The Start of Something Big
The strength of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
® today reflects the ambitious vision of its founders: the 120 men who gathered in May 1908 at a Young Men's Christian Association hall in Chicago. Their stated goal was "to unite the real estate men of America for the purpose of exerting effectively a combined influence upon matters affecting real estate interests."
It wasn't the first attempt to organize a national association for the real estate industry, but the visionary players involved and the timing of the meeting made this an effort that was destined to succeed. The country had recovered from a major depression, and the population - added by a big influx of immigrants, mostly from Europe - was shifting from rural to urban. Real estate was becoming a complex business, one that required the assistance of someone in the know.
The founders sought to bring professionalism to an enterprise that had evolved more or less without rules. They understood that to earn the trust of a skeptical public, they needed to bring form and standards to the business of real estate. The foundation they built has proved enduring. What emerged from that meeting in 1908 was the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges, which 100 years later thrives as the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
®.
Homeownership in America
Homeownership benefits not only the owners themselves, but also the community society at large. Is there an ideal more deeply ingrained in American culture? Probably not. In 1900, fewer than half of U.S. households owned their own home. Today the number approaches 70 percent. Perhaps no group has done more to promote the ideal of a home-owning nation than the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
®.
"Widespread homeownership is the bulwark of democracy," declared the association journal in 1934, in a resolution thanking President Franklin Roosevelt and the Congress for creating the Federal Housing Administration, legislation in which NAR played a
key role.
Ten years earlier, the association - then known as the National Association of Real Estate Boards - had added a preamble to its Code of Ethics, opening with the words: "Under all is the land. Upon its wise utilization and widely allocated ownership depends the survival and growth of free institutions and of our civilization."
That phrase lives on today as a touchstone for the association's mission of expanding home-ownership opportunities. In 2003, NAR President Cathy Whatley said in her REALTOR
® Magazine column, "Ownership brings about a sense of belonging, an emotional connection, not just to the home itself but also to the neighborhood and community in which home owners live and work."
As early as the 1940s, most Americans identified themselves as middle class, and owning a home was one of the key ways they defined their status, said Jeffrey Hornstein in his 2005 book A Nation of REALTORS
® (Duke University Press). "The cultural and political work of the REALTORS
® and their allies in Washington and elsewhere definitively associated the American dream with homeownership," Hornstein wrote. "Today it is virtually redundant to speak of the 'American dream of homeownership.'"
Walking the Walk
The United States' entry into World War I, besides turning the tide for the country's allies in Europe, marked the beginning of a long and often symbiotic relationship between REALTORS
® and the federal government. President Woodrow Wilson signed this country's first selective service law in 1917, compelling men ages 18 to 25 to register for the draft. But the nation's businessmen wanted to do their part for the war effort, too, and REALTORS
® were no exception. Their volunteer work during the war drew the personal praise of Wilson.
Since then, REALTORS
® have continued to make their presence felt in Washington, advocating on behalf of the real estate industry and the nation's property owners. Among other things, REALTORS
® have fought to gain favorable tax treatment for real estate, eliminate postwar rent controls, and increase home-ownership opportunities. Over time, the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
® has built one of the largest political action committees in the country and deployed state-of-the-art technology to marshal its grassroots forces. But its strength still comes down to the shoe leather its members wear out maintaining personal contact with federal lawmakers.
Evolving Conscience
In his seminal novel Native Son, published in 1940, Richard Wright describes a Chicago where African Americans live in a Black Belt with poor housing conditions and inflated prices. Wright traces the anger of his protagonist, the murderous Bigger, directly to the real estate industry. "No white real estate man," Bigger thinks, "would rent a flat to a black man other than in the sections where it had been decided that black people might live."
More than a decade before the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
® was founded, the U.S. Supreme Court laid the groundwork for segregation, establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson. And for the first half of the twentieth century, the "separate" part was taken as a matter of course in real estate. Land developers routinely declared "No Negroes" in their marketing materials and imposed restrictive covenants to prevent owners from reselling to blacks and other minorities. Even after such covenants had been struck down in court, minorities faced discrimination in the purchase and financing of homes, and association leaders trod awkwardly over how a fair housing law would impact owners' rights.
In the 39 years since passage of the Fair Housing Act, however, the association has evolved into a leader in the promotion of equal housing opportunity — developing landmark education for its members, seeding programs for minority home buyers, seeking out a more diverse membership, and building bridges with minority real estate associations. NAR today celebrates the country’s racial and ethnic diversity and strives to make the benefits of real property ownership available to all.
City Sculptors
From the start, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
® members have played a role in their communities that has extended well beyond facilitating real estate transactions. W.W. Hannan, 1909 president of the association, likened the real estate man seeing "a vision of a city ten, twenty years hence" to a "sculptor [who] sees the imprisoned Venus in a block of marble, an artist [who sees] a Madonna looking out from the bare canvas."
1 REALTORS
® were among the earliest community planners and continue to play an integral role in shaping their communities, whether serving on housing commissions or in other civic functions or volunteering their time for the community good.
The national association has both facilitated and recognized REALTORS
®' involvement in communities. The association's early leaders helped lay the foundation for community planning. Much later, beginning in the late 1990s, NAR helped shape the burgeoning smart growth movement in a way that recognized the rights of owners and the needs of future buyers.
To encourage and showcase community involvement by its members, NAR has instituted a range of programs, from the long-running annual REALTOR
® Week campaign initiated in 1956 to today's Habitat for Humanity and REALTOR
® Magazine Good Neighbor Awards programs.
The March of Progress
From hopeful but modest beginnings, the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® today is recognized as a world leader in the promotion of private property ownership and a champion of innovation. Today, the real estate business is a huge factor in the national economy - together, residential and commercial real estate represent more than 19 percent of the nation's gross domestic product - and NAR is the largest association representing the business. The membership is a complex stew of large companies, small businesses, and independent contractors working in a variety of specialties and an array of business models, but all attracted to the promise of succeeding in a profession that offers unlimited earning potential. NAR's ability to keep all those elements working toward common goals says a lot about the wisdom of the association's structure, with state and local associations working together with the national association to serve members and consumers. But the association's strength also comes from its ability to embrace and lead through change. Starting with the push for licensing and professional standards, and continuing through the sweeping technological advancements of the past 15 years, the association has been at the forefront of many of the evolutionary - and revolutionary - changes in the business of real estate.
Copyright National Association of REALTORS®, Reprinted with permission.