Welcome to Capitol View, a series of regular legislative updates from the Indiana Association of REALTORS® government affairs team while the General Assembly is in session. You’re receiving this as an association leader, RPAC investor or member who’s otherwise been engaged in our advocacy efforts – we hope it’s a helpful way to stay up to speed on our REALTOR® agenda.

When your government affairs team walks into the Statehouse during session, lawmakers know we represent twenty-two thousand REALTORS® working in every community (and every legislative district) across the state.

We also speak on behalf of homeowners and taxpayers, as advocates of a fair and affordable property tax climate.

Once again this session, bills have been drafted that attempt to find new ways to tax property, impose special assessments or otherwise chip away or circumvent the 1% homestead cap – so we continue to defend the reforms that have saved homeowners billions of dollars over more than a decade.   

We’re also playing defense for real estate consumers, on issues like unlicensed wholesaling and other practices that lead to homeowners giving up hard-earned equity without understanding the fine print.

We’ll also be working to protect consumers and the profession by seeking common-sense requirement by state rule that clients understand in writing how REALTORS® get paid and the value of professional representation.

We’ll have plenty to report over the next two-and-a-half months – especially for a short (non-budget) session of the General Assembly – so stay tuned!

The filing deadline for bills in both the House and Senate passed this week, but legislation is still being posted and assigned to committees; we'll be able to start reporting on specific priorities and hearings next week. In the meantime, this initial bill tracking report compiles the legislation dealing with housing or related priorities that we're keeping an eye on: 

Last year's SB3 created a two-year State and Local Tax (SALT) Review Task Force to study far-reaching changes to Indiana’s tax code, working outside the normal session committee system. The Task Force has focused on the elimination of the state income tax and further reform of the residential property tax system; a sales tax on services has been mentioned as a possible source of replacement revenue for the income tax, raising a red flag for REALTORS®.  

REALTORS® are playing a vocal role in this process as champions of homeowners and taxpayers. But we didn’t want to just repeat our position on the harmful impact of taxing real estate services, or claim that the status quo is “good enough” without context.

Instead, we've steered the discussion by taking a cost-benefit approach – we conducted our own analysis defining success as positive migration (more people moving into Indiana), and have been sharing the work with partners and lawmakers.

On Wednesday, IAR CEO Mark Fisher presented at a public meeting of the Task Force. Check out Mark’s written testimony and slides by clicking below.

Governor Holcomb gave his eighth and final State of the State address on Tuesday, notably announcing a $250 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to support capital projects, reduce blight and support redevelopment to improve quality of life and create more affordable housing opportunities. You can read the press release here

From Indianapolis to DC, two Indiana members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Greg Pence (CD-6) and Larry Buschon (CD-8) announced this week they will not seek re-election in 2024. This makes a total of four open congressional seats in Indiana after Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (CD-5) and Congressman Jim Banks (CD-3) previously announced they would not be seeking re-election (with Banks instead running to fill the U.S. Senate opening created by Senator Mike Braun's gubernatorial campaign.