With housing affordability tightening its grip on communities across the nation, including Guam, the top U.S. real estate official says the solution starts with unity and a shovel in the ground.
Kevin Sears, 2025 president of the National Association of Realtors, called for a collective push to confront Guam’s growing housing crisis during his visit to the island this week.
On Friday morning, he met with Guam’s leaders and other members of the island’s real estate community at the Guam Realtor Political Action Committee, RPAC, event at the Hyatt Regency Guam in Tumon, where he outlined national advocacy efforts and urged local and federal stakeholders to work together.
“There is a lack of inventory, there’s an affordability crisis, and what we’re finding is that not only our young people, but our municipal workers, our cops, our firefighters, our teachers, are struggling to be able to live in the community,” Sears told the Pacific Daily News. “It has to be collaborative, we all have to be involved in the solution.”
The event, hosted by the Guam Association of Realtors, welcomed Sears as the special guest and speaker.
Sears, a broker-associate with Lamacchia Realty in Springfield, Massachusetts, is a veteran in the industry with decades of experience in real estate policy and advocacy. He is a former vice president of government affairs for NAR and a two-time RPAC Hall of Fame inductee.
“What we need to do is start today in developing and implementing solutions to the housing crisis, and it’s easing the regulatory burdens,” Sears said. “Allow quicker permitting, let shovels get in the dirt and construction begin.”
He identified the nationwide housing shortage and inflation-related cost spikes as twin barriers to affordability.
“What we need to do is just look at the inflation over the last five years. The cost of housing has just skyrocketed. And we know that labor costs have gone up, [and] construction, the material costs have gone up.”
Although Sears deferred detailed comments on tourism impacts to local real estate agents, he reaffirmed the National Association of Realtors’ support on key federal priorities.
“We’re continuing to fight for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage, National Flood Insurance, [Veteran Affairs] benefits, preserving the 1031 like kind exchange,” Sears said.
A 1031 like-kind exchange allows real estate investors to sell one investment property and use the proceeds to purchase another similar property without immediately paying capital gains taxes. The taxes are deferred as long as the new property is also for investment or business use and the transaction meets specific IRS time requirements.
He pointed to Washington initiatives meant to support both consumers and real estate agents in Guam and across the U.S.
“Real estate, just like politics, it’s all local,” Sears said.
This visit marked Sears’ second trip to the island. He first traveled to Guam in 2017 while serving as NAR vice president, accompanied then and now by his daughter.
“She was 12 at the time, now she’s 20, and it’s great to have her with me again.”
Sears and his family arrived ahead of Thursday’s Guam Realtors Political Action Committee event, where he met with local real estate agents and community leaders.
“Hafa Adai, I just love being back in Guam … the hospitality here on the island has been wonderful, and I hope that I’m back quicker than eight years,” he said.