NAR bets big on ‘stronger’ broker relationships 

After a year marked by legal upheaval, leadership change and internal restructuring, the National Association of Realtors' 2025 Annual Report offers new insight into the trade association's changing goals and mission — as well as what this institutional reset means for real estate professionals.

Throughout the 80-page report — the first of its kind — NAR frames 2025 as a foundation-building year that was focused on restoring trust, stabilizing finances and redefining how it delivers value to members, though it does not specify its membership count.

When CEO Nykia Wright announced last fall that the report was coming, she said it would "provide valuable information about how NAR is staying accountable to its members, the industry and consumers and how it operates with the highest levels of financial diligence."

While NAR previously emphasized agent culture and identity in its formal messaging, the 2025 Annual Report appears to be focused more on business, transactions and risk management. The shift reflects both the pressures facing organized real estate and NAR's evolving view of its role in a post-settlement environment.

Brokers take a more central role

The report makes it clear that brokers are no longer treated as just another stakeholder group. Instead, they are viewed as central partners in restoring trust, aligning policy goals and stabilizing membership after the commissions litigation fallout.

"Brokerages across the industry have distinct needs and expectations from NAR," the report reads. "NAR must establish opportunities that foster stronger, tailored and consistent relationships with brokerages, enabling more effective message amplification, deeper collaboration and improved member experience across the ecosystem."

Several brokerage leaders — including Compass CEO Robert Reffkin and Howard Hanna CEO Hoby Hanna — have been critical of NAR in the past year, arguing that the organization had come to be seen as a competitor rather than a partner. The shift signaled in NAR's annual report appears to address some of that criticism without directly naming it.

The emphasis suggests NAR is recalibrating its role from a perceived gatekeeper within organized real estate to a service-oriented partner that relies on brokers to reinforce alignment and relevance across the industry. 

The report points to a range of efforts to rebuild broker relationships through direct outreach, broker summits and enterprise-level meetings — including sessions with brokerage executives representing roughly 700,000 agents nationwide and revamped "Broker Power Hour" sessions, which saw a 21.6% year-over-year increase in attendance in 2025.

MLSs framed through a risk-reduction lens

Multiple listing services also feature prominently in the report, though largely in terms of legal risk and governance rather than innovation.

NAR describes a comprehensive legal assessment of its policies — including MLS rules — that resulted in revisions to MLS guidance and the adoption of the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers pre-marketing policy announced last March.

The report frames the new policy as part of a broader effort to reduce antitrust exposure and clarify seller choice following years of debate around Clear Cooperation, but shifts responsibility for determining pre-marketing periods and enforcement to individual MLSs.

In that context, the pre-marketing policy appears less focused on expanding choice and more on reducing antitrust risk. It emerged from a "thorough review of NAR policies from top to bottom" that identified MLS rules as a source of legal exposure, according to the report.

Notably, NAR did not spend significant time on MLS innovation or consumer-facing evolution in its report. Instead, it emphasized consistency, compliance and alignment as priorities for the near term.

Advocacy remains a central pillar

Internally, NAR is focused on cost control, governance reform and legal risk management. Externally, it continues to project influence and urgency, positioning itself as a leading voice on housing policy at a time when affordability, inventory and access remain central political issues.

The report highlights a broad slate of legislative priorities, including efforts to expand housing supply, preserve and enhance tax incentives tied to homeownership, and modernize capital gains rules that NAR argues have constrained inventory.

In addition to holding over 5,000 meetings on Capitol Hill last year, NAR emphasized its work at the state and local levels, where it supported efforts to elect candidates aligned with Realtor priorities and funded more than 1,000 advocacy-related grants and initiatives.

As for NAR's message for real estate professionals and member agents? While the association may be recalibrating how it operates and whom it prioritizes, it has no intention of retreating from the policy battles it views as central to the industry's future.