“Every storm eventually runs out of rain,” Nykia Wright, CEO of the National Association of REALTORS®, said to a room of real estate leaders Wednesday. “I do believe that this current storm is coming to an end.”
Nearly a year and half after NAR reached a settlement with home sellers—and a year since practice changes altered the way agents and brokers conduct business—Wright is looking to the future.
At RISMedia’s CEO & Leadership Exchange in Washington, D.C., Wright spoke about the development of NAR’s three-year strategic plan and how the association is working on repairing relationships with brokers by traveling around the country and conducting face-to-face meetings.
“By no means has it been easy, but anything that is easy is not worth doing,” Wright said.
Back in January, Wright hired industry veteran Sherry Chris as an independent consultant to help create inroads with large brokerage leaders and enhance collaboration.
Wright shared a similar report and invitation to connect, during a conference of association executives last month: “The conversations [with brokers] have been successful. The purpose of the first meeting is to get a second meeting. The purpose of the second is to get a third. And pretty soon we will have that confidence back, but we have a lot of work to do.”
Wright has been working to regain trust among NAR members and shared an anecdote about Warren Buffett, then-interim CEO of Salomon Brothers, that left an impression.
Buffett testified before Congress following the Treasury auction scandal. “He starts by saying that he told the people within the firm that if they lost money for the firm that he would be understanding and forgiving, but if they lost a shred of reputation, he would be ruthless,” she said.
Wright expects the same of NAR, to represent the association and industry with professionalism.
At Wednesday’s meeting, NAR’s CEO gave a transparent accounting of the ongoing work taking place behind the scenes—including meeting with the association’s leadership team at minimum once a week—and shared her vision for turning the association into a “basecamp.”
Wherever agents and brokers are in their careers, they should be able to come back to NAR to get the “education and the tools that they need in order to succeed,” Wright explained.
NAR is in the process of transforming its education and events programming under new senior vice president Elizabeth Ranno. Wright said it’s critical that real estate agents continue to learn and “cross-train” in various disciplines. The same is true of association executives: Wright shared that she’s enrolled in an artificial intelligence course designed for CEOs, CIOs and top executives at the University of Chicago.
Protecting the REALTOR® trademark—a critical benefit to members—and highlighting the difference between an NAR member and a real estate licensee remain key priorities, she said.
Over the summer, Leslie Nettleford-Freeman joined NAR as associate general counsel and vice president of legal affairs and brand protection, after spending two decades as an intellectual property lawyer at AARP. Nettleford-Freeman is helping NAR tap into the power of AI to strengthen protection of the REALTOR® brand.
“We are instituting AI now to catch [trademark infringement] much more quickly around the nation,” Wright said. “Not only are we calling journalists on what they are doing, but we’re also sending a letter to their legal team to make sure that they know the difference.
“When you think about what we're doing for advocacy, we look out for the nation whether you are a REALTOR®, a consumer or a real estate agent,” she added. “When you look at all the things that we are doing to help provide value and future value to the ecosystem, we're looking at everyone. But when it comes to REALTOR® versus real estate agent, this is where we have to be selfish, and this is where we're starting to be selfish.”
