Overall, NAR membership is declining, but it is still fairly high by historical standards and is higher than many observers expected when dues become due by January 1, 2024. In recent years, membership has steadily declined after hitting a low of 963,478 in February 2013 and rising to a high of 1.6 million in October 2022. It dipped just below 1.5 million in February, but has recovered slightly since then.
Rub, rub, rub?
NAR recently decided to remove decades of membership data from its website. A NAR spokesman declined to say why the decision was made or who made it, but said the trade group will continue to share up-to-date membership data with its members going forward.
“NAR will continue to report membership fees directly to members on a regular basis,” a spokesperson told HousingWire. “More details can be found in the latest issue of Realtor Magazine.”
In the article, NAR said the April membership numbers “allayed concerns that organizational changes and class action settlements would result in a greater-than-expected decline in membership. The numbers demonstrate that members continue to recognize the value of the support, resources and tools available through NAR.”
NAR Treasurer Greg Hrabcak was quoted as saying that the number of real estate agents was “several percent above the association’s projections.”
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun has repeatedly said membership will decline over the next two years, but could rebound in 2026.
In a recent Realtor Magazine article, Yoon noted that there’s usually an 18- to 24-month lag between a market downturn and membership declines. Real estate agents who pay their dues by January 1 often remain members even after they leave the industry for other opportunities. Some even stay on the following year in hopes that the market will improve.
It remains unclear how members can access historical membership data or state-specific data, as the webpage that previously featured the reports has been removed. Instead, NAR now has a general membership page.
What are the upcoming updates?
Industry analysts and professors say trade groups are underestimating how many members will drop out as a result of the Sitzer/Barnett rule changes, which they say could put pressure on buyers’ agents and reduce their annual commissions by as much as $30 billion. Keef Bleuett & Woods (KBW).
Economists and analysts say the “unbundling” of buyer and seller commissions will cause a significant number of real estate agents to leave the industry. While the numbers are unclear, KBW predicts that the change in commission structure could cause 60% to 80% of real estate agents to leave the industry.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gilback of the City University of New York and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of the Yale School of Management estimated that if one commission remained at 3 percent and the other became more competitive, about 56 percent of real estate agents would exit the market, Gilback told The Washington Post.
And a 2015 paper in the RAND Journal of Economics predicted that a 50% cut in commissions would lead to a 40% drop in the number of agents.
The commission’s lawsuit settlement also stipulates that brokerages can no longer require their agents to become members of NAR, which could lead to a decline in membership going forward.
For now, NAR membership data primarily tells us about for-sale inventory and home sales. Florida and Texas, which account for roughly 40% of the U.S. housing inventory, saw increases in Realtor membership in 2023. And Arkansas, with 11,251 NAR members at the end of 2023, had the highest annual membership growth rate of any state, at 3.4%.
“When market opportunities decrease, some people will leave the business, that’s all,” Yoon concluded.
