The president of the National Association of Realtors resigned from her position after receiving a blackmail threat, the organization announced Monday, a surprise departure that comes just four months into her tenure.
Tracy Kasper told association leadership that she’d received “a threat to disclose a past personal, non-financial matter unless she compromised her position at NAR,” the organization said in a news release. Kasper refused to do so and reported the threat to police, it added.
Kasper said in the news release that she had chosen to put “the interests of NAR first,” and was stepping down “with a mix of gratitude and a heavy heart.”
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The exact nature of the threat was not immediately clear, and Kaspar and NAR did not say if they were aware of the identity or identities of the alleged blackmailers. The association, which represents more than 1.5 million residential and commercial realtors, said in the news release that it was “taking steps to protect the integrity of the organization.”
Kevin Sears, a Massachusetts real estate agent, will assume presidency of the association immediately, according to the news release.
The NAR has been rocked by controversy in recent months, with Kasper’s predecessor, Kenny Parcell, resigning in August, just days after The New York Times published an investigation alleging he’d sexually harassed and discriminated against female colleagues. Two months later, CEO Bob Goldberg resigned ahead of schedule after a federal jury found the association and several large brokerages had conspired to artificially inflate home-sale commissions for real estate agents.
The NAR and the brokerages were ordered to pay damages of at least $1.8 million in the case. The association said at the time that it planned to appeal the case.
Kasper, 55, has served on NAR’s board since 2016, and is the broker-owner of a real estate company in Boise Valley, Idaho. In the months after succeeding Parcell and in direct response to his resignation, according to The New York Times, Kasper helped usher in a new NAR policy that bans any elected officer who resigns or is ousted from office from association events for life.
The policy will now apparently apply to Kasper as well.
