Friday, February 19, 2016

Are all real estate agents "REALTORS"?

Not all real estate agents are Realtors.  Real estate agents can’t call themselves a “Realtor” unless they are members of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).  As per the NAR, the term “Realtor” must be capitalized because it is trademarked, thus the use of the term “realtor” with a lowercase “r” is technically forbidden, and non-member real estate agents can’t refer to themselves as either a Realtor or realtor.  There have been multiple lawsuits attempting to remove the trademark, but the courts have decided “Realtor” is a trade name and not a generic term for real estate agents, despite the fact many of us use the terms “realtor” and “agent” synonymously.  There is a pending lawsuit challenging the exclusivity of the use of the term “Realtor” and there have been other attempts to remove or limit the trademark, but all have failed.

It should be noted that not all Realtors are agents.  Many of the members of the NAR are not licensed agents, in fact, according to the NAR’s Field Guide to Quick Real Estate Statistics, only 58% of Realtors are licensed sales agents.  Non-agent members might include appraisers, property managers or non-sales staff and administrators of real estate organizations. 

Licensing of real estate agents is handled by the individual states and licensed agents facilitate real estate transactions without being members of the NAR.

According to the NAR there are approximately 2 million licensed real estate agents, and 1.1 million members of the NAR.  Using NAR’s statistic that only 58% of its 1.1 million members are actually licensed sales agents; one could conclude only 32% of all licensed agents are actually Realtors.  





 

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