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.
In a statement, the American Property Owners Alliance said it “has acted in a manner consistent with that of a section 501(c) (4) advocacy organization,” referring to the Internal Revenue Service code for social welfare nonprofits.
The grants “advance APOA’s own agenda and, while not direct program activity, advance the interest of property owners and their rights,” the nonprofit said in its statement.
Social welfare nonprofits like the American Property Owners Alliance must ensure that their grants line up with a purpose focused on public good. And they can participate only in political activity that lines up with that goal, as well.
“Otherwise, it looks really bad,” said Audrey K. Chisholm, a lawyer who founded the nonprofit-focused Chisholm Law Firm in Orlando, Fla.
The lopsided spending also raises questions about N.A.R.’s reason for establishing the American Property Owners Alliance, said J.J. Leitner, a lawyer who represents tax-exempt organizations.
The group appears to be little more than a “pass-through,” Ms. Leitner said. “It looks like N.A.R. created an organization that is a conduit” for political spending that it may not want traced.
N.A.R. frequently trumpets the 50/50 split in the PAC’s campaign contributions to its 1.5 million members, who span the political spectrum and whose dues provide the vast majority of the organization’s revenue.
Though the American Property Owners Alliance has been around since 2020, its existence and activities are largely below the radar of most N.A.R. members. Some who are aware of it say they have not been given details about its spending, even when they asked.
In 2022, Tony Mancuso, the immediate past president of the Washington D.C. Association of Realtors, stood up at an annual meeting of N.A.R. and asked why there was not more transparency about the American Property Owners Alliance. He told The Times he was not given answers.
“The Alliance was given control over what is basically a slush fund,” Mr. Mancuso said. “But the money in that account is our dues money.”
There appears to be no formal application process for groups to apply for grants. One nonprofit, the National Black Empowerment Council, confirmed that it had not applied for the $40,000 grant it received. When pressed, Amber Hord, a spokeswoman for the American Property Owners Alliance said, the organization “evaluates groups that are committed to advancing pro-housing solutions.”
“Grants are awarded by the board,” she said.
One Nation
The biggest recipient by far has been One Nation, a nonprofit that received $7 million in grants, more than half of all the grant money distributed from 2020 through 2023. Records from 2024 are not yet publicly available.
One Nation is aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican. A so-called dark money group, which uses dollars to influence elections, One Nation is a key contributor to the Senate Leadership Fund, the largest super PAC for Senate Republicans.
On its website, One Nation has a list of priorities: tax reform, appointing constitutional conservatives as judges, supporting victims of sexual assault, honoring veterans and restraining government spending. But it also wades into American culture wars: On the website, it prominently displays a link to its report against critical race theory in schools, and is a donor to the Susan B. Anthony List and the National Right to Life, two powerful anti-abortion groups.
Other recipients of grants from the American Property Owners Alliance also promote their stances on politically sensitive issues. The Douglass Leadership Institute, a Christian group focused on the Black community, has a campaign to reduce the number of abortions, and abortion providers, in the Black community. The American Unity Fund, which received $100,000, is a Republican-aligned L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group that champions same-sex marriage.
The American Property Owners Alliance and N.A.R. both declined to respond to questions from The New York Times about how the specific groups they give to are connected to the issues of homeownership.
Other recipients that lean conservative are the American Action Network, which got $2.5 million. It is a Republican advocacy group founded by former Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota, and Fred Malek, who served as an adviser to President Richard Nixon and President George H.W. Bush. Opportunity Matters, a Republican-aligned super PAC, received $100,000.
At the same time, the American Property Owners Alliance did give significant funds to a Democratic-aligned organization, though far less than to the other side. House Majority Forward, which received $3 million, is a key contributor to the Democratic House Majority PAC, a top super PAC for Democrats. House Majority Forward lists economic growth, social justice, environmental stewardship and democracy among its priorities.
The National Black Empowerment Council, which received one of the smallest grants, is a nonpartisan group trying to close the wealth gap between Black Americans and other groups.
Members of N.A.R. are mostly unaware of the American Property Owners Alliance. The Times reached out to 34 N.A.R. members working as Realtors in brokerages of all sizes across the country: 31 said they had never heard of the group.
One agent who had heard of it, Allison Deutsch, an agent with Oxford Property Group in New York, asked for more information about who received grants. When she was informed of the partisanship in funding and the recipients, she was upset.
“I’m horrified my dues money could be going to issues like that,” she said. “Critical race theory and abortion are completely irrelevant to the world of real estate. They should keep their nose out of it. They are a trade association.”
Ms. Deutsch said she joined N.A.R. only so she could have access to certain databases where homes are listed and sold, which they control through local subsidiaries. She refuses to pay more by also donating to their PAC, she said. “I’ve made a conscious effort not to give them another penny than I had to,” she said.
Last month, after The Times made inquiries, N.A.R. published an article in its online Realtor magazine. The article described the American Property Owners Alliance as “one of the only nonprofit organizations focused exclusively on advancing private property rights and the interests of property owners in the country,” which has “provided funding to groups across the political aisle.”
A day later, Suzanne Bouhia, N.A.R.’s chief marketing and communications officer, sent an email to N.A.R. leaders across the country, informing them that The Times was planning to publish a story on the American Property Owners Alliance. She said the reporter was making “the false claim that N.A.R. is a partisan organization with a right-leaning agenda.”
“We will continue to fight back,” Ms. Bouhia wrote.
‘Soft Money’
The predecessor of the American Property Owners Alliance is the Wisconsin Homeowners Alliance. As chief executive of the Wisconsin Association of Realtors in 2005, Bill Malkasian created the group to ostensibly support Wisconsin property owners. Most of its funds have gone to conservative groups, tax records show.
Three former colleagues of Mr. Malkasian described him as a partisan Republican who made no secret of his political leanings in the workplace. Mr. Malkasian referred a request for an interview to Colin Allen, the executive director of the American Property Owners Alliance, and then declined to respond further.
In 2011, Mr. Malkasian began working as a vice president of political strategic planning at N.A.R., and he proposed taking his organization’s model national. That included sending funds through a secondary organization to advocacy groups, making it harder to trace.
Walt Witek, who was the senior vice president of community and political affairs at N.A.R. at the time, was opposed to the idea. N.A.R.’s political spending, he said, was supposed to be easily tracked.
Mr. Witek recalled sitting in meetings in Washington and balking as Mr. Malkasian talked about the plan. “He wanted to use soft money and make it really dark. He didn’t want it branded with the Realtor name,” Mr. Witek said. “He wanted to make it untraceable.”
A lifelong Democrat, Mr. Witek said he was fired in 2018 because of his objections.
“I care about the organization, and it makes me sick to see the organization corrupted,” said Mr. Witek, 70.
Though he signed a nondisclosure agreement as part of a severance package, he said he was speaking out because he was concerned with how N.A.R. spends members’ funds without their knowledge.
Four former N.A.R. employees who worked closely with Mr. Witek and the chief executive confirmed that his resistance contributed to his firing. They spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because they were concerned about professional retribution. N.A.R. declined to comment on the circumstances of Mr. Witek’s firing.
Two years after Mr. Witek left N.A.R., the American Property Owners Alliance was officially established, and Mr. Malkasian became its first executive director. He retired in 2020 but remains on N.A.R.’s payroll as a “former officer,” earning more than $250,000 a year.
The nonprofit uses N.A.R.’s Washington, D.C., building as its address. In 2020, Mr. Malkasian appeared both on N.A.R.’s tax returns as the organization’s chief lobbyist, and on the alliance’s tax returns as its executive director. The alliance’s current leadership is stacked with N.A.R. insiders.
That structure means it is not actually a separate entity from N.A.R., said Ms. Leitner, the lawyer. “If they have a board that’s willing to do anything they want, they might as well not be there,” she said.
On a budget call in October, N.A.R.’s chief financial officer, John Pierpoint, told a group of directors that the organization expected a net revenue of $15.9 million in 2025. The Times obtained a recording of the call.
Mr. Pierpoint told those on the call that N.A.R. plans to use 40 percent of its 2025 net revenue to fund the American Property Owners Alliance.
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