NAR sets 2007 Federal Policy Agenda

by Jerry Giovaniello, Chief Lobbyist & Senior Vice President

Earlier this year, the NAR Research staff polled more than 13,000 REALTOR® Members, Association Executives and industry leaders to determine which federal policy issues were considered to be of paramount importance in 2007.

During the January Government Affairs Meetings, REALTOR® members reviewed the polling results, engaged in spirited discussion, and developed the 2007 federal policy agenda.

Three principle areas of focus
While a vibrant real estate industry is essential to the overall health of the economy of the United States, sound public policies designed to ensure that vibrancy are not a forgone conclusion.

Enacting sound public policy requires Congressional allies and an aggressive advocacy for REALTOR® Party Issues. Fortunately, NAR has both. Our REALTOR® Party Champions understand the importance of the real estate industry to the national economy and the importance of homeownership to building strong and stable communities.

Working with our REALTOR® Party Champions, NAR is focusing our federal policy advocacy resources on three broad topics: creating affordable housing opportunities, protecting consumers in the real estate transaction and enacting health care insurance legislation. Throughout the 110th Congress, the issues presented below will remain NAR's top priorities.

Creating affordable housing opportunities

• Reform the FHA Single-FamilyMortgage Insurance Program to give FHA the flexibility to reach more low and moderate-income borrowers. 
• Increase the FHA single-family and GSE conforming loan limits to better reflect home price appreciation. 
• Support creation of a GSE affordable housing fund financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 
• Support creation of an affordable housing tax credit to increase the supply of affordable housing available for  purchase. 
• Support alternative ways to assess the credit-worthiness of potential homebuyers.

Protecting consumers in the real estatetransaction

• Permanently bar the mixing of bankingand commerce. 
• Support strong anti-predatory lendinglegislation and regulations and oppose preemption of state predatory lending laws. 
• Preserve favorable real estate tax policies that support housing opportunities and homeownership
• Support the preservation of the mortgage interest deduction and the state and local property taxes deduction. Retaining the current law treatment of Section 1031 like-kind exchanges.
• Retaining the capital gains $500,000 exclusion on principal residences.
• Support the consistent and ongoing availability and affordability of residential and commercial property insurance.
• Support continued funding for updating of the National Flood Insurance Program's (NFIP) flood maps.
• Support reform of the NFIP to ensure its efficiency and effectiveness.
• Support the availability and affordability of insurance in disaster prone areas.
• Support the permanent availability of terrorism insurance coverage for commercial and multifamily properties.

Enacting health care insurance legislation
Seek enactment of legislation that would make affordable health insurance available to self employed REALTOR® members and firm employees.

The NAR REALTORS® Political Action Committee was the largest PAC contributor to U.S. House and Senate candidates in the 2006 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data reported by Political Money Line. As of the end of November, RPAC had contributed $3.7 million to congressional candidates, some $800,000 more than the next largest contributor, the National Beer Wholesalers Association PAC, which contributed $2.9 million. The third largest contributor was the Build PAC of the National Association of Home Builders, which contributed $2.8 million.

RPAC's contributions were the most bipartisan of the top 20 PACs, an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics shows. Forty-eight percent of RPAC's contributions were directed to Democrats and 51 percent to Republicans.