NAR’s next president: This industry is ‘worth fighting for’ 

Kevin Sears has been the face of NAR since January 2024, traveling the country to offer encouragement, explanation and sometimes apology in challenging times.

Another Kevin, meanwhile, has been watching, learning and preparing for 2026. That's when Kevin Brown will take over as president of the National Association of Realtors.

Brown is broker-owner of Better Homes Realty and Brown Commercial Investment Real Estate Services in Oakland, working with his brother — 2017 president William Brown — to manage the family business.

"You probably don't know a lot about my family history, but I'm only three generations removed from slavery," Brown told Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast hosts James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson during a special Drive with NAR event earlier this month at NAR NXT. 

"Real estate has moved people from poverty to the middle class … and that's why I do what I do. I've seen the transformative impact of homeownership," Brown said. He sees real estate as a ladder, allowing first-timers to become move-up buyers and then second-home buyers with investment property. "And that's worth fighting for. That's why I do this." 

Some other takeaways from their conversation:

Gearing up for 2026: "Kevin Sears has a back-to-basics mentality," said Brown, NAR's 2025 president-elect. "I'm not going to change any of that." NAR, after making a $418 million deal to settle commissions lawsuits, has less money to work with, "and it's really forcing us to make some really good changes" to the organization while continuing to deliver "top-notch" services and "an advocacy program that's second to none," Brown said.

Nykia Wright, who was named NAR's permanent CEO in August, "is brilliant," Brown said. Her analysis of the organization revealed "how departments don't talk to each other," an issue NAR leadership is working to fix. "How do we leverage having our departments talk to each other and work together to perform better as an organization?"

Tackling advocacy challenges: Brown called out the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, which provides breaks for homebuyers (among others) but will expire in 2025 if it's not extended. "I want agents to know that the reason why buyers are buying a lot of times, especially first-time buyers, is because of those incentives," Brown said. "And so we want to preserve that." But those incentives come with a price tag, and "I don't think either party has the appetite to add $4 trillion to the budget," he said. "There's going to be a fair amount of horse trading."

NAR has also been fighting to defend the mortgage interest deduction — currently at $750,000 after efforts to cut it to $500,000 a year — and protect 1031 exchanges, which allow investors to delay capital gains tax obligations. The latter, also known as like-kind exchanges, are "a job multiplier" because "most people who sell things are trading up. They spend a lot of money."

Getting the word out: "We need to do more outreach, and we're doing that," Brown said. "We're going out talking to agents, talking to associations at both the local and the state level. And when I go out, you know, of course we always have prepared remarks. But the most important part of that conversation is to sit down and listen and hear from the agents and be able to engage them in a way that makes them feel heard. And so that's one of my number one goals."

Another goal is finding more ways to deliver information. "You know nobody likes additional emails," Brown said. The key may be thinking differently, perhaps using shortform content in social channels to get people interested "so we can communicate with them better and they know what we're doing."