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National Association of Realtors President Kevin Sears stepped on stage at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas Tuesday, looked out at the crowd of spectators — many of them NAR members — and sent a message of resilience in the face of industry-derailing commission lawsuits and scandals from within.
“I hope — at the end of the day, at the end of the two-year term — to be able to look back and say there was some stability and calm brought back into our organization and our industry,” Sears told a crowd of hundreds of onlookers in his first public appearance at an Inman Connect event.
His message to ICLV attendees came in response to a direct question about the very nature of his job at NAR, raised by moderator Clelia Warburg Peters, a managing partner with ERA Ventures, during a session entitled, “Okay, Seriously: What Now?”
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Sears’ aim was to offer transparency to members in the audience and share his accomplishments since being named president of the 1.5 million-member organization six months earlier. And he had to do it in front of an audience with strong or mixed opinions about how beneficial NAR has been for dues-paying members.
The tension was on display when Peters asked Sears to explain his job requirements.
“I’m asking that in part because I think a lot of people feel you haven’t done the job,” Peters said, prompting cheers and modest applause from the audience 2 minutes into the on-stage interview.
“The job is to be the voice for real estate,” Sears said in answer to Peters’ question. “I’ve been getting on the road and having conversations with members. God willing, I’ll be president for two years.”
“It’s been very tumultuous over the last 12 to 18…