A Seattle-area real estate firm group is severing ties with the National Association of Realtors, the latest departure from the industry’s largest trade group after a spate of controversies and legal troubles.
Coldwell Banker Danforth, which has offices in Northgate, Everett, Bellevue, Burien and Federal Way, announced over the weekend that it will not renew its partnership with the National Association of Realtors in 2024.
The decision follows a legal settlement reached in October by Coldwell Banker’s parent company, Anywhere Real Estate, in which Anywhere agreed not to require brokers and franchises to be affiliated with NAR. Anywhere reached a settlement to resolve an antitrust lawsuit that also named NAR. NAR lost that lawsuit in October.
The settlement clears the way for Coldwell Banker Securities to sever ties with NAR. At Coldwell Banker Danforth, owner Dave Danforth surveyed his brokers and found that two-thirds of them had enough NAR membership to justify the annual cost of about $700 per agent. It turned out that they did not recognize the value of rights. Danforth said some people took issue with NAR’s spending on political campaigns. Its membership includes national, state, and local real estate agent groups that provide training for real estate agents and lobby politicians. A real estate agent must be a NAR member to call themselves a real estate agent.
NAR requires all brokers to be members if the brokerage firm is affiliated with NAR, and if not, no brokers are members, Danforth said. . He is asking the NAR to change its rules.
“Every brokerage firm has to choose whether to go all in or all out. To me that’s just wrong,” he said.
Danforth personally supports NAR’s work and will choose to remain a member, he said. But the broker “has the right to decide which organization he belongs to because he’s paying a fee,” Danforth said.
“Brokers are independent organizations that make their own business decisions and decide whether to join a local Realtor association to receive the benefits of membership,” the National Association of Realtors said in a statement Monday. . The association did not comment on the rule, which Danforth described as “all in or all out.”
“While we never want to lose a valued member, the organization works hard every day to move forward with real estate purchases,” said Nathan Gorton, CEO of state affiliate Washington Realtors. We are proud of our 25,000 members across the state.”Building homes that are as simple and consumer-friendly as possible”
Unless NAR’s rules change, Coldwell Banker’s Danforth’s decision means that starting Jan. 1, none of the brokerage’s 325 agents will be members of a local or national realtor group. means. Danforth said brokers have other sources of training and education and the transition will not result in any changes for customers.
Controversy rocked NAR this year after it lost a major antitrust lawsuit and several women accused the organization’s former president of sexual harassment. This has sparked a debate in the real estate industry about whether real estate agents and brokers should remain members.
Some argue that benefits such as training and lobbying outweigh concerns. Seattle-based Zillow & Windermere, the largest housing brokerage in the Seattle area, has chosen to remain a member of NAR. Other groups, including Seattle-based Redfin, criticized NAR’s committee policies and left the organization.