The verdict is in — the old way of doing business is over. Join us at Inman Connect New York Jan. 23-25, when together we’ll conquer today’s market challenges and prepare for tomorrow’s opportunities. Defy the market and bet big on your future.
Ed Schrier, a Midwest broker who joined the industry 65 years ago when a typical home commanded less than $10,000, said he still wears the lapel pin he received as president of the Indiana Association of Realtors 50 years ago.
The Brownsburg, Indiana, broker has represented buyers and sellers in over 15,000 transactions in that time, all while a representative of the Realtor brand.
“I’ve always considered it a real honor to have the term Realtor,” Schrier told Inman.
But following the resignation earlier this week of National Association of Realtors President Tracy Kasper — less than five months into her short-lived term, no less — Schrier echoed the frustrations of fellow colleagues within the 1.56-million-member trade organization, acknowledging that after a chaotic summer of harassment allegations, lawsuits and executive changes, the reputation of the 116-year-old group brand is diminishing rapidly.
Ed Schrier | Broker
“The term Realtor has been hugely damaged,” Schrier said. “No question about it.”
On Monday, Kasper became the second president to step down from the trade group’s top elected position in fewer than five months as the organization lurches through allegations of misconduct by leadership, legal challenges that pose an existential threat to how agents are paid, and widespread discontent from its members, who late last year successfully called for the resignations of other executives, including Kasper’s predecessor, Kenny Parcell.
Parcell had been accused of sexual harassment by women working for the National Association of Realtors in an exposé in The New York Times. Other staff members alleged they faced sexual harassment on the job and depicted an overall culture of harassment, retaliation and evasion. Parcell resigned two days after the exposé ran.
Parcell was also named in a lawsuit in June, when a former employee said she was harassed and fired after breaking off a relationship with Parcell and speaking to lawyers. The employee withdrew her lawsuit in July after reaching a $107,000 settlement with NAR, The Times reported. That settlement included a non-disclosure agreement.
As president-elect at the time, Kasper was next in line to replace Parcell and finish his term, according to NAR’s bylaws. She took office in August at a time when NAR members and staff were mounting a campaign to reform the organization and to force the organization’s leaders to resign.
Kasper’s full official term began at NAR’s NXT conference in mid-November and ended two months later. Her resignation comes on the heels of former CEO Bob Goldberg’s early retirement and the exit of Donna Gland, the organization’s former head of human resources.
The veil of extortion
In announcing her resignation, Kasper alleged she was leaving her post under threat of extortion.
Tracy Kasper | Former NAR President
NAR and Kasper said she had recently received a “threat to disclose a past personal, non-financial matter” unless she compromised her position at NAR, which NAR said she refused to do. She resigned on Jan. 8.
The latest twist in the seemingly endless saga has left Realtors from Washington state to New Hampshire with one question: When will it all end?
“It adds instability at a time when there’s a lot of instability [already], so that’s not great,” said Andrea Geller, a Chicago-based Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices who has called for change at NAR, including during a demonstration outside of its headquarters in September. “But I think the bigger picture is that we’re starting to see change.”
“It just shakes your confidence,” said John Rainville, an independent broker with The Brokers Realty Group Limited in Pennsylvania, who said as recently as last week his doctor inquired about the chaos brewing within NAR, indicating the erosion of the brand’s value in real time.
“He goes, ‘Rainville, what the hell is all the stuff with these real estate franchises and NAR?’” Rainville recalled, adding that his first assumption was that his doctor was referring to the October verdict in the Sitzer | Burnett commission lawsuit, in which homeseller plaintiffs were awarded nearly $1.8 billion in damages. If the damages amount stands, the amount will be tripled by law to nearly $5.4 billion.
“He goes, ‘I’m talking about the NAR president, the sexual things, the things with eXp, the claims against Keller Williams,’” Rainville said.
NAR didn’t immediately respond to a request for details surrounding the latest resignation. Two of Kasper’s allies said they weren’t privy to details surrounding the extortion attempt or the decisions that led to her resignation.
NAR said Kasper alerted a law enforcement agency but didn’t say which agency in the news release or in response to a question from Inman. Inman requested police reports from four law enforcement agencies near Kasper’s home in Nampa, Idaho. Each of them — Nampa Police, Caldwell Police, Canyon County Sheriff’s Office and Ada County Sheriff’s Office — said they had no records filed by Kasper or mentioning her in at least the past two years.
For her part, Kasper acknowledged the extortion attempt in an announcement Monday but insisted her resignation would allow new leaders to begin the process of rebuilding the fractured organization.
“It gives our leadership team the ability to take the reins and forge forward in effecting the change that we all have worked so hard over the past few months to begin,” Kasper said in the statement. “I know I leave our members, our staff and our association in good hands.”
Andrea Geller
Geller said this wasn’t the first instance of alleged blackmail at the association. What’s different is that Kasper was transparent about it, and that’s “not the way [issues have] been handled in the past.”
“I don’t know what the blackmail was, but you have to give her respect because this is what the members asked for,” Geller said. “Even though she didn’t come out and say what it was, it’s not really our business as long as it wasn’t something that impacted the business of the National Association of Realtors.”
Still, several Realtors who spoke with Inman said the resignation and veil of extortion left the organization wide open to speculation over what really happened, particularly after Parcell’s resignation.
“I just think it’s logical that the public and real estate community are going, ‘What does that mean?'” Rainville said. “My initial thing is, is it something like what the last president went through? I don’t know.”
Realtors’ future with NAR
A handful of Realtors who spoke with Inman in the hours and days after Kasper’s resignation lamented the damage they say continues to be done to their namesake brand and the industry as a whole.
Most said they’re not rushing to cancel their membership with NAR or other Realtor organizations — yet. “I see value in the Realtor organization,” said Rainville, among several who stopped short of calling for mass cancellations.
But several brokers told Inman the biggest reason they remain involved with NAR in spite of the accumulating drama is that most agents are required to do so to maintain access to certain multiple listing services.
“It’s a racket when you think of it. It’s a monopoly,” said Jeffrey Bastress, a broker with StartPoint Realty, who echoed the view of other NAR members. “If you’re going to want to be a real estate agent, Realtor or not, you’ve got to be on the MLS, period. They own most of the MLSs.”
Jeffrey Bastress | StarPoint Realty
Bastress questioned the value that NAR provided, saying the organization hasn’t done a good job branding itself. He was one of multiple Realtors who referenced a deal whereby NAR allows Move Inc. to operate Realtor.com in exchange for an annual fee worth millions of dollars.
“What’s the value really? Yes, they do lobby the politics of things. But to whose benefit really at the end of the day?” he said. “It doesn’t benefit clients. You ask a client what’s the difference between a real estate professional and a Realtor, and they say ‘No difference.’”
He also doubted whether Kasper’s resignation signaled any broader change at the organization.
“I don’t think they’ve made any real changes other than people resigning because of faults of their own,” Bastress said. “It doesn’t change my opinion that they hold their membership to a higher level of ethics.”
Susan Latham, a Realtor with Century 21 Highview Realty in New Hampshire, said she considered herself in “limbo” on whether to remain a member of NAR.
“With everything that’s been going on over the last year or two, I’m just really questioning NAR itself,” Latham said, adding she’s not saying “total ‘death to NAR,’ but I just – actually maybe I kind of am.”
“They have lost so much credibility at this point,” Latham added.
What’s next?
NAR immediately appointed Kevin Sears, a Realtor from Springfield, Massachusetts, to replace Kasper on Monday.
He has served in various positions at NAR in recent years, including as a liaison to NAR President John Smaby in 2019. He was NAR Vice President of Government Affairs in 2017.
Kevin Sears | NAR President
As NAR’s president-elect, Sears was next in line to Kasper and can now serve the remainder of her term as well as his full, one-year term, according to NAR’s bylaws.
NAR didn’t immediately respond to Inman’s questions about whether the organization had a process to vet its executive team, including whether it had vetted Kasper or Sears.
The organization does have a list of criteria and qualifications for candidates and elected officers, according to documents reviewed by Inman. Among them, Realtors can’t have had a bankruptcy or foreclosure within the past seven years, and they must be current on taxes.
Candidates interested in running for an elected position within the organization must also submit information about any criminal history or pending litigation.
They must say whether anything in their background would be embarrassing to NAR or show it in a negative light, according to a candidate election form from March 2022.
Rainville wondered whether that process could have helped the organization avoid Kasper’s brief tenure.
“You have someone [who’s] the head of the organization. They resign. You put in someone that you would hope was properly vetted,” Rainville said of Kasper’s departure. “It just comes off sketchy.”
For Schrier, who has been a Realtor for more than half of the organization’s existence, the turmoil and tarnished brand comes at a time when he’s wondering whether it’s time to hang up his hat.
“I started Jan. 1, 1959. I ought to retire, but I love the business,” Schrier said. “It’s a pleasure to get out of bed and do that every day. But I sure don’t like all this other crap going on.”
