Live from San Diego

Hello from sunny San Diego!

Thousands of REALTORS® have descended on the San Diego Convention Center for the 2021 REALTORS® Conference & Expo.

We’re already off to a busy start, especially for the advocacy team and the REALTOR® Party. The community outreach team piloted a Planning and Zoning program this morning to help REALTORS® and association staff more effectively work with local governments to change land use policy and regulations related to housing and community development. In a concurrent session, FEMA Senior Executive David Maurstad joined the Insurance Committee to discuss Risk Rating 2.0 and the ways our organizations can continue to collaborate on creating more resilient communities.

And that was all before noon!

There’s a lot more to come, and whether you’re here with us in San Diego or attending virtually, we hope you will join us for many of these exciting sessions.

Tomorrow morning at 8:00 am Pacific, NAR Chief Advocacy Officer Shannon McGahn will be joined by Vice President of Policy Advocacy Bryan Greene and members of the federal policy team for an update on the latest federal issues impacting REALTORS®.

Then, at 1:30 pm Pacific, the Regulatory Issues Forum will feature Omar Johnson, founder of ØPUS United and former Chief Marketing Officer at Beats by Dre and former Vice President of Marketing at Apple. Called “Minding the Gap,” this session will focus on ways REALTORS® can engage with multigenerational buyers and sellers, primarily millennials and Gen-Z, through technology and innovation.

A study released by NAR earlier this year examined the homebuying challenges these age groups face due to student loan debt and ways to address the growing debt burden to expand homeownership.

On Saturday at 1:30 pm Pacific, CNBC contributor and radio host Ron Insana will join President Charlie Oppler at the Federal Legislative and Political Forum to discuss the current political and economic climate – and how it impacts your business.

We’re also putting a spotlight on fair housing, with two sessions that allow attendees to explore the history of racial discrimination in real estate and examine their own biases.

“Bias Override: Overcoming Barriers to Fair Housing” is a new implicit bias classroom training that NAR will offer next year. It helps real estate professionals learn tactics to interrupt stereotypical thinking and provide equal professional service to every prospect or client. A preview of the training, presented by Afua Addo, deputy director of programs and training at the Perception Institute, is being offered twice on site in San Diego. Keep an eye out for its debut next year.

On Friday at 3:00 pm Pacific, Mabél Guzmán, a broker from Chicago and 2020 NAR vice president of association affairs, will join Rutgers University professor of history Dr. Beryl Satter for “The Past and Future of Family Properties: Overcoming Real Estate’s Historic Harms to Communities of Color.” Dr. Satter tells a deeply personal story of the ways Black Americans in 1960s Chicago were not only excluded from building intergenerational wealth through homeownership but also preyed upon by unscrupulous real estate operators who drained billions of dollars from their community. This session will examine the obstacles this history still creates today and what REALTORS® are doing to ensure our industry helps all Americans build wealth and community.

That’s just a taste of everything this year’s REALTORS® Conference & Expo has to offer. The agenda is packed here in San Diego, and we look forward to a great weekend of networking, inspiring conversations, and sharing ideas to move our industry forward.