We saw HERE how the new president of the N.A.R. has three goals for his term; winning the disintermediation battle, realtor safety, and having 100% of realtors get involved with the association.

But in another interview, he also mentioned that he wanted to “help further distinguish the difference in the minds of consumers between a REALTOR and a non-member real estate agent, and to help improve the understanding of that important distinction by the general public.”

The difference is the Code of Ethics.

But how many non-member real estate agents are there?  I could only think of one guy who is a renegade independent broker, but he doesn’t do much business.  Have you seen any non-member agents?

The $400 we pay each year to belong to the club does give us free access to the C.A.R. online forms – and those who are non-members have to pay $1,000 per year to access the same. So it makes sense to stay in the club.

But I checked – there are 5,600 people paying dues to the North San Diego County Association of Realtors, and of those, 1,100 are non-members.  But the vast majority have to be appraisers and assistants who don’t need access to the online forms.

I don’t know why the NAR president has a concern about non-member agents.  He may want to consider helping members be more productive, which wasn’t on his goals’ list.  There are over 10,000 agents in the three realtor associations in SD County, but there were only 2,121 sales in November of all types of residential properties.

Here are the November sales of detached homes from Carlsbad to La Jolla:

The frenzy broke out at the end of 2012, and by the end of 2013 it had subsided. The average cost-per-sf went up 5% since last November, but check the median prices – a balanced set of sales!