Business practices changed, but real estate agents remained active in 2025

While critics and supporters of the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement could not agree on much in the lead up to the implementing settlement business practice changes, most industry participants did agree that there would be agent attrition. 

On an episode of “Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered,” a podcast hosted by NextHome co-CEOs James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson posted in August of 2024, John Campbell, who at the time was the managing director at Stephens Inc., predicted a 50% agent attrition rate.

With agents forced to better articulate and deliver upon their value proposition, industry leaders anticipated a massive decline in part-time agents, something many saw as a positive for both the industry and consumers.

“Full-time agents probably have a better chance than part-time agents,” Erik Carlson, the CEO of RE/MAX Holdings, said on stage during HousingWire’s 2024 The Gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Agents need to have a certain level of skills in order to educate buyers, sellers, negotiate, etc. Buyer representation is really important because it is a complex transaction, so I think agents that are willing and able to deliver on and talk about their value will be more successful than a lot of others.”

What about Association memberships?

Additionally, industry experts note that the cost of licensing fees and association memberships may cause agents uncertain about their ability to close deals under the new business practices to forego renewing their Realtor association memberships.

“If I was a Realtor member who only does a transaction or two a year, I wouldn’t want to pay membership dues or brokerage fees and risk losing that money because I didn’t manage to close a transaction,” Bennie Waller, a Realtor and a professor of economics, finance and legal studies at the University of Alabama, told HousingWire in March 2024. “Those fees are not insignificant, but if you have a sale a year, you can cover them, but why would someone on the fence want to risk it?”

Doomsday didn’t come

Despite all the talk of agent attrition, NAR’s most recent membership numbers show that the trade group has 1.4 million members, down just 200,000 from an all-time high of 1.6 million members, recorded in October 2022, but just 100,000 members down from its January 2024 level of 1.5 million member.

While the decrease is not tiny, NAR leaders predicted a drop in membership count in early 2023, prior to the start of the Sitzer/Burnett trial, due to the housing market slowdown. NAR’s projections for falling membership count are based on the roughly 400,000 member decline during the Great Recession, when the pace of existing home sales was actually faster than current data. 

Although the past year has not yielded a massive dropoff in NAR members, the trade group is continuing to prepare for agent count declines. During NAR’s mid-year conference in early June 2025, leaders stated that they were preparing for a $32 million decline in revenue in 2026, with membership projected to fall to 1.2 million members.  

Despite these projections, brokerage leaders are not too concerned

“Like the rest of the industry, it is cyclical,” Rick Haase, the president of United Real Estate, said. “Twelve or so years ago there were 1 million agents and then that ballooned up to 1.6 million. If it falls to 1.2 million like NAR has projected, that’s a 25% reduction, but still a 20% increase from where we were 12 years ago. But if we factor in population growth, that 1.2 million number is about the status quo with where we were 12 years ago and that’s ok.”

While agent count has not taken the nose-dive some expected in the past year, some industry professionals don’t believe we have witnessed the full impact of the NAR settlement business practice changes.

“I think there are still opportunities for new models of buyer agent compensation to emerge and even new technologies to help unrepresented buyers — those things are in the works, but we are still too early to see them really bear out,” Nick Aufenkamp, the founder of the Washington state-based The Tartan Team, and DIY Homebuyer Academy, said. “In the coming years, I really hope that we see some positive changes coming out of the lawsuit settlement. I just don’t think the full impact has been realized yet.” 

So while agent count remains well above some of predictions, the industry may still be years away from hitting trough levels.