The National Association of Realtors has announced a new community service outreach plan  “Operation Home Rescue.” Realtor members will be opening their homes to families who have been displaced by foreclosure.  Each NAR member will offer their basement, family room, third bedroom, and in the case of an already full house, their garage to families who may otherwise be homeless due to their own foreclosure. “We have a duty to help those less fortunate and in this case, some of these folks will likely be our past clients” said an NAR Spokesman.  “We won’t be going out of our way to make their stay to terribly comfortable,” he said, “because these are our future homebuyers!”  When asked about how a recent foreclosure effects a person’s ability to obtain a mortgage again, he said, “pretty soon, the lenders won’t have anyone else to lend money to, so they’ll have to take these homebuyers back again.”  NAR representatives were not sure how the plan would work when the foreclosing homeowners are Realtors.  “Frankly, I’d rather volunteer to take in their abandoned dogs or cats instead of taking in one of my competitors” said Sean Q., a real estate agent.   Homeowners in foreclosure should contact the Realtor who sold them the home for more details. 

In addition, a Realtor spokesman explained that a motion was made at the previous convention to add an article to the Realtor Code of Ethics which would have made it a Realtor’s ethical duty to make sure the homebuyer could actually afford the mortgage payments but the motion was defeated.  “NAR is on record as being against banks getting in to the real estate business so we figured it was a good idea if we stay out of the banking business.”

NAR’s Operation Home Rescue outreach program provides a dual benefit of rescuing foreclosed families and then selling them another home which will help to clear out the inventory of homes for sale.