The word “Realtor” is a registered trademark, and the National Association of Realtors owns it. That is a small fact with large consequences. NAR is a private trade body that also acts as a self-regulator for real estate brokerage, and it runs a good part of the plumbing behind American home listings.
It began on May 12, 1908, in Chicago, as the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges. It became the National Association of Real Estate Boards in 1916 and took its present name in 1972. The headquarters are still in Chicago. By December 2023 it was the largest trade association in the country.
Members are brokers, salespeople, property managers, appraisers and counselors, all in work that requires a state licence. They belong to one or more of roughly 1,600 local boards and are bound by a code of ethics whose first version dates to 1913.
The listing databases
The detail that matters is the Multiple Listing Services, the information exchanges brokers use to share property data. NAR governs hundreds of them and sets policy for most, though some, such as MLSPIN, are independent.
When the internet arrived in the late 1990s, NAR wrote rules for Internet Data Exchanges, which let brokers show part of their data on their own or their agents’ websites, and for Virtual Office Websites, which made buyers register before seeing anything. Participants could limit who saw MLS data, including internet-only brokers and local competitors.
In 2005 the Department of Justice sued. It alleged that NAR’s MLS display rules were the product of a conspiracy to restrain trade by shutting out brokers who worked online rather than from a storefront. NAR had proposed a single Internet Listing Display system that would not let participants exclude individual brokers, and that system became IDX. Under it, the listing brokerage’s details still have to appear wherever a listing does, because brokers legally own their listings.
The suit was settled in May 2008. The agreement required every MLS to give online competitors access and barred NAR from refusing membership to brokers over their business model. NAR admitted no wrongdoing and paid no fines or damages. A federal judge approved the deal that November. NAR’s general counsel did not expect commissions to change; a Western Michigan University business professor predicted they would fall by 25 to 50 percent.
Later fights
In 2019 NAR’s board approved the Clear Cooperation Policy, which requires brokers to put a listing into the MLS within one business day of marketing it publicly. A separate lawsuit filed in March 2019 challenged NAR’s compensation policies, which require member brokers to ask for blanket, non-negotiable buyer-side commissions when listing on an MLS.
The group is also among the biggest lobbying spenders in Washington. It spent $52 million on lobbying in 2023, second on the OpenSecrets list, and about $850 million since 1998.
Its history includes a darker chapter. From 1924 to 1950 the Realtor Code of Ethics carried explicit references to racial segregation, and the clause was not fully removed until 1974. NAR opposed the Fair Housing Act in 1968.
In August 2023 president Kenny Parcell resigned, on a Monday, after a New York Times article detailed complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination. He had taken office in November 2022. Parcell denied the allegations made by several women. One of them, whose relationship with him had ended, sued NAR citing harassment and racial and sexual discrimination, then withdrew the suit after a settlement. Tracy Kasper stepped in as president ahead of the planned November handover and promised to “enhance the way we foster a welcoming, safe and respectful workplace.”
Sources
- National Association of Realtors – Wikipedia
- National Association of Realtors’ President Resigns After Sexual Harassment Revelations
