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A busy week for NAR, the struggle by Maui’s wildfire survivors, and guess who’s coming to dinner (and breakfast and lunch)? From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of Oct. 7-11.

Hit: NAR Fights Back. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has requested the U.S. Supreme Court consider whether the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has the right to reopen an antitrust investigation that was resolved in a 2020 settlement. NAR’s writ of certiorari argues that the DOJ’s actions were without precedent and that the settlement needs to be honored. The trade group stated it was “critical because the government enters into contracts in a vast range of contexts… in which contracting partners rely on the government to keep its word.” Hopefully for NAR, the legal team on this case will have more luck compared to the lawyers who handled of the Sitzer/Burnett case.

Miss: AREA Fights NAR. The start-up American Real Estate Association (AREA) is soliciting input from real estate professionals to become involved in a potential class action lawsuit against the NAR Clear Cooperation Policy. “If you have been fined or otherwise harmed by the Clear Cooperation Policy, you may be eligible to join a class action lawsuit against NAR,” said AREA in an email alert. “In response to growing requests from agents, we are currently collecting names of agents and homeowners who have been affected by this policy.” This is the second time that AREA took aim at NAR’s policy, following a petition drive launched last month. If AREA is going to become accepted as a serious alternative to NAR, it needs to stop obsessing over NAR and show what it can do for its new and potential members.

Hit: NAR Says Thanks. Also this week, NAR announced the winners of its 25th annual Good Neighbor Awards that celebrates realtors who “are not only experts in their field but also champions of volunteerism.” Here’s a thumbs-up to this year’s winners: Ed Gardner, Gardner Real Estate Group (Portland, Maine); Stacy Horst, Keller Williams Atlantic Partners (Fernandina Beach, Florida); Christopher Johnson, Imagine Associates LLC Realty (Ellenwood, Georgia); Danette Johnson, Moab Realty (Moab, Utah); and Charlie Wills, Charlie Wills Team–Real Estate Partners (Madison, Wisconsin).

Miss: Remember Maui? The impact of the August 2023 Maui wildfires continues to resonate as a new study has found the number of households living below the poverty line has more than doubled since devastation occurred. A report from the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) determined that fire-impacted households in Maui typically pay 43% more rent for the same or fewer bedrooms, while 80% of West Maui residents from the study were displaced from their homes and almost half had to leave West Maui. The study also found 29% of fire-affected households now live below the poverty line, compared to 14% before the fires and 9% for Maui County in 2023. While the nation’s attention has been focused on the devastation brought to the Southeast via Hurricanes Helene and Milton, we need to remember that too many of the survivors of last year’s major catastrophe have yet to get back on their feet.

Miss: Pushing Back at NIMBY. The swanky Town of Southampton on the eastern end of Long Island was sued this week by the nonprofit Concern for rejecting its proposal to build a 50-unit affordable housing development for veterans, people with mental health issues and low-income households on a vacant five-acre plot. The New York Times reported Concern had been trying to work with the affluent town for years but has run into NIMBY attitudes from residents and a town government that had no problems approving an apartment complex for middle-income residents but which – according to Councilman William Pell – believes Concern’s effort is “a good idea, but it’s in the wrong place.” The town hinted it would be open to a settlement with Concern rather than agree to construction. Let’s hope Concern pursues this case to its fullest while reminding the rich snobs of Southampton that their wealthy community needs to comply with New York’s fair housing laws.

The Revenge of Rocky Raccoon. And what might be one of the silliest homeownership stories of this week came via the Associated Press in its report of the Sheriff’s Department in Washington’s Kitsap County getting a call from a homeowner who claimed she needed to flee her property after it was overrun by between 50 and 100 raccoons. The homeowner was partly to blame – she had begun feeding a family of racoons for decades – but it is unclear why the benign feeding of a few raccoons suddenly created a flood of food-seeking critters who had no previous connection to the property. The homeowner complained the raccoons would surround her if she ventured outside and became aggressive in their demands to be fed. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office seemed to be siding with the racoons when he defined the homeowner’s call for help as “a nuisance problem kind of her own making that she has to deal with” while passing her complaint over to the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].

Photo courtesy Kitsap County’s Sheriff’s Department