NAR report touts transparency, but a key omission remains
The trade group’s first public annual report emphasizes reform and accountability but omits membership figures, a basic measure of organizational health.
Key points:
- NAR’s 2025 Annual Report does not include membership totals or trend data, even as rebuilding trust and transparency are framed as central priorities.
- In early 2024, the organization removed current and historical membership data from its public website, then stopped sharing the figures altogether by year-end.
- Budgeting decisions point to a smaller member base in 2026, but the association remains one of the country’s largest trade groups.
The 2025 Annual Report released by the National Association of Realtors earlier this week makes clear that the organization is seeking to rebuild trust — with brokers, with consumers and in the Realtor brand itself.
Throughout the document, NAR emphasizes transparency and accountability, framing the year as a foundation-building period focused on governance reform, cost controls and renewed attention to member value following a stretch of legal and leadership turmoil. Notably absent from that accounting, however, is one of the more basic measures of organizational health: how many members the association represents.
Broad strokes, limited data
While the report discusses member engagement and retention, it does not include current membership figures or any year-over-year trend data. Instead, membership is addressed largely in qualitative terms through descriptions of outreach, programming and professional standards.
When asked about member counts, an NAR spokesperson said the organization's most recent figure stood at just over 1.491 million as of Sept. 30, adding that updated numbers will be released later this year at the Realtors Legislative Meetings and NAR NXT, "where they can be presented with appropriate macroeconomic context."
"The Annual Report focuses on the work NAR delivers on behalf of its members, rather than point-in-time membership totals, which naturally fluctuate with broader market dynamics," the spokesperson added.
The early part of the year, however, is typically when the largest volume of renewals and non-renewals occurs, making current data especially relevant for understanding membership trends.
This latest omission follows a previous shift in how NAR shares membership data.
In April 2024, the association removed decades of historical membership figures from its public website amid declining enrollment, Inman first reported at the time. The data continued to be shared internally with members and association executives for several months, but by the end of that year, NAR no longer provided access, eliminating routine visibility into current figures ahead of the 2025 reporting cycle.
Legal pressure adds weight to the membership question
The absence of membership data carries added significance as NAR continues to face legal challenges to its membership structure. Over the past two years, a series of lawsuits have kept the association's three-way agreement, fee structures and rules tying MLS access to Realtor membership requirements under scrutiny.
While NAR has succeeded in fending off some of the lawsuits, others are ongoing or under appeal.
Those cases have placed heightened attention on NAR's size, reach and influence, suggesting that membership data functions not just as an internal benchmark, but as a key reference point in broader debates about the organization's role and authority.
The annual report avoids naming the lawsuits, but it unmistakably acknowledges that litigation risk has been a defining pressure shaping decision-making. NAR said it undertook a "thorough review of NAR policies from top to bottom to understand which present risk to the Realtor organization," framing legal exposure as a central driver of governance and operational changes over the past year.
Planning for attrition, not a mass exodus
At its board of directors meeting in November, the association approved a 2026 budget built on a baseline of 1.2 million members, significantly below NAR's most recently disclosed count of 1.491 million. Treasurer Craig Sanford told directors that the lower membership assumption would be paired with a projected $41 million reduction in expenses for 2026, reflecting a more conservative approach to revenue and spending.
The budgeting decisions appear to reflect a recalibration rather than an expectation of collapse. While some analysts have suggested that NAR could shrink dramatically in the coming years, NAR leadership has not embraced that outlook, and the organization remains one of the country's largest trade groups and biggest spenders on lobbying.