NAR CEO Nykia Wright and 2026 President Kevin Brown provided an update on association activity during a Leadership Scoop session at the REALTORS® Legislative Meetings in Washington, D.C.
Nykia Wright & Kevin Brown at RLM 2026 Leadership Scoop
NAR CEO Nykia Wright and NAR President Kevin Brown update members at the REALTORS® Legislative Meetings on Sunday, June 14.

The National Association of REALTORS® is almost two quarters into the first year of its Strategic Plan—and to borrow a favorite phrase from its CEO, it has been “booked and busy.”

“Most of us are only home about six to 10 days a month,” NAR 2026 President Kevin Brown said of the association’s leadership team, Sunday.

Brown and NAR CEO Nykia Wright provided an update on association activity and Strategic Plan progress at its annual REALTORS® Legislative Meetings conference in Washington, D.C.

“We are always doing at least one of two things: building the future of member experience or modernizing the enterprise, and in some cases, we are doing both,” Wright said.

Wright highlighted momentum on six specific initiatives, including strengthening collaboration with MLSs.

“You cannot open an industry publication without hearing what’s going on in the MLS community,” Wright said. “What we want you all to know is that we are monitoring this around the clock. ... We are taking calls from not only association-owned MLSs but also non-association-owned MLSs. This is a very complex topic, and it is our job in order to protect you and to protect the ecosystem, to ensure that we are doing this in an antitrust-compliant way.”

The association plans to release its Q2 update at the end of July.

While all NAR committees’ work is important, Wright called attention to five dealing with some of the most pressing topics, including MLS transparency and access, fraud identification, data centers, real estate data needs and agent retention for small brokerages.

Another notable moment included when Wright shared a hot-off-the-presses membership count—1,438,569 members, compared with 1,463,352 members at this time last year.

That’s a strong number, according to NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

“Membership has been quite resilient despite sluggish home sales conditions over the past three years. Unlike prior housing down cycles, membership declines have been much more modest,” Yun said in May.

He added that “membership has exceeded 1.4 million only a handful of times in history.”

That’s much higher—by design—than the 1.2 million members NAR strategically uses for budgeting.

“In terms of financial resiliency, we budgeted to a lower number, but in no way does that mean that the association is on the demise,” Wright said.

Brown ended the address with the same message he opened with—NAR is all ears.

“We are listening,” Brown said. “If you see something that’s not working, please let us know.”