREA has offered NAR a similar seat on its leadership team. While the Board was not voting on the item, as it was being sent for further discussion and voting with the delegate body, the measure was contentious. Despite the objections, the Board voted 754 to 131 to send the motion back to the leadership team for further discussion.