John Smaby, NAR 2020 Immediate Past President

In May we announced partnerships with two leading commercial listing platforms, Brevitas and CREXi. These platforms provide our commercial members with national exposure for commercial listings and affordable, discounted pricing. A key benefit is the integration of these platforms with NAR’s Realtors Property Resource® (RPR), providing enhanced data on properties and access to hundreds of thousands of commercial listings across the country. These additional resources and tools give you a competitive edge.

This year NAR worked to educate members on the Qualified Opportunity Zones program. Created in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, this program offers tax incentives to investors in real estate in underserved communities, and represents a significant opportunity for our commercial members and your clients. As the Administration works to finalize the program’s regulations, NAR has a seat at the table, and our 2019 Commercial & Business Specialties Liaison, Bob Turner of Cordova, Tenn., represented NAR at a White House event on this issue in April.

We’ll continue to work to ensure that the Qualified Opportunity Zones program positions our members to lead the way in improving their communities and creating new business. Over the summer, NAR launched a toolkit for members and state and local associations to provide guidance on how to take advantage of this program.

We scored a significant advocacy win with the passage of the SAFE Banking Act in the House of Representatives. Passed with bipartisan support, this bill would allow federally insured banks to work with cannabis businesses. This could bring tremendous opportunity to our commercial members, and we urge the Senate to pass the bill. NAR is also actively engaged with members of Congress on passing a long-term reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, or TRIP, before is it due to expire at the end of 2020.

NAR is not complete without our commercial members. We’ve worked to integrate a commercial focus across the organization, and I believe that’s been a key factor in these accomplishments and more. Thank you for supporting NAR—our success depends on your involvement. As we move into 2020, together we’ll continue to build stronger commercial services. I am excited to see what happens next year!

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