NAI Rampart — formerly NAI Latter & Blum — is Louisiana’s leading locally owned commercial real estate firm, with roots dating to 1916. With five offices across the state, NAI Rampart serves clients throughout the Gulf South with brokerage, consulting, research, marketing and financial analysis powered by advanced technology. Outside of NAI Rampart, Diaz is a three-time past chair of the annual Economic and Real Estate Forecast Symposium and serves on the Louisiana REALTORS® executive committee as the 2026 commercial division director and on the Louisiana Commercial Database (LACDB) board of directors.
What are you most excited about in the coming year?
Over the next year, I’m most excited to continue serving as real estate advisor for two public school boards and a portfolio of properties for the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Repositioning underutilized properties and returning them to productive use creates opportunities for housing, economic development and adaptive reuse, which is exactly the kind of community impact I find most meaningful in my career.
I’m also grateful to do this work alongside my father, Paul Richard. In Louisiana, legacy matters, and learning from his experience while helping shape the next generation of our communities is incredibly rewarding. With major investments like SpaceX, Venture Global and the Louisiana International Terminal (LIT) gaining momentum, I’m looking forward to seeing how these transformational projects create new opportunities for investment, population growth and redevelopment across our city and region.
What is the biggest challenge facing your industry today, and is anything being done about it?
The biggest challenges facing our industry are housing supply, attainability, and talent attraction and retention. In our region, where land and water constrain development, solving the “rooftop” problem must come first. As we often say, retail follows rooftops. Commercial real estate development follows population and household growth, making attainable housing critical to investment and economic activity.
Through organizations like the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of REALTORS®, advocacy is helping recalibrate outdated policies and regulations and reduce barriers to housing and development.
In tandem, we also must address the “brain drain” that occurs when young people leave our region for more competitive career opportunities. After working in Atlanta after college, I chose to come home and build my career in Louisiana because I wanted help improve the future of my home state.
