HOUSTON — The National Association of Realtors has a new leader as it embarks on what it hopes is a new era of transparency, service and modernization.
Kevin Brown, a Realtor now living near California’s Lake Tahoe, stepped into his role as NAR president Monday, marking the end of a nearly two-year term by Kevin Sears.
2026 NAR President Kevin Brown
Sears worked closely with NAR CEO Nykia Wright to steady the organization, get its financials in order, implement widespread business practice changes for the industry and rebuild confidence in the organization after years of tumult.
“Now that we have gotten back to basics, my plan is to get NAR back to business,” Brown told Inman in an exclusive interview on the eve of the start of his term.
Brown’s will be a standard one-year term. That means he’ll be responsible for delivering on the first of a new three-year Strategic Plan NAR adopted last weekend to guide the organization’s work from 2026-2028.
Just before stepping into the new role on Monday, Brown sat down with Inman for an exclusive interview.
Below is a version of the interview, edited for clarity and length.
Inman: You’ve been around in leadership for a long time, but for everyday members who might read Inman, it’s a good chance for them to meet you. So, I’m just reading your bio and see you’re from Oakland, but you’re living in Tahoe?
Brown: Tahoe Vista. It’s in the north, and it’s kind of on the hill overlooking the lake. You go over the hill from Truckee to the lake and that’s right when you’re going down that hill to the lake, we’re kind of off in the woods.
It’s hard to leave there. I don’t spend that much time at home now. I’m home maybe six days a month between January and November — at least that’s what it was last year. So, when I’m there for those six days, it’s like it’s really hard to leave.
Later today, the Executive Committee is expected to pass a new three-year Strategic Plan [Editors note: The plan passed Sunday as expected]. Let’s say you walked into a 50-person brokerage in Illinois. What’s the first thing you’re telling them about this plan?
The plan really is geared to the future of NAR. We’ve never had a plan this granular and this detailed. We’re looking at the real estate ecosystem that we’re working in. We’re also looking at the inside constraints that we have as an organization, and we’re also looking at the exterior landscape.
It’s a plan that holds our staff responsible for performance, and it’s really geared to modernize NAR and make sure that we’re an association operating in the 21st century.
Did the bigger brokerages need more help or work? Did you guys figure out like, ‘OK, we were delivering maybe a one-size-fits-all,’ but as part of this work, you needed to focus on the small teams and the mid teams, and then the large brokerages?
Yes and yes. Historically, we need to pay more attention to the brokers. I think that our focus was elsewhere and broker engagement is really a big part of our strategic plan and our path forward because we’re not communicating — we weren’t communicating — properly with our members or the brokers.
A lot of our members and the brokers don’t really know what we do. They don’t really understand our place in the ecosystem, and so we’ve set out on a plan to enhance our engagement with brokers.
I’ve heard the analogy that NAR is like a massive cargo ship, and it needed to get turned around, straightened out. Now you’re the guy to kind of help get that thing going. Can you describe your leadership role and how you’re going to get the ship moving?
Over the past couple of years, Kevin [Sears] and Nykia [Wright], they had to right the ship. It was back to basics. Now that we have gotten back to basics, my plan is to get NAR back to business, looking at those issues that are impacting our members in their day-to-day business, like finance, inventory, insurance, zoning restrictions and other barriers to homeownership.
That’s what I think the member really cares about. They care about how they execute and get to their next transaction. And that’s going to be our focus.
You do commercial and residential in your business, right?
My brother and I are in the multifamily market. The first day I started real estate, my father said, ‘Hey, you can make a great living off of selling houses, off of commissions, but you’re going to retire off your investments. You have to buy a house, and you have to buy investment property.’
That first year, my brother and I bought our first duplex as an investment. We didn’t live there, but we did that before we even bought a house. And then over the years, we bought more and more investment property.
On housing inventory and affordability, can you talk about NAR’s role in working at the state and local levels to unlock inventory?
A lot of people don’t really understand the three-way agreement, but it’s how we interact with the locals and the state. Like in California, for instance, there have been numerous times where there have been measures on the ballot that would really damage the housing market or maybe stop development. And so the locals notify us of these things, or the state notifies us of these things. And then we, in turn, give them our market intelligence, our resources and grants.
We give them money to help fight these things at the ballot. That’s happened numerous times in my state of California. And we’ve been able to defeat some of these measures that would really damage the housing market.
Let’s just say Trump called you tomorrow and said, ‘I’ll tell Attorney General Pam Bondi to do whatever you need for Realtors, for the real estate industry.’ What’s the No. 1 thing that the federal government or Congress could do?
Increased inventory. In fact, one of the things we’re working on is the More Homes on the Market Act right now. And if we can do something to impact capital gains.
There are about 29 million homeowners who are subject to, or will exceed, the $250,000–$500,000 exclusion for capital gains. If we can find a way to increase that exclusion — that’s about one third of property owners, homeowners right now in America — we can immediately unlock or unleash inventory and unlock supply.
So you don’t have to build housing. All you’ve got to do is pass a law. And some of those people who are locked in right now, they will sell their homes.
To close out, what kind of leadership style should members expect and just a little bit more about yourself to close?
I really like working with others. I really want to hear other opinions, even if I disagree. I mean, it’s part of the critical thinking process, you know.
We all have been very passionate about our ideas, but I think one thing I’ve learned over time — I’m getting older, I’m getting a lot older — so one thing I’ve learned is that in order to come to the best conclusions, to critically think through an issue, you really have to be dispassionate in that room. You have to listen to what other people are saying, and then you inform your decision.
I really want to work with the best people. I think we have a tremendous staff in place right now. I want the best volunteer leaders, and I think in terms of a partnership, we’re going to get a lot of things done.
But I think that, you know, the people who I want to be surrounded with are people who look at all the ideas and come up with the very best decisions. We need to listen. We need to listen to everybody, not just internally, but also to our members out there and to the big brokers and everybody.
Right now, this is going to be a year of listening. We need to listen to others, and then we need to act accordingly — do what’s best, we think, for the entire industry.
