Are there really 739,233 real estate agents in California?

Russel, I had a Broker, when I first came to Los Angeles, he said during our initial meeting. "let me tell you something...almost every person has a  Real Estate License in LA, I do not want a licensee if you just want to hang your license go somewhere else....if you are here to make money and develop a client base then we can work together...." Shortly after it I discovered in LA either you were a Real Estate agent and attorney or an actor....so I am sure the statement is acurate:))))))))))))))

Hi Russel - As of June 30, 2010, the National Association of Realtors® had 1,085,330 members across the USA (includes Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands).  161,566 members were in California.  These numbers do not include international members.  It took me less than 30 seconds to find this information.

It is my understanding that people in the USA can be licensed as real estate agents (or whatever term is technically used in each state) but it is NOT a requirement to be a member of NAR.

Your math sounds right to me. 

But what did they want you to do to stand out in the crowd?   Other than checking their math/stats?

Yes, someone definitely goofed up.  Glad we have some smart AR members to set things straight.

Now I know I am one of the practicing real estae agents here in Southern California.  Doing well and glad to read your blogs.

Russell, a very interesting question...we do not have that problem here in WV..our MLS shows less than 300 members.

That's a lot of competition, Standing out is good but not sure I am willing to paint my cheeks, jaws and chest yellow to stand out though.

After reading your post Russel, I'm curious to see what the numbers are here in Massachusetts!

Everyone I know seems to have a real estate license, so it could be true!    I cannot imagine!  However, doesn't every advertiser have freedom of numbers and exaggeration? 

Yes reading junk mail can be very enlighting Russel.  Also interesting was the MLS membership, up here, you have to be a realtor to be a member. But..........still asking ourselves, what are we doing to stand out from the crowd.

There are less than 3 million licensees in the US.  Less than1/2 of those are Realtors (based on the NAR membership of around 1.1 million at my last check). I think is just seems like there are that many agents.

Russel,

Not sure there are that many real estate agents  standing with their crowd let alone wanting to stand out from there crowd!  However I do like the picture and ad-line.

Steve

Maybe it refers to the number of Californians living in the state legally and not the total population? :)  I get a number of ideas from cleverly produced marketing junk mail too.

It would be interesting to know if the number of agents has declined over the past few years.  Certainly the number of agents going from full-time to part-time status has increased.

crazy huh?  So many people run out and get them...

Hi, Russel. Like you, I love advertising and always look at ads to see how effective they are. The penguins are GOOD...simple and effective.

With regard to the number of realtors...there are probably a whole lot fewer now in ALL states than there used to be!

Russel....I find the marketing piece to be very clever, but have trouble getting my head around the number of 739,000+ Realtors® in California - might be a bit misleading.

Russel, that would be a piece of informatioin that I would be interested in knowing, thanks for the thougt, I will let you know what I find out

Even though there might be more than 700k real estate licensees here in California at this time, so many of those are not working it as a business.  There are about 160,000 REALTOR members of the local boards and National Association of REALTORS.  These are the true professional REALTORs who abide by the REALTOR code of ethics and who can be counted on to provide the best client care and customer service.

Hey, everyone!

Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

I'm following up on these older posts like this one to see if anyone had any questions or if I really need to respond to anyone's comments.

I will read all the comments and respond to any that need a response, but since this post is rather old, rather than making comments here in my post to each and every one of you, I'll just let everyone know that I have read all the comments and if there are any questions, I'll answer those in comments below this one. Otherwise I'll simply post this comment and then head over to your blogs soon to visit and do some reading and commenting. I hope you'll have a nice welcome mat out for me!

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Hope all is well with everyone.

Hey, Jim - The advertisement was from a mortgage broker, but since I wasn't advertising the mortgage broker, I cropped that part out.