REALTOR® Party Leaders Plan for 2020, By The Numbers, Success Stories, and More View e-mail in browser December 12, 2019 REALTOR® Party Leaders Plan for 2020 More than 600 REALTOR® Party leaders gathered in Austin, Texas for the 2020 REALTOR® Party Training Conference to plan for the coming year’s advocacy outreach effort! During the two-day event, the REALTOR® Party Pillars were unveiled, which outlines NAR’s advocacy focus and reaffirms, our commitment to protecting homeownership, private property rights, and strengthening communities. READ MORE By The Numbers 10 Number of outperforming metro markets identified in NAR's newest report released during the Real Estate Forecast Summit. NAR identified the top 10 metro areas where it expects home price appreciation to outpace in the next three to five years based on a myriad of factors, including domestic migration, housing affordability for new residents, consistent job growth relative to the national average, population age structure, attractiveness for retirees and home price appreciation, among other variables. READ MORE $331,760 The 2020 FHA loan limit for most of the country. This represents an increase of nearly $17,000 over 2019’s loan limit of $314,827. Thanks to increases in home prices in 2019, the Federal Housing Administration loan limit will increase for nearly all of the country in 2020. LEARN MORE 5 Number of bipartisan bills impacting federal policy in credit policy and student loan debt that NAR supports. NAR sent a letter of support to the House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-NC) for the group of bills, to be marked by the committee. LEARN MORE The REALTOR® Party At Work Highlighted here are a few of the many REALTOR® Party success stories across the nation. These and others are cataloged in the Success Stories section on REALTORParty.realtor. Northwest Arkansas REALTORS® Fight Unreasonable Residential Driveway and Garage Zoning When the City Council of Fayetteville, Ark., proposed a zoning ordinance to restrict the width of driveways and require garage entries to be to the side or rear of a dwelling, the REALTORS® tried to reason with them. Failing that, they launched an Issues Mobilization Campaign and rallied public support to defeat the measure. READ More Hilton Head Area and Beaufort Jasper County REALTORS® Lead Winning School Funding Campaign In Beaufort County, S.C., major construction, renovations, and updates were urgently needed throughout the school district, which had not had a successful bond referendum – its only source of such funding – in more than a decade. When a promising referendum made it to the ballot this year, the area’s REALTORS® stepped up to make sure it would pass.  READ More Southeastern Oklahoma REALTORS® Create Gathering Space in Historic Downtown McAlester On a vacant lot in downtown McAlester, Okla., an attractive new gathering place has sprung up, providing the family-oriented community with a central new green space and priming the area for additional growth and development. A perfect example of successful placemaking, it came about through a collaboration led by the REALTORS®. READ More Resources & Opportunities NAR Real Estate Forecast: Recession Unlikely in 2020 Yesterday a group of prominent real estate industry economists released a consensus economic and real estate forecast that projects continued, but slowing growth in 2020. Meeting at NAR’s Washington headquarters for the first-ever Real Estate Forecast Summit, the economists said they expect the U.S. economy to continue expanding next year and real estate prices to keep rising. READ MORE REALTOR® Party Training Conference Materials The 2020 REALTOR® Party Training Conference was an opportunity for advocacy committee members and leaders to network and plan to take REALTOR® Party outreach to the next level in 2020. Check out the video, materials, and photos from this annual event. READ MORE Rural Broadband Deployment: Strategies for Closing the Digital Divide Many Americans fail to realize that millions of their fellow citizens, primarily those in rural areas, lack access to reliable and affordable internet connections. Explore this issues’ crucial nature as it relates to the real estate industry. Get a brief history of deploying broadband in the U.S., an overview of the current federal framework for encouraging broadband deployment, and summaries of a number of state regulatory strategies that stand out from the crowd. READ MORE Join the REALTOR® Party Online Are you posting, liking, tweeting or pinning? So is the REALTOR® Party.  Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram to get the latest news, information and resources.

Send us examples of how your association put NAR’s REALTOR® Party resources to work to implement a successful advocacy or community outreach program. Email your stories to: realtorparty@realtors.org. See more than 300 stories documenting how REALTOR® associations around the country put REALTOR® Party Resources to work at the REALTOR® Party Success Stories page. This newsletter replaces the NAR Weekly Report for this week and the second week of every month. The REALTOR® Party News will publish next on January 9, 2020. If you missed a previous edition check out the REALTOR® Party News Archive. Headquarters: 430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611 DC Office: 500 New Jersey Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001-2020 | 1-800-874-6500