REALTORS® in Maryland and Louisiana ran successful issue campaigns to stop local governments from using their power of eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages. The Maryland Association got a two-year moratorium on the practice while the state legislature studies the issue. The Louisiana Association got an all-out ban on the…...
Two Chicago-Area REALTOR® Associations Host Housing Expo and Trolley Tour with Housing Opportunity Grant
The City of Aurora, on the west side of Chicago, has been lauded as a highly livable city. It has a strong down-payment assistance program, and plenty of affordable housing -- yet a high percentage of the employees working in Aurora commute from elsewhere. The 15,000-member Mainstreet Organization of REALTORS®…...
Missouri REALTORS® Use Power of Polling to Stop Tax Threat to Real Estate
For the second year in a row, the Missouri REALTORS® (MR) blocked a deep-pocketed individual from advancing his plan to eliminate the state income tax. The burden for filling the revenue void would likely have fallen on real estate sales and services, which would have hit MR’s 18,000 members square…...
DC REALTORS® Make “Heavy Lift” to Help Elect Champion to City Council
The 2,400-member District of Columbia Association of REALTORS® (DCAR) had long been at odds with the City Council member from Ward 1, a 16-year incumbent and a staunch advocate for higher real estate taxes and more rent control. One opposition candidate, Brianne Nadeau, looked like a promising alternative, but she…...
Ada County (ID) Association Makes Strides in Employer-Assisted Housing
No one ever said it would be quick or easy. But the Ada County Association of REALTORS® (ACAR) stuck to its conviction that focusing on workforce housing is good for everyone in a community. The 3,000-member association is finally beginning to see results from its years of diligent Employer Assisted…...
San Diego REALTORS® Help Defeat Proposed “Jobs Tax”
The Greater San Diego Association of REALTORS® (SDAR) needed a lot of signatures -- 34,000 authentic and verifiable signatures, to be exact. That was the number required to get a referendum on the ballot to overturn an onerous fee increase on developers of office buildings and mixed-use residential developments....
New Orleans REALTORS® Rally Behind Proven REALTOR® Champion Mayor Mitch Landrieu
In a rare tempest of the calendar, the 4,200-member New Orleans Metropolitan Association of REALTORS® found itself with precious little time to launch an independent expenditure campaign for Mayor Mitch Landrieu's re-election. This was thanks to an unlikely confluence of the date of its new trustees' installation and first PAC…...