National Association of Real Estate Brokers to convene Annual Mid-Winter Conference in South Florida to develop strategies aimed at revitalizing minority communities and addressing affects of massive foreclosures.
PLANTATION – The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), the nation’s oldest minority trade association, now faces one of the fiercest battles in the organization’s history.
Estimates that nearly 2.5 million homeowners face foreclosure in 2009, massive unemployment and continuing layoffs, coupled with the pervasive financial uncertainty rocking the nation’s economic core, serves as the backdrop for NAREB’s annual Mid-Winter Conference.
Meeting under the banner, “Embracing Change for the Future,” more than 300 Realtists®, government housing and community development officials, affordable housing advocates, and financial industry executives are expected to convene, February 20 through 22, at the Renaissance Fort Lauderdale Plantation Hotel, 1230 South Pine Island Road, Plantation, FL to discuss and implement strategies that help minority real estate professionals weather the currently depressed housing market, and prepare for the eventual upswing.
“The bedrock of the American Dream – homeownership — is cracking. Decades of hard-won legislative victories and regulatory improvements ensuring fair housing for African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and other disenfranchised minority groups are threatened by the financial markets’ callous handling of millions of homeowner’s honest efforts to build a secure life in a home of their own,” said Maria Kong, President and CEO of the 35,000-member NAREB, founded 62 years ago to ensure fair housing opportunities for African Americans and other minorities whose members are known as Realtists®.
Maria Kong
“Government, the private sector, and affordable housing advocates must rally to the call to save affordable and sustainable homeownership. We’re asking President Obama, his Administration, every member of Congress, as well as the financial industry to help restore homeownership opportunities by eliminating oppressive barriers so that millions of distressed and near-foreclosure homeowners can remain in their homes,” added Ms. Kong.
Highlights of this year’s two-day, mid-winter meeting include presentations by successful South Florida-based developer, successful entrepreneur, and author, R. Donahue Peebles, Chairman and CEO, The Peebles Corporation recognized as the largest, African American-owned real estate development company with a $4 billion portfolio of completed or underway luxury hotels, and high-rise residential and Class A commercial properties and developments in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Miami Beach.
A host of housing, government officials, and economic experts will also be on hand to present their views on the current marketplace. Counted among them are LaVaughn M. Henry, PhD, Director of U.S. Economic Analysis for the PMI Group, in the Economics & Corporate Strategy Group speaking on “The Housing and Mortgage Market Outlook for 2009-2010 for the U.S. and selected Metro Areas;” John A. Courson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), addressing the topic, “The Need to ‘Do It Right’ in the Future,” and Craig Nickerson, President of the National Community Stabilization Trust, a collaborative, nationwide, nonprofit organization created to facilitate the transfer of foreclosed property from financial institutions to localities in order to spur productive property reuse and neighborhood revitalization, to name a few conference presenters.
“It is fitting that NAREB convenes the Mid-Winter Conference in the Florida where nearly 424,000 home foreclosures are projected this year alone. Nationwide, foreclosure estimates are expected to hit more than 2.4 million homeowners. We have not a moment to spare. Workable public-private sector and community-based collaborations coupled with government policies designed to provide relief for distressed homeowners is the only viable remedy to address and reverse the deepening housing crisis, Kong stated.
More details on the 62nd Annual NAREB Mid-Winter Conference can be found by visiting www.nareb.com.
