Business View Magazine Feb 2023

39 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 2 Association of Realtors®, we were founded because we wanted to make sure we were working with our clients, our potential clients, and each other in a professional and ethical way,” McBrayer explains. McBrayer points out that from 1924 to now, RRAR’s members have continued to fine-tune and adjust the rules and standards that had been outlined while ensuring that the association is still doing its very best to serve its members and the general public in the region it represents. It can be argued that striving for this goal potentially could have become difficult once the pandemic hit. However, despite predictions that had leaned towards negative outcomes for the housing market, Raleigh fared exceptionally well. As a result, the challenge for RRAR then became how to best represent its members who were busier than ever through COVID while it focused on remaining open with impending pandemic restrictions. “Right off the bat, our challenge was to keep our doors open for business.” “While our state legislators and NC Governor Roy Cooper decided to deem our industry as essential, it was because of the investments in our Realtor® Political Action Committee or RPAC that meant we had state leaders who understood the importance of what we did as Realtors® and what great harm it would do to our economy and the public state of mind if we would not be able to help them buy and sell homes,” McBrayer reflected. McBrayer also attributed RRAR’s ability to stay open and serve its members during the worst of the pandemic to the local leaders in the Wake County Commission who also had to be convinced to allow the association to do business. “These local leaders understood the value that Realtors® provide to our economy and our community, especially during a national threat such as COVID-19. While some other counties went months without the ability to do any business at all, we never had that problem in Wake County,” he highlighted. McBrayer insists that staying open for business while reassuring local Realtors®, did not offset other negative impacts that RALE IGH REGIONAL ASSOC I AT ION OF REALTORS