Welcome to the Center for REALTOR® Development podcast. I'm Monica Neubauer, your host.

 

REALTORS® play a powerful role in shaping our communities. Many are deeply involved, while others are just beginning to explore the possibilities. As an industry, we bring tremendous value, not just to buyers and sellers, but to neighborhoods, main streets, and local community development initiatives that make our communities stronger.

 

What many people don't realize is that the National Association of REALTORS® offers a suite of grants, tools, and resources available only to state and local associations, to help turn great ideas into action. Whether it's improving housing access, revitalizing public spaces, or tackling zoning challenges, NAR has programs that can help.

 

Maybe something we discuss today will inspire an initiative you may want to get involved in, or open a door you didn't know was there.

 

[1:50 ] Joining us to share more is Christine Windle, who helps lead some of these efforts at NAR. Welcome, Christine.

[1:59 ] Monica shares Christine Windle's biography.

[3:02 ] Christine explains that NAR's Community Outreach Program offers several grants: Smart Growth, Housing Opportunity, Placemaking, and Fair Housing. These are available exclusively to state and local REALTOR® associations, not individual REALTORS®.

[3:19 ] NAR's Community Outreach Program has produced webinars for state and local associations of REALTORS® and their leadership on how to leverage these grants. Just Google NAR Community Outreach webinars, and the page comes up.

[3:32 ] The discussion will be how REALTORS® can work through local associations and state associations to identify, advocate for, and support eligible initiatives. All of these projects are meant to be done with the community.

[4:03 ] It's REALTORS® helping the community, in partnership with their local and state association. There are networking opportunities. It's the industry lifting the community.

[4:50 ] The Community Outreach Grant and Resource program is designed to help REALTOR® associations and their leadership engage in transformational work, bringing REALTORS® to the table to support housing opportunity, smart growth, placemaking, and fair housing in their communities.

[5:12 ] Within the program, there are cornerstone grants. The Smart Growth Grant supports local planning efforts, infrastructure, investment planning, zoning reform, and more. It helps associations bring stakeholders together to plan for future growth in ways that are equitable and sustainable.

[5:32 ] The Housing Opportunity Grant is a little different. It focuses on expanding access to home ownership, reducing barriers, and promoting housing affordability. These grants often support first-time buyer education, workforce housing forums, and housing trust fund advocacy.

[5:50 ] The Placemaking Grant helps associations convert underutilized spaces into vibrant public spaces. So think of a pocket park, a trailhead, or alley activation. These small projects can have a really big impact on the quality of life and smarter growth.

[6:11 ] Monica asks to hear more about these individual programs and how they help REALTORS®.

[7:12 ] Christine explains the Housing Opportunity Grant. It's a widely used grant. It's a great member-engagement grant. It's a great grant to leverage for the local association when REALTORS® want to get involved in a Housing Fair. Several local associations will work with partners.

[7:30 ] Partnerships are an important aspect of these programs, with associations leveraging relationships with municipalities, Housing Authorities, and housing counseling entities to put together Housing Fairs. The grant can help support expenses associated with those Housing Fairs.

[7:53 ] The Housing Opportunity Grant Level 2 can be leveraged up to $7,500 to support the venue rentals, expenses, marketing materials, and needed workshop speakers. The REALTORS® work with the local association through the committee structure to help design the event and to help with engagement.

[8:15 ] Many of them come to the table with ideas on what we need to do to get it done this year. We work with the local association. The board of directors of the local association signs off, and the staff applies for the grant. We help them understand what the best practices are with housing fairs.

[8:36 ] Christine says we'll show them the housing opportunity toolkit, which has real-life examples, the REALTOR® success stories, where they can gain inspiration from what others are doing, to build the best program it can be.

[9:06 ] Monica says, If you get started, this is not something to drag your feet on. Start making the plan and start communicating with Christine and her team. Look at the earlier episodes this year about community investment grants to help individuals buy houses, and these episodes, and let the ideas flow.

[9:43 ] Christine explains, you can also use the grant to put together individual homebuyer education initiatives. Local associations are leveraging Level 2 to partner with the municipality to do outreach on Saturdays, where their REALTORS® and affiliates are teaching to help build awareness about education.

[10:15 ] Monica asks about Placemaking. The definition is not complicated. It's making places better. I see that as a high-level term used a lot in zoning language and in government situations. But I don't think the average real estate agent understands what that is or how easy it is to put in their community.

[10:52 ] Christine says our Placemaking program grew out of our Smart Growth program, which is to help REALTOR® associations and REALTORS® engage in building better and more livable communities.

[11:04 ] Think walkability, mixed use, housing affordability, and transit options, growing in versus growing out. That program was being designed in the late '90s. And then, as it grew over the decade, the Placemaking program came about.

[11:22 ] Placemaking means different things. But there was recognition that local associations could get involved in helping build more vibrant communities tactically. What that means to us is converting underutilized spaces. Think of a vacant lot between two buildings. There's potential with that vacant lot.

[11:44 ] Perhaps it's a pocket park that can go in there, or what we call an alley activation, where you could put lights and benches, a gathering spot for the community to get together and to help recognize and realize the potential of that space.

[11:59 ] Once you redesign that space and bring life to it, then the other areas of the town become vibrant. And so what we call Placemaking is quicker, lighter, cheaper projects.

[12:12 ] Christine gives an example. Take that pocket park, where you're putting benches together, maybe put a game table, and lights. The community says, I would like to have lunch there. Let me go to the local deli. That's a spot. You want that to be an attractive spot.

[12:27 ] It's also used for trail heads as well to connect communities and to build parks and to build dog parks, anything that brings in vibrancy. It's an exercise as well for the REALTOR® associations to build partnerships and relationships with local elected officials.

[12:46 ] Often, the association will have an idea, they'll bring it to the municipality, the parks director, and the elected officials, and they'll come together with a plan. The grant can provide support of up to $7,500 for that improvement. There's a lot of potential. The projects must be under half a million dollars.

[13:04 ] It's called Quicker, Lighter, Cheaper projects. We're not financing large capital facility projects; we're financing small parks, pocket parks. As of last year, we listened to our associations, and there was an interest in helping to refurbish some of these smaller-scale initiatives and community assets.

[13:26 ] Local associations can kick in funds to replace that bench that's been there for a long time, and to refurbish a smaller-scale community asset. Christine adds an important aspect: the lot must be publicly owned, not private property or owned by a non-profit. It must be owned by the municipality.

[14:16 ] There's a reason for that. We want the area to be vibrant for years to come. Once the municipality commits to that, we know that that investment from an NAR standpoint is going to stay. And we don't want to put any type of REALTOR® Party dollars toward anything that enriches an individual.

[14:40 ] We want it to be accessible and open to the community at all times. You can't lock it up for a period of six months. It's fine if, at sunset, you have to lock up the park. It has to be accessible to everyone.

[15:18 ] Monica asks about Smart Growth. Christine says to think of Smart Growth as bringing homes near jobs and the ability of residences and businesses to improve walkability and infrastructure, ensuring community revitalization efforts move forward.

[16:06 ] Christine says, think about infill as an example, where we have a vacant building. Is there an opportunity to ensure adaptive reuse or to bring in and develop mixed-use, to create a place where people can live, work, and play? That's the essence of smart growth.

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