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What will Tuesday’s election mean for the real estate industry?
Thousands of NAR NXT attendees got the scoop Nov. 8 during a live-to-tape edition of The Advocacy Scoop podcast, featuring National Association of REALTORS® Chief Advocacy Office Shannon McGahn and Director of Advocacy Communications Patrick Newton. The duo co-hosts the podcast monthly, offering an inside look at NAR’s advocacy work.
Successes from Coast to Coast
McGahn and Newton thanked REALTORS® and state and local associations for their work in electing REALTOR® champions at the national, state and local level and mobilizing on critical issues.
“A friendly reminder,” McGahn said at the outset. “We do not get involved in presidential elections.”
Ninety-eight percent of congressional candidates who received support from the REALTORS® Political Action Committee won their general election race.
NAR also invested $13.6 million in independent expenditure campaigns. These funds are not paid to candidates' campaigns but help state and local associations support candidates who are REALTOR® champions. Roughly 70% of IE campaigns are expected to be successful once all votes are counted. That includes all seven of the IE campaigns in Delaware and all 12 of the IE campaigns in Florida, McGahn noted. NAR also funded the campaigns to get out the vote for winning candidates in the Utah and West Virginia governor races, among others. (Independent expenditures are not paid to candidates but are used to get out the vote.
In addition, NAR granted $5.52 million to state and local associations supporting or opposing ballot measures. More than three-quarters of those campaigns are expected to be wins once all votes are counted. In California, for instance, REALTORS® helped achieve a decisive defeat of Proposition 33 in California, which would have repealed a 1995 law banning rent control measures in the state.
Such outcomes show the importance of the three-way agreement, she said, which enables the association to support targeted races “where they matter at the right time.”
“It’s been quite a ride, we’ve been incredibly busy, and we’re incredibly grateful for the support we’re getting from around the country,” McGahn said. (See the latest results, as well as a 50-year history of NAR advocacy accomplishments.)
McGahn and Newton commended REALTORS® for turning out to vote in large numbers. NAR data shows that about 90% of its members voted in the last presidential election. By contrast, according to the University of Florida Election Lab, about 66% of the voting-eligible population turned out for the 2020 presidential election and 46% turned out for the 2022 midterm elections.
Ready for Anything
With most of the election results in, the NAR advocacy team gets back to the ongoing work of relationship-building, educating regulators and legislators on key real estate issues, and building bridges.
“Yes, we have a new government in town, but we have relationships on both sides of the aisle,” McGahn said. “We were ready regardless of who won.”
NAR continues its advocacy for measures to incentivize the sale of existing homes and the development of badly needed new housing stock. The association is also gearing up for tax reform, because provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act are set to expire at the end of 2025.
Getting extensions for those provisions—such as the Qualified Business Income Deduction (Sec. 199A), which allows a 20% deduction for qualified pass-through income for owners of sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations and some trusts and estates—may be a bit easier given that Republicans will hold the presidency and the majority in both houses of Congress. “That’s known as the trifecta,” said NAR Director of Federal Taxation Evan Liddiard, speaking after the podcast taping.
He warned, however, that nothing can be taken for granted, as Congress looks for offsets to reduce the cost of any tax cuts. He referred to NAR’s success at fighting back the so-called “ugly 11” tax proposals floated as part of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan, including a proposal that would have curtailed or eliminated 1031 tax-deferred exchanges.
“We’re going to continue to see these—and other ideas will come up,” Liddiard said, “We have to be ready.”
