NAR turnaround is the ‘hardest thing’ CEO has ever done 

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When she stepped into the CEO role at the National Association of Realtors last year, Nykia Wright faced a challenging situation: "Way more was broken than most people even realize."

But after she and other senior leaders spent months listening to member feedback, the trade association voted to adopt a three-year plan it believes will help prove its value to members — and Wright is "very pleased with the amount of progress" they've made so far.

"This is the hardest thing that I've ever done," Wright said during a recent episode of Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered. "But it is one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done."

Out with the old, in with the new: Wright estimates that NAR's staffing turnover since she took the helm has been about 1 in 3. Part of those changes involved hiring new executives — including NAR's first chief data officer, a new general counsel, a new head of communications and more —  to create roadmaps for addressing member concerns.

"I have surrounded myself with the right people" to move NAR forward, Wright said.

NAR's new plan: At NAR NXT 2025, the association said it will tackle 75 projects aimed at addressing member priorities over the next three years. Though the plan doesn't officially launch until January, "we've been working on some things for several months that are going to manifest and create that flywheel effect," Wright explained.

Wright, who is targeting "a milestone for every quarter," said her team will be providing NAR's Executive Committee with quarterly status reports.

"I don't think that I'm worried that it's not going to get done," she said of NAR's goals. "I think my worry is going to be, will we meet the pace that the industry requires to get it done? That's what keeps me up at night."

The big issues: Wright has heard repeatedly that NAR needs to rebuild trust. Brokerage leaders have also "said the old NAR was dysfunctional, financially undisciplined, lacks transparency and wasn't accountable to members or the industry," she recalled, adding that she appreciated the unvarnished feedback.

"Brokers have not felt that they've had a role at NAR," she said, or that they've been "consulted on key matters." Those issues, Wright believes, go "well beyond the settlement."

"What the brokers don't want is for us to compete against them — and what the Realtors want is for us to be clear about the services that we provide."

Governance, budget shakeups: Wright believes that NAR must "be more agile" operationally.

"We've got to be debating the right things, and it's got to be data informed," she said. "If we don't do any of those things, everything else is going to be lip service in terms of our projects."

That need for agility extends to NAR's budgeting process for two main reasons: "One, we still have $200+ million to pay," Wright said, referring to the remainder of NAR's $418 million settlement. "Two, if we are trying to plan for the future, operational resilience has to be a priority."

To do that, "we have to understand where all of the fat in the organization is," she added.

A commitment on data: Wright acknowledged that volunteer leaders make decisions based on the data NAR provides — and Wright believes NAR has "a responsibility of guiding" them with "better information."

"My commitment is that we are giving them more informed data-rich information … [to] make their decisions richer," she said.

Consolidation 'should not scare us': Though real estate is in a period of consolidation, Wright says it's nothing to fear. New startups are still launching, she pointed out, and people will "continue to enter an industry as long as profits are greater than zero."

NAR data indicates there are 85,000 brokerages in the U.S. — and "that's a lot," Wright said. "It should not scare us in any way that there may be more consolidation on the way."