On May 7, Realtors® from across America convened in Washington DC for the 2023 REALTORS® Legislative Meetings. The Minneapolis Area Realtors® joined the Minnesota Realtors® for five days of advocating at the national level for affordable housing, deliberating on nation-wide association priorities, and to promote the Realtor® brand at our Nation’s capital. Early in the week, Minnesota’s Federal Political Coordinators, including our past Presidents Kath Hammerseng and Pat Paulson, met with members of Congress to encourage support for a slate of federal initiatives NAR believes will better our real estate industry and your businesses.

Throughout this national conference, our Realtor® leaders attended information sessions about how to better our association services and debate topics that keep us on the leading edge of the real estate industry. From improving marketing strategies using A.I. technology to economic forecasts from the nation’s top researchers, there was a wealth of knowledge our leadership was able to bring back to the Twin Cities. Our scholarship recipients from the Jean Leake Emerging Markets Scholarship and the Ann Brockhouse Future Leader Scholarship attended many of these sessions, seeing first-hand the benefits of attending this mid-year conference.

Towards the end of the week, the NAR Board of Directors met to ratify the work of our NAR Committees. We at MAR are proud to see the national Board pass many initiatives that were focused on making both our association membership and our industry more equitable across the United States. Below are highlights of the successfully passed national changes at NAR:

• NAR Board of Directors are required take the following during the first four months of their term in 2024 (This will be a qualification requirement beginning in 2025):
  • At Home with Diversity
  • Bias Override: Overcoming Barriers to Fair Housing
  • Fairhaven
• Nation-wide 2 hours of Fair Housing training requirement, beginning in 2025