R New York to join Umansky, Haber’s American Real Estate Association

A group founded to challenge the National Association of Realtors has picked up its first sizable brokerage member. 

R New York is joining the American Real Estate Association, adding roughly 800 agents to the upstart group and boosting its membership by nearly 30 percent to roughly 3,800. The firm’s president Stefani Berkin previously joined the advocacy group’s advisory board.

Berkin said she hopes it can grow to provide a greater level of advocacy and education for agents than NAR. 

“I’m hoping it can be the dominant organization nationwide,” she said. “I think it’s exactly what real estate agents need and what the industry has not been able to offer until now.”

Compass agent Jason Haber and The Agency founder Mauricio Umansky launched the group in January, positioning it as a potential alternative to the industry’s long-reigning trade group.

Though both founding members have been vocal critics of NAR through a series of scandal and legal woes, in a recent interview Haber struck a more conciliatory tone. 

“We don’t spend time bashing them, we’re critical when they are worthy,” he said. “We hope they’re successful and navigate through this. They are very strong, particularly at the federal level… We hope we can work in tandem with them if that’s possible.”

Growing from grassroots

American Real Estate’s advocacy so far has primarily consisted of sending letters to major lenders in the wake of NAR’s antitrust settlements, urging them to update the terms of their mortgages to allow buyers to finance the cost of their agents. 

“We spoke to Fannie,” said Haber. “The challenge is that the way the mortgage industry works in this country is you underwrite the asset, not the expense of acquiring the asset. It would really require some pretty robust structural changes.”

Part of NAR’s stronghold on residential players is its membership requirement for agents to access the MLSs it controls. In New York City, the Real Estate Board of New York controls the Residential Listing Service, which firms can access without being NAR members. 

R New York is among the exceptions. Berkin said the brokerage holds NAR membership in order to transact in satellite markets where NAR does control the MLS, like Westchester. 

“Part of the whole issue is that if you want access to an MLS, you shouldn’t also have to join a trade association,” she said. 

The American Real Estate Association’s grassroots origins date back to last summer, when Haber started a petition to oust former president Kenny Parcell over allegations of sexual misconduct from several women. 

Haber, a former political organizer, rode the popularity of the petition to found the NAR Accountability Project, post a second petition and serve as an oft-quoted critic throughout NAR’s internal turbulence.

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An initial landmark blow to the long-reigning group came in October, with a verdict against NAR in the Sitzer-Burnett trial, before the trade group proposed a settlement last month to resolve class action suits brought by homesellers. In addition to paying $418 million, the group agreed to some key rule changes that could stoke competition among brokers and leading residential platforms. 

Cue Haber and Umansky, who say NAR’s issues have opened the door for a new trade group, which they hope will also translate into a nationwide MLS. So far, Haber said, they haven’t spent a dollar on outreach or marketing.

“It just shows you that just because something has been a certain way for 100 years doesn’t mean it’s going to continue that way’” he said. “Change is afoot.”