NAR Adjust Dues, Adds Fair Housing Requirement

At the NAR Board of Directors meeting on May 11, 2023, in Washington, DC, the directors approved the national Association’s 2024 budget and dues, added a fair housing training requirement for new and existing members, and elected its 2024 officers.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the board’s decisions that will affect our EMTAR members and other REALTORS^® and brokers:

–  “The directors approved the association’s 2024 operating, advocacy, and consumer ad campaign budgets, setting 2024 dues at $156.” This will be a $6 increase from $150 in 2023.

– Beginning with the 2025 Code of Ethics cycle, new applicants for NAR membership will be required to complete two hours of fair housing training, and existing members will be required to complete two hours every three years as a condition of membership. At Home with Diversity and Bias Override satisfy the course requirements, and Fairhaven will be updated to meet the two-hour requirement and serve as a no-cost option.

– Here in Eastern Middle Tennessee, we have seen what many others are experiencing: a shortage of workers available to build new housing (as well as to work in other labor-intensive industries). To help alleviate that issue, the NAR board “approved a policy that [will] encourage federal efforts and collaboration within the real estate industry to support programs that will expand the workforce in the construction industry to relieve labor and housing shortages.”

– On the taxation front, capital gains continues to be a much-discussed topic among buyers and sellers in EMTAR’s service area and far beyond. The NAR board “approved a recommendation to support tax policy that provides a reduced capital gains tax rate to existing owners (as of the date of enactment) of qualified one- to four-unit rental properties who sell to an owner-occupant. The incentive would have the effect of reducing prices, since investors wouldn’t have to charge as much to yield the same return, and increasing the inventory of available homes for first-time buyers.”

– In the realm of conventional finance, the NAR board “approved a policy that NAR opposes the sale, exchange and use of trigger leads for marketing of a mortgage loan.”

The Board of Directors meeting capped off the 2023 REALTORS^® Legislative Meetings. Nearly 9,000 REALTORS^® were in town to advocate on behalf of the real estate industry and property ownership.

Read the full report from the NAR board meeting here.