The National Association of Realtors has created a nonprofit that gives more heavily to one side of the political aisle and to groups that have little to do with real estate and housing.
The National Association of Realtors — the largest trade organization in the United States — wields substantial influence over the American housing industry. To help hold on to that power, it also runs one of the biggest political action committees, routinely outspending even major companies like Amazon.
The PAC supports candidates who are in line with N.A.R.’s positions, regardless of party, and its spending is scrupulously bipartisan: Half goes to Democrats, and the other half to Republicans. Political neutrality is the backbone of the N.A.R. brand.
But about five years ago, N.A.R. quietly created an affiliate nonprofit called the American Property Owners Alliance, and its spending tells a different story. While the PAC plays it down the middle, the American Property Owners Alliance appears to have taken a side.
In an examination of the American Property Owners Alliance’s tax records, The New York Times found that the nonprofit — which is solely funded by N.A.R. — distributed $12.8 million in grants in its first four years. Nearly $10 million went to Republican-aligned super PACs and groups with conservative agendas.
Only one grant recipient — the Republican-aligned Americans for Tax Reform, which received $25,000 — lists housing or property rights among its goals.
The pattern of giving, three nonprofit lawyers said, appears politically motivated and out of step with the American Property Owners Alliance’s stated mission as a nonpartisan nonprofit and an “advocate for the rights of all property owners.” It’s the kind of giving that could put its tax-exempt status under the scrutiny of the Internal Revenue Service, the lawyers said.
