One of the things Cathy did yesterday between finishing her real estate work and popping the cork on the champagne (she makes me do that, of course), was paying our dues. Not figuratively — literally. Yesterday was the deadline to pay the following creditors:
- Phoenix Association of Realtors
- Arizona Association of Realtors
- National Association of Realtors
- Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council (ABR)
- Council of Residential Specialists (CRS)
I don’t know what this cost us, but I’m sure it wasn’t cheap.
Here’s the interesting thing, though: How many people didn’t do it?
The first three are paid in one lump sum. You don’t have to belong to ReBAC or CRS, but you have to belong to the local, state and national Realtor’s associations to call yourself a Realtor. Taking account that we know that some significant number of Realtors didn’t do very well in 2006, how many, do you think, did not renew their membership?
The NAR Fact Sheet touts 1.3 million members for now. How many fewer will there be at the next reckoning…?
Technorati Tags: real estate marketing
Joe says:
Greg – when do they release the numbers? And what’s your personal guess?
January 1, 2007 — 3:35 pm
mike says:
How many fewer will there be at the next reckoning…?
250K-350K fewer, back to ’03/’04 levels.
January 1, 2007 — 3:55 pm
John says:
The fewer the better. While I like competition, I also prefer healthy competition. What isn’t helping anyone are a bunch of desperate “realtors” who just aren’t good enough and are willing to do anything, including giving away most of their commission just to make a dollar. They create the wrong impression for everyone else. They provide bad service while at the same time making the public think we make too much.
Unfortunately, the public doesn’t find out just how bad they are until after the get shafted, so it’s hard for them to make a comparison ahead of time.
January 1, 2007 — 4:16 pm
Franz says:
Our local Portland Board, as well as the Maine Assocation of REALTORS(R) both publicly estimated a 20-25% drop in membership for 2007. In fact, the 25% figure was used for the new budgets.
January 1, 2007 — 4:23 pm
Jeff Brown says:
Thanks for the reminder. Since my dues bill comes via snail mail, (though I get email reminders)half the time I find myself giving them the company credit card by phone. 🙂
Couple the current market with the fact that most agents don’t make much in good markets, and you have a real work force reduction on the way. They’ll all get normal jobs with taxes taken out of their paychecks. The deficit will crash. 🙂
January 1, 2007 — 4:44 pm
Joe says:
Jeff – good one. 🙂
Just curious, do you have a personal guess what the population will be?
January 1, 2007 — 6:40 pm
Todd Tarson says:
Well, AAR (the Arizona Association) reported that they predicted a reduction in Membership to the tune of 17 or 18 percent.
When I was figuring the budget for our local Association (KGVAR) we based the budget on having 415 Members while we had 520 at that time. Our Association manager believes that we will end up with 450 Members when all the re-ups are turned in by mid January.
A thinning of the herd.
January 2, 2007 — 11:51 am
Marcus Burke says:
Be aware that: real estate agents don’t have a choice on whether or not to join NAR. If their broker is already a member – then they will be obliged to join – or their broker will have to pay several hundred dollars on their behalf anyway (about $350)- for each sales associate who hangs their license there. Conversely, if their broker is not a member, then the agent may not join NAR. Period. So you see, most of us don’t choose to be members or not.
For a spirited debate on the subject that is taking place on Active Rain right now, see my post: http://activerain.com/blogsview/30398/NAR-Not-Absolutely-Rational.
Happy New Year to you.
January 2, 2007 — 8:23 pm
trang says:
35% of all realtors did not do 1 deal this year, so the 1.3 million realtors only illustrate how many received their license. Here in California each board is roughly $400-$500 per year, and there are easily 50 boards in CA alone.
65% of 1.3 million = 845,000
I think that is the true number of realtors in the US.
January 3, 2007 — 6:48 pm