Next month (May 10-15), the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) will hold their annual Midyear meetings on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. These meetings provide an opportunity for each state association to meet with their legislators to discuss issues important to the real estate industry. The
MAR Federal Political Coordinators, along with REALTOR® members from around the state, will head to Washington D.C. to meet with members of the Michigan delegation, which includes two Senators and fifteen Congressional Representatives. Top industry priorities on the national level include; access to affordable healthcare, protecting the mortgage interest deduction, and reforming the financial services and mortgage market in order to protect property owners, buyers, and REALTORS®.
The purpose of these meetings is to thank those legislators who have aided in crafting sound legislation to keep the REALTOR® agenda moving forward and to also continue keeping communication lines open regarding critical issues of the real estate community.
To find out additional information on dates and locations of the Hill visits, please visit
Mirealtors.com.
REALTOR® Magazine is seeking nominations for the eleventh annual
REALTOR® Magazine Good Neighbor Awards. The National Association of REALTORS®’ annual program recognizes REALTORS
® who’ve made an extraordinary commitment to their communities through volunteer work.
Five winners will be announced the November issue of
REALTOR® Magazine and at the 2010 REALTORS
® Conference & Expo in New Orleans. The winners will receive, among other things, a $10,000 grant for their community cause, national publicity, travel expenses to the convention, and a crystal trophy.
“We created the Good Neighbor Awards to recognize REALTORS
®’ efforts to make their communities a better place to live—whether through affordable housing initiatives, education and child welfare projects, or in any number of other ways,” says Pamela Geurds Kabati,
REALTOR® magazine Editorial Director. “REALTORS
® generally are big-hearted people and many of them get very involved in their communities, but their local efforts are seldom rewarded on a national level.”
Last year’s winners contributed a combined total of nearly 8,000 hours to their causes in one year and drew a standing ovation during NAR’s annual convention in San Diego. They were: Greg Adamson, Prudential Utah Real Estate, American Fork, Utah, Utah Heart 2 Home; Cindy Johnson, Dona Christensen Realty, Woodbury, Minn., The Arc of Minnesota; Helen Marotto, EXIT Homeplace Realty, Hampstead, NC, Cape Fear Guardian Ad Litem Assn.; Regina Ragon, Prudential Realty Center, Flintstone, Ga., Latin American Community Development; and Samuel Thomas, Jr., Imani Realty & Assocs., Willingboro, NJ, QUEST – Community Outreach.
“We hope the magazine’s Good Neighbor Awards will inspire REALTORS
® everywhere—a family of more than one million professionals—to give a little or a lot more to help improve the quality of life in their communities,” says Kabati. “This awards program is fundamentally about recognizing and encouraging the power of one person to really make a difference in the lives of others.”
REALTOR® Magazine’s Good Neighbor Awards is sponsored by Lowe’s.
Good Neighbor Award entries must be received by May 21, 2010. For more details and an entry form, go to
http://www.REALTOR.org/realtormag and click on the Good Neighbor logo, call 800-874-6500, or see the ad in the March issue of
REALTOR® magazine.