Successful Broker Involvement Program Recruitment Phone Bank

Volunteers and staff met at the Tucson Association of REALTORS® offices and held a highly successful Broker Involvement Program recruitment phone bank this past Thursday.

Led by J.T. Tsighis, Arizona’s Broker Involvement Council Representative for the National Association of REALTORS®, 10 volunteers made 330 phone calls in 2 hours and recruited 115 brokers, who cover 674 Arizona REALTORS®.

The BIP is a unique tool that enables NAR to engage with REALTORS® on critical issues that face the real estate industry and property ownership, such as changes to the Mortgage Interest Deduction, 1031 Exchanges, issues with the National Flood Insurance Program, and more. Usually there are only one to three issues a year where NAR feels an issue needs the extra push by flexing the combined voice of the more than 1 million REALTORS® across the country.

The goal of the program is to encourage REALTORS® to engage with their Congressional representatives on timely and pressing issues by responding to Calls For Action, which usually involve taking two minutes to send a pre-drafted email to their representatives. The most recent CFA was to encourage Congress to extend the NFIP so that home sales in flood plains, an issue that has a huge impact in Arizona, could continue without home buyers having to spend thousands of dollars on costly flood insurance. Despite NAR setting a goal for at least 20 percent of REALTORS® to respond to CFA’s, only 9.51 percent of Arizona REALTORS® responded during the last call.

The BIP improves participation rates in CFAs by sending emails to agents from their brokers, which increases the open rate. Over 40 percent of CFA respondents do so through the BIP. While thousands of brokers around the country are enrolled, Arizona has 448 out of nearly 2,400 designated brokers in the state.

If you are a designated broker and would like to enroll at no cost on your part, please email Charles Siler, the Arizona REALTOR® Party Director, at charles@aaronline.com.

If you are a REALTOR® you can sign up to have all of NAR’s CFAs sent directly to your mobile device by simply texting “REALTORS” to 30644.