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National Association of Realtors President Kevin Sears said Tuesday he will lead the 1.56 million-member organization through thorny terrain and look to the future in the wake of a $418 million commission settlement. look back.
Sears joins NextHome CEO James Dwiggins and chief strategy officer Keith Robinson on Tuesday’s show “Unfiltered Real Estate Insider” Podcast Shedding light on NAR during a chaotic moment for the real estate industry. In the series, Sears acknowledged that NAR could better communicate its value to members and the public, but he expressed no concern about a new organization — the American Real Estate Association — competing for members.
“I’ve always been a person who looks to the future,” Sears said, adding that currently, NAR executives are sorting through their finances to narrow down plans to pay the massive settlement. “I’m encouraged that we can get this done.”
In October, NAR formed cultural transformation committee The committee, made up of realtors, staff and state and local members, will be charged with making recommendations for changes within the organization in the coming months, Sears said on the podcast. The recommendations could be used to prevent a repeat of 2023, when several leaders resigned amid allegations of workplace misconduct highlighted in internal reports. Explore Recent indiscretions.
Sears also opened up about his rapid rise to the presidency after Tracy Kasper’s sudden resignation in January. Sears, the president-elect and next in line to succeed Casper, recalled telling his wife that the moment could come as early as the next day.
The next day, after he learned that Casper was resigning and that Sears would take her place, his wife called. “She said, ‘How are you feeling?’ and I said, ‘Now I don’t know if I’m going to throw up or something is going to happen to my pants.'”
But he said the feeling was fleeting.
“There was an immediate shift in my mindset,” Sears said, adding, “‘OK, there’s something that has to get done now.'”
Sears said that in the three months since becoming president, he has focused on relying on NAR employees to deliver value to members and create stability for the organization.
“I’m empowering employees to do their jobs,” Sears said. “It’s their job, not mine.”
Sears said he asked Nykia Wright to stay on as interim chief executive until the end of the year. NAR has not previously publicly set an end date for Wright’s contract; its November announcement She will serve while the group conducts a nationwide search for a permanent chief executive.
Sears said there was a vacuum within the organization’s communications team, noting that the company was without a communications director in the fall.
“Where there’s a void, it’s filled in, but it’s not always filled with truth,” Sears said. “I say we need to communicate better not just with our members, but with consumers, the media and stakeholders.”
Sears also revealed how news of the proposed NAR settlement became public on March 15, advising plaintiffs’ attorneys to leak the news to New York Timesthe news came about an hour before the two sides agreed to the embargo.
“We developed a communications plan for the settlement,” Sears said. “We issued a suppressed press release … and we abide by the agreement reached in the settlement.”
“We have to be vocal,” Sears said of the communications plan. “So that puts us on the defensive.”
NAR agreed to pay $418 million to settle lawsuits that alleged it participated in an illegal conspiracy to inflate real estate agent commissions. Sears said NAR also protected more than 1 million members while trying to resolve the case.
Now it’s taking steps to see where to raise the money. Sears said NAR is working with financial experts to examine its own financial position “to figure out how we will accurately meet our financial obligations under this settlement.”
He did not suggest that NAR would be unable to pay, nor did he say whether members would face higher dues next year because the organization will pay its settlement costs over the next several years.
“Are there going to be some changes to the association? We don’t know yet,” Sears said. “Will there be some streamlining? It’s possible, but we don’t know yet.”
“We have to look at this and be careful about where we get our resources from and how we ensure that the association can continue to provide the resources, tools, programs and advocacy that our members have come to expect,” he added.
Sears revealed that NAR always knew it might settle the case and, in fact, discussed the possibility of a settlement while the case was ongoing. Say otherwise publicly.
“There were reconciliation conversations before, during and after the trial,” he said.
Sears took the opportunity to throw shade at an upstart challenger from NAR, which calls itself the National Association of Real Estate. The new trade group is led by Compass agent Jason Haber and the agency’s chief executive, Mauricio Umansky.
“One of the things I really like about this thought process is, first of all, I don’t think they can compete with us just on publicity,” Sears said of the new team. “But competition makes us better. We interact with our competitors every day, and that makes us better. So any opportunity to make us better, I welcome.”
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