President’s Message

We create the opportunity for EVERYONE to achieve the American Dream

Ezekiel “Zeke” Morris

President

I am honored and humbled to serve as your 2022 Illinois REALTORS® President. I look forward to us working together this year on:

u Preserving and creating housing that is affordable for everyone in the state u Diversifying the real estate industry u Identifying and breaking down barriers to homeownership such as discriminatory appraisals and u Creating the opportunity for all of our clients to achieve the American

Dream of homeownership

As you know, these last few years we’ve focused our legislative agenda on property management as well as preserving and creating more housing that is affordable. Some of our concepts for creating new resources and incentives to finance affordable housing are embodied in measures that went into effect this year. But that is not good enough. This year, Illinois REALTORS®, with your help, will use our combined influence to push even harder to ensure housing affordability and availability are the top issues of our state elected officials.

We also are strengthening our state and local governmental affairs program to better enable us to work on both residential and commercial property management policy issues at the local, regional and state levels. As someone who has done commercial real estate work over the years, I am pleased to tell you that in the coming year your Illinois REALTORS® will be taking even greater steps to promote our state’s commercial real estate sector to national and international investors. A few of those moves have already occurred.

But even with our dedicated staff, our success will be determined in part by you. We need you to help us identify harmful legislation being considered, answer our Calls for Action to let elected officials know our position on such issues, and continue – if possible to increase – your investment in RPAC to secure our future at the local, state and federal levels.

This year we will continue our longstanding commitment to diversity in the workplace by once again offering grants for Illinois real estate firms to retain experts in diversity and inclusion to help them understand sensitive topics and implement business practices that prioritize workplace diversity. This partnership between Illinois REALTORS® and the Illinois Real Estate Educational Foundation (REEF) will again include increasing the number of minority scholarships awarded.

The association’s theme this year focuses on creating the opportunity for everyone to achieve the American Dream of homeownership. That is the dream of building wealth through property ownership – both residential and commercial. Many of your neighbors, and mine, have been deprived of this Dream.

To break down the remaining vestiges of housing inequity facing women, people of color and our clients at all socioeconomic levels, our Discriminatory Appraisals Task Force has conducted research, disseminated information to our members and the media, and plans to take even more steps to remove this hindrance to homeownership.

We, REALTORS®, must work together this year to preserve private property rights and create the opportunity for everyone in Illinois to achieve the American Dream of homeownership. I look forward to doing so with you in 2022!

Ezekiel “Zeke” Morris Illinois REALTORS® President