In July, we took our first international trip as an association to attend the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers (IPAV), the National Association of REALTORS® counterpart in Ireland. We met with their leadership at their headquarters in Dublin and attended their Annual General Meeting in Athlone, Ireland. As a featured speaker on the Emerald Isle, ABoR CEO Emily Chenevert, helped us take the next big step in building relationships with real estate associations worldwide.
The Austin-based U.S. delegation was led by 2022 ABoR & ACTRIS Boards of Directors President Cord Shiflet; ABoR Global Ambassador, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Socar Chatmon-Thomas; and ABoR Global Business Alliance member Eric Copper. ABoR CMO Kelea Youngblood; and Christine Wren, ABoR Special Programs Lead and Global Liaison, also attended as part of the delegation meeting with Pat Davitt, IPAV CEO, members of the IPAV Board, and Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS) leadership on future programming and collaborations.
The 2022 NAR Global Coordinator to Western Europe, Hanne Sagalowsky (Dallas), and NAR Global Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, James Kinney (Chicago), later joined Emily Chenevert in a panel discussion. NAR Presidents Liaison to Ireland, Claire Killen (Minneapolis), was also part of our U.S. representation.
In a never-ending search for technologies that support our members, and in partnership with NAR REACH, we seek to find proptech, and fintech companies developed and launched in Central Texas. But that does not exclude us from looking beyond our borders for ideas, solutions, and innovation. We look for tech that would support our members in their day-to-day. In Ireland, we had the opportunity to meet with Nathan Emerson, CEO, PROPERTYMARK from the United Kingdom, and Stephen McCarron, President of NAEA PROPERTYMARK, with an eye toward future collaborations and market understanding. In London, we attended a REACH UK pitch event led by Natasha Terinova, Director, REACH UK – Second Century Ventures, that provided a setting to meet with key thought leaders in the U.K.'s innovation space. While we focus on Central Texas and our local market, we are thinking globally to help you thrive locally.
NAR has 105 bilateral partnerships in 85 countries around the globe, representing seven million real estate professionals. Among those partnerships are forty-four Ambassador Associations at the local and state levels. In August 2020, ABoR was invited to represent NAR as the Ambassador Association to Ireland, building on a bilateral agreement signed in 2015 between NAR and IPAV. Each partnership and agreement are unique, but the common thread is designing collaborations to elevate the real estate industry's best practices worldwide.
After restructuring in 2019, ABoR's Global program has become one of the country's fastest-growing international real estate programs, delivering award-winning programming, education, and tools. This new way of engagement positions our members to better serve their buyers, sellers, and investors domestically and abroad. In 2021, ABoR Global earned its third-consecutive NAR Platinum Global Achievement Award, reinforcing its reputation as one of the country's premier international real estate programs. ABoR Global's approach has spread throughout the association. The global business model has been applied to restructuring and enhancements to ABoR's Foundation, Government Affairs Policy Teams, and the newly launched REACH Labs local extension of NAR REACH, the #1 Technology Accelerator in Real Estate.
ABoR GBA is the heart of our Global program, a community of REALTOR® members passionate about the global real estate market. We will continue strengthening and developing cross-border collaborations with our Global Ambassador Association partner IPAV and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) partner, The Canadian Association of REALTORS®.
2022 Think Globally, Thrive Locally!
Pictured Above: ABoR and IPAV members in Ireland. Front Row: Pat Davitt, Christine Wren, Cord Shiflet, Socar Chatmon-Thomas; Back Row: James Kinney, Hanne Sagalosky, Paul McCourtney, Niamh Giffney, Emily Chenevert, Eric Copper; Not Pictured: Kelea Youngblood
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