Battlespace Prep: NAR, Media and Politics

Inman News reports that NAR has decided to go to war with “the media”:

“[The] Wall Street Journal … says Realtors have way too much political power,” Yun told a ballroom of thousands of attendees.

“Well, if the Realtors do not have power, then who has? The media. So we either have Americans participating in the democracy, or we can let the media dictate. So thank you very much for coming to Washington.” The crowd applauded and some cheered.

It is unclear who NAR’s leaders are referring to when they mention “the media.” An Inman analysis of several mainstream media outlets’ coverage of the commission suits found that the track record was mixed in terms of accuracy.

Well, turns out that the media can go to war with NAR as well.

A new operation called NOTUS has published a long piece of investigative journalism titled, “Realtors Partied, Spent Big and Lobbied Hard. Then It All Came Crashing Down.” The story is unlikely to get wide exposure to the public, because it requires a decent amount of reading. It is, however, quite likely to get wide exposure to those whose opinions matter: policymakers. The story is worth reading in full, not because you’re going to agree with it (I suspect that you will not) but because important people in positions of power will read it in full.

This is, I think, what one might call battlespace prep. The policymaking infrastructure is gearing up for what comes next. And NAR is sleepwalking towards the edge, thanks to failures in leadership.

It is very clear that I can’t make NAR change. None of us can. Events will do that, one way or another. I write this to inform and educate my readers as to what is coming so they can avoid the worst and prepare their own strategies.