NAR

Is The National Association of Realtors (NAR) inflating their membership count?

by Doug Lee on Sep 18, 2009

You Decide According to various sources there are big difference between thereal estate head count of the National Association of Realtors andother credible sources. Recently, RIS media stated total agents to be291,000, Taro Systems stated329,000 and NAR claims a whopping 1.1 million. A spread of over 700,000real estate agents. There could be several motivates why NAR inflatestheir numbers and several Theories. Theory 1: NAR has long been the power to thwart offthe IRS claim to exempt the Real Estate Agent as an independentcontractor and not subject to employer withholding taxes. NAR has beenthe power behind the lobbying to have a special tax provision for thereal estate agent in the IRS tax code. If it was not for this specificexemption, the Real Estate Company would be required to collectwithholding taxes. Would the IRS maintain this exemption if NAR agenthead count were significantly lower? Theory 2: In most sales organizations, the rule ofthumb is 80% of the business...Read More >>