NAR Midyear conference
In the era of the newest presidential administration, the National Association of Realtors is eager to ensure that the interests of homeowners are protected.
Currently, members of the National Association of Realtors are in Washington DC for the 2017 Realtor’s Kick off Legislative Meeting & Trade Expo conference. During this conference, realtors will attend events and speak with members of Congress to learn about legislative efforts that impact their industry.
An ad? Bold move
During this conference week, the NAR is running an ad campaign targeted at members of Congress to make their opinions known. According to a source from the conference, “We [the NAR] are running the ad in select editions of The Hill, Politico and Roll Call.”
The ad asks Congress members them to reconsider the elimination of certain national, state and local tax deductions.
Specifically, the ad focuses on the home mortgage interest deduction and like-kind exchanges. For over a century, homeowners could write mortgage interest off their taxes, as long as the mortgage didn’t exceed the cap of $1 million for married couples and $500,000 for individuals filing as single.
It’s a popular selling point for buying a home.
According to a report by CNBC, Trump’s head of the Treasury Department, Steven Munchin, said, “We’ll cap the mortgage interest, but we’ll allow some deductibility.”
The ad goes on to explain that “real estate accounts for 19 percent of the GDP” and is a significant driver of wealth building for the middle class of America. Basically, they don’t want Congress to remove tax deductions and favors that make real estate wealth lucrative for Americans.
Taking a stand
This is a rather bold move by the association. Usually, the debates are saved for the conference floor, not for ads running in online publications.
In that sense, it’s a pretty good indicator that realtors are very concerned about the direction in which these legislative initiatives are going.
It could also be a result concerns about market conditions for first-time homebuyers, which we have covered before. In that same CNBC report, William E. Brown, president of the National Association of Realtors, said “We’re living in a time of tight credit and low inventory, with homeownership rates hovering around a 50-year low. Doing anything that would make it harder for buyers to enter the market is a fundamental step in the wrong direction”
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#NARAd
