The American Real Estate Association (AREA), an alternative to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), has opened its doors to members. According to emails that went out earlier this month, membership for 2024-2025 is open, with a basic membership starting at $20.
Mauricio Umansky and Jason Haber founded the organization earlier this year after NAR faced allegations of sexual harassment and its leadership faced attempted blackmail. Umansky has been a real estate agent for over 25 years and is the founder of The Agency, a billion-dollar brokerage, and central to Netflix’s Buying Beverly Hills, a reality show following real estate dealings in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Haber has been in the real estate industry for 17 years and is an agent with Compass, the country’s largest independent real estate brokerage, according to the company’s site.
“We’ve been busy behind the scenes these last few months building the foundation for your new trade association,” the founders wrote in an email to potential members. “During this building phase, we also began ramping up our advocacy efforts, starting with the successful push for changes at the VA [Department of Veteran Affairs] to help protect our veteran homebuyers. We are currently expanding our advocacy efforts and working around the country on key policy issues that affect your business.
“As you know, our new trade association is a non-profit, exclusively for the benefit and betterment of America’s real estate agents,” they continued. “To date, we have self-funded this endeavor, and today marks a significant milestone as we finally open up membership. We’re thrilled to invite you to join us in our mission to enhance our industry. With your support, we can grow the association into a driving force for advocacy, innovation, and education.”
In addition to the basic membership being $20, the 2024-2025 membership also comes with $20 off the renewal for 2026 and 20 percent off all 2024 and 2025 AREA events. AREA also stated it is offering a founding membership – for $1,500, dues are paid for the next 10 years and founding members will receive recognition on AREA’s new site, at future events, and receive invitations to exclusive events.