HousingWireHousingWire
There is no denying that Nykia Wright joined the National Association of Realtors (NAR) at a major inflection point for both the industry and the trade organization.
“The travesty and joke is that the same day I signed my interim CEO contract was the day the verdict (in the Sitzer/Burnett suit) came out,” Wright, the CEO of NAR, told attendees at HousingWire’s The Gathering on Monday morning.
“I sort of wanted to pull my contract back across the table, but it appeared that that was not an option, so I had to lean in and sort of figure it out. It has been a whirlwind, but we are putting things in place to make sure we transform this association.”
Wright, who was named NAR’s permanent CEO in August 2024, recently celebrated her 18-month anniversary at the association. She told attendees that much of the past year and a half has been focused on creating her team to help NAR achieve its goal of transformation.
“I finally have my senior leadership team in place,” she said. “We are really about to start cooking with grease because we have the team in place and now we have to start.”
Governance structure
As Wright looks to bring NAR into the future, there are a few key areas she and her team are focusing on.
“One of the projects that I set forth is that for the first time in our history, we are looking at our entire rules portfolio,” Wright said. “There have been a lot of complaints, and rightly so, around our rules and we need to change that.”
Wright said that efforts to de-risk NAR’s rules portfolio led to changes for its hate speech policy and a rescission of the optional no-comminging rule at its board of directors meeting last week.
In addition to examining NAR’s rules portfolio, Wright also said she is examining NAR’s governance structure.
“The governance structure is large — I will certainly yield to that as it is not even debatable — but there is a lot of good work that gets done,” Wright said. “Many of you in this room or your colleagues are all in governance, and I think it is important that everyone here understands that your colleagues are the ones helping make those decisions.
“They are the ones in the room, bringing ideas to the forefront and causing us to vote on things. So it is not only important that we look at the size of the governance structure, but that we also examine who is making those decisions.”
As part of this effort, Wright said she’s hoping to continue professionalizing this aspect of the association so that people understand the truly difficult nature of being on a committee or on the board.
“We are looking at the qualifications across the board to make sure that we are actually bringing people into the organization and into the governance structure that can help us lead and get to tomorrow,” she said.
As Wright looks to bring back NAR as a leader of the industry, she’s hoping to have the trade group lead by example and be an organization that members can see themselves in.
“For the first time in over 10 years, we had a balanced budget and we also have a balanced budget for next year even with the expected decrease in membership,” Wright said. “We are really bringing those basic, foundational business principles back to NAR so that people can see themselves in the association.”
Reversing a ‘slow decline’
Looking ahead, Wright said NAR is focused on helping members get their next deal.
“Our ultimate goal moving forward is to be a better partner for the industry, whether that is as a complement or a supplement,” Wright said. “NAR lost its way 15 or so years ago and there has been sort of this slow decline to the relevance of the organization.”
During this slide in relevance, one area in which many agree NAR still stands out is in its advocacy efforts. But while advocacy will remain a major focus for NAR, Wright noted that based on surveys of the membership, Realtors also want education, events and research.
“We are working on putting all of that together, and I don’t think that many people in this room know all that we could be capable of,” Wright said.
According to Wright, NAR’s biggest underrated strength right now is its ability to listen. As part of its effort to leverage this asset, Wright said she has had conversations with 49 of the 51 brokerages left out of the NAR settlement.
“We are also having conversations with state and local organizations who were kind of left out of the conversations in the past,” Wright said. “We are bringing everyone to the table at the same time — it is very difficult, but it is necessary.”
Opening up all of these conversations has resulted in a long list of wishes and demands from these various parties.
“We are finding out the common ground of what everyone wants and then, from there, we are figuring out what we need to do next,” she said.
Although there’s clearly a laundry list of items that NAR and Wright are looking to accomplish, she’s confident that it isn’t too late for the trade group to turn the narrative around.
“Do not give up on the play until the play clock runs out — that is how I am looking at it,” Wright said. “Yes, we have made mistakes. Yes, we’ve got a long way to go, but the play clock is not over until it’s over. We are going to keep competing for your confidence.”
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