One dynamic always has been constant in the formation of housing policy in Washington, D.C.\u2014Realtor\u00ae<\/sup> lobbyists represent Realtors; home builder lobbyists represent home builders, and mortgage banker lobbyists represent mortgage bankers. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now there\u2019s a nonprofit grassroots organization created to directly advocate on behalf of the nation\u2019s 75 million homeowners and all future aspiring homeowners. It\u2019s called America\u2019s Homeowner Alliance (AHA), and its mission is \u201cto protect and promote sustainable homeownership for all segments of America\u201d, including the 13 million new households to be formed in the next 15 years that will be traditional minorities. <\/span><\/p>\n AHA Priorities<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n According to AHA\u2019s website at www.myaha.com, its 2018 priorities include advocating policies to address the owner-occupant housing inventory crisis, increase the availability of more predictive and accurate credit-scoring models, reduce Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fees, and reduce the proliferation of rules issued over the past decade that can unnecessarily restrict housing credit.<\/span><\/p>\n Individual AHA members pay annual dues of $20. In return, they get access to the AHA Ebates Member Rewards Program offering cash-back rewards and discounts from a network of over 1800 merchants nationwide; news updates on emerging public policy issues and current events impacting them as homeowners; special access to the Achieve the Dream<\/i> website featuring tools for prospective and current homeowners; and practical homeowner tips. And, of course, they get a direct voice in Washington, D.C. on housing policy issues.<\/span><\/p>\n AHA offers companies in the real estate industry an opportunity to build loyalty and new business by directly offering free one-year memberships to their sales forces and\/or customers, at no cost to the company. <\/span><\/p>\n If you are interested, contact Donna Burge at donna.l.burge@gmail.com. You also can sign up for your own free one-year AHA membership by visiting myaha.com at \u201cJoin Now\u201d, using the REAL Trends promotional code of realtrends2018.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Sue Johnson is a strategic alliance consultant and is the former executive director of RESPRO (Real Estate Services Providers Council Inc.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A nonprofit grassroots organization was created to directly advocate on behalf of the nation\u2019s 75 million homeowners and all future aspiring homeowners. One dynamic always has been constant in the formation of housing policy in Washington, D.C.\u2014Realtor\u00ae lobbyists represent Realtors; home builder lobbyists represent home builders, and mortgage banker lobbyists represent mortgage bankers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15802,"featured_media":4822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3255],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n