REALTORS Help Millions Navigate Housing Affordability Challenges With Housing Opportunity Progam

You already know this: Hard-working Americans have a tough time today finding a home they can truly afford.

But did you know this: There’s a little-known resource only REALTORS® have that can make finding that affordable home easier?

The National Association of REALTORS® Housing Opportunity Program was created over a decade ago with the vision of positioning, educating, and assisting REALTORS® to create housing opportunities for hard-working Americans. The Housing Opportunity Program offers programs, grants, training, and essential resources that enable state and local REALTORS® and REALTOR® associations to expand housing availability, ensuring an adequate supply of rental housing and home ownership.

For example, the program supports the“Expanding Housing Opportunities Classes,” designed to educate REALTORS® on the range of affordable housing opportunities — and who can benefit from them. REALTORS® learn how affordability affects housing markets, residents, and the community. The program also identifies and explains:

• the range of affordable housing opportunities for buyers and renters alike
• how to analyze financing options, including local, state, federal, and nonprofit assistance programs for home buyers
• how to build partnerships to further expand housing opportunities through advocacy and workforce housing initiatives

This highly successful grant program, funded entirely by the REALTORS® who serve you every day, has invested over a million dollars in communities across our nation.

Other activities supported by these grants include REALTOR® association partnerships with non-profit housing organizations. REALTORS® partner with housing counseling agencies to conduct neighborhood outreach, hold community events, and engage local employers to help solve housing.

Some examples

• Gaston County North Carolina:Times have been tougher for folks in Gaston than other parts of our great nation. Once a mill town, Gaston felt it hard when textile manufacturing moved overseas. Area unemployment exceeded national numbers. When the real estate market dropped, the value of Gaston housing plummeted. Even as the economy began improving again, Gaston housing seemed stuck. But with the help of a Housing Opportunity Grant from the National Association of REATORS®, the Gaston Association of REALTORS® organized a free housing fair, giving folks in Gaston the opportunity to become re-informed and re-educated again about the local housing market and value recovery.
• Contra Costa County California: The Contra Costa Association of REALTORS® used a National Association of REALTORS® Housing Opportunity grant to host a home loan modification assistance fair when folks in their communities needed it most.
• Hartford Connecticut: The Greater Hartford Association of REALTORS® coordinated an affordable housing clean-up day. They painted fences, improved landscaping, and cleaned up common areas with the help of a grant from the National Association of REALTORS®.