NAR is setting out on a journey to rebuild the member experience and modernize the association, and to get there, it needs a roadmap. As of Sunday, it has one.
NAR’s Executive Committee unanimously approved the association’s highly anticipated three-year strategic plan during NAR NXT, The REALTOR® Experience, in Houston. The plan details a value promise for real estate professionals who are REALTORS®, members of NAR.
The Executive Committee’s approval culminates months of rigorous development and officially launches NAR into its next chapter, one CEO Nykia Wright has said is “the biggest real estate turnaround in history.”
View the 2026-2028 NAR Strategic Plan
What’s inside the strategic plan?
From the outset, the plan is anchored in NAR’s new value proposition: “NAR empowers REALTORS® by helping them thrive in their businesses. It achieves this goal by advocating on their behalf, providing market intelligence and research tools, offering professional development and education, maintaining high standards and elevating the REALTOR® brand. By supporting REALTORS®, NAR protects and advances the right of Americans to own real estate.”
The plan addresses the association’s biggest challenge—how to anticipate and deliver member value in an increasingly dynamic marketplace—and enumerates what NAR will bring to the table.
Driven by member feedback, the plan conveys the association’s eight commitments to members, the real estate industry, partners and consumers:
- Help REALTORS® thrive in their day-to-day business
- Drive collaborative solutions and impact
- Protect and advance the legal interests of REALTORS®
- Advocate for property ownership for all
- Build a proactive organization
- Rebuild partnership foundations
- Recommit to professionalism
- Cultivate trust in the REALTOR® brand
It lists 24 initiatives to deliver on each of those commitments. They include directives on everything from new member onboarding to governance and budget stewardship to differentiating the REALTOR® brand.
Wright predicts that 2026 “will be the most transformational year” for the association in at least a generation.
How did NAR determine its priorities?
Because the association sought to leave no stone unturned and include all voices across its membership and the industry at large, drafting the plan was no small feat. Speaking candidly in an open letter to members on Oct. 10, Wright explained that process. NAR leadership solicited feedback from more than 100,000 members (that number has since grown to more than 150,000) through forums, surveys and focus groups, and met with hundreds of industry leaders from regional and national brokerages and firms.
Members communicated what they want NAR to put its energy behind and noted that protecting and advancing their legal interests and cultivating trust with the REALTOR® brand should be top priorities.
Walking the Walk
Wright says this plan is different from strategic plans of the past because she’s personally holding association staff accountable.
“It's not just how we're modernizing the enterprise or transforming the organization, but am I holding internal NAR staff accountable for actually delivering on those results?” Wright says. “So that's really a different piece from before. We used to have a strategic plan, but we weren't necessarily following that internally.”
Wright was named permanent CEO nearly 18 months ago, and during that time has been traveling the country to speak with members and to listen and share association news transparently.
Each of the 24 initiatives will have corresponding to-dos, or “projects,” and each one will have a staff member overseeing its progress as well as a target timetable for milestones and completion.
NAR says it plans to deliver “metric-based updates” on its progress, and—no stranger to harsh critiques—the association invites feedback if it fails to meet its mark.
“We invite every member, potential member and industry participant to constructively engage with us,” the plan reads. The metrics for success in the strategic plan vary by initiative, and include measurable milestones, such as member satisfaction and engagement, brand perception, consumer engagement, revenue growth, and more.
While much of the foundational work has been underway at NAR, full implementation begins in 2026.
Also on the horizon and in the spirit of transparency, the association plans to publish its first annual report in early 2026, which will detail NAR’s transformation progress throughout 2025 and its priorities for achieving the strategic plan’s milestones in 2026.
“The report will provide valuable information about how NAR is staying accountable to its members, the industry and consumers and how it operates with the highest levels of financial diligence,” Wright says.
