ARA advocacy targets raise questions for agents outside coastal markets

Two and a half years in, most of the January American Real Estate Association (ARA) promises are still unkept, and the one advocacy win belonged to somebody else.

Three coaching members asked me the same question in one week. One is with Compass, one with REMAX and one had been reading the headlines. All three wanted to know whether to join the American Real Estate Association (ARA). Then ARA named its first chief lobbyist and the question got sharper.

Start with what they said in January 2024

The news broke in the New York Times, and Mauricio Umansky debuted the association the next morning at a major real estate conference. Co-founder Jason Haber had been running the NAR Accountability Project after the harassment allegations against former president Kenny Parcell.

Their case had four parts and most of it was legitimate. The scandal. The commission lawsuits, which Umansky said NAR had not taken seriously enough. Advocacy, the centerpiece, where he pointed to the Los Angeles mansion tax and told the room, “We need better advocacy; we need better lobbying.” And communication, since Haber had written to NAR repeatedly with no reply.

Every one described NAR. None described ARA. The honest test has always been the promises, not the grievances.

The five promises, and where they stand

1. Dues of $400 to $500 a year. The membership actually opened seven months later at $20, with a $1,500 founding tier covering 10 years. Not a discount. A different model.

2. $50 million to $100 million dollars from investors. This investor money never arrived. Haber told HousingWire this summer that raising capital as a nonprofit proved a different animal entirely, since nobody is putting investment money in.

3. A National Listing Service included with membership. It’s still on the website, but it hasn’t launched and there is no timeline.

4. Advocacy as the entire reason for existing. Starting now, and read this one closely. Missouri voters struck down a state income tax bill on August 4, and that campaign belonged to the Missouri Association of Realtor and its 25,000 members. ARA joined them three weeks before the vote, bringing no lobbyist, since Haber said in July that lobbying and political giving were things ARA had not yet done. It hired its first chief lobbyist this month.

5. A staffed organization built differently. Partly. ARA named an inaugural executive director in November 2025. As of this writing, its own About page lists a board of directors and an advisory board, and no staff at all.

Three of the five have not been delivered at all. The other two are partial, and both turned partial only this year. More than there was 12 months ago. This is not what was promised in January 2024.

Now read the fine print on the hire

Going back to the new hire of John Blount that ARA just announced. He was NAR’s vice president of congressional affairs from 1983 to 1991, and has spent the decades since at consulting groups and trade associations.

That is a genuine Washington career, and nothing here is a knock on the man. However, I would not call him a current Washington player for our industry. He left it 35 years ago.

The two questions we should ask

Start with the money. Thirty thousand members at $20 apiece is $600,000 and that is a ceiling rather than a floor, since REMAX and Compass agents come in free through 2027. A Washington lobbyist costs real money, so this is not running on dues. Somebody else is funding it, and members deserve to know who, because whoever pays for advocacy tends to shape it.

Then, look at where the money goes. Missouri was the right kind of fight, because a transfer tax lands on every closing in the state at every price point. The next fight ARA is taking on is New York City’s pied-à-terre tax, which took effect July 1 on homes worth $5 million or more and on second homes above $1 million.

Pretend you’re a due’s paying member of ARA in Tulsa. You paid the same $20 as everybody else, into the same national pool, and the association is spending it on a tax that applies to Manhattan pied-à-terres, the uber wealthy in just New York City. It will never touch a closing you do.

That is not a scandal. It is a priority, and priorities are what dues buy. When a national association picks a local fight, members in the other 49 states are funding somebody else’s market. ARA grew out of NYRAC, Douglas Elliman, The Agency, and now Compass, and its first two fights look exactly like that lineup.

Powerfact: Watch which fights an association picks before its dues go up, not the ones it promises after. Early priorities are the only honest preview you get.

One more thing worth noticing

The only advocacy win for ARA so far was in Missouri, but that is because they stood shoulder to shoulder with a Realtor association and used that association’s people, its ground game, and its 25,000 members. FYI, ARA joined the fight three weeks before the outcome.

Take it however you like. I take it as evidence that the machinery of a state association is what moves a ballot measure, and that a national voice gets built on top of that machinery rather than instead of it.

So should you join?

Back to the question my coaching members asked.

If you are willing to send $20 to an organization that still cannot tell you on one page what that money buys you, do not send it to them. I have a better idea. Send it to me, but I will only charge you$15, and I promise to give you the same benefits as they have listed but with me, you walk away$5 richer — best return in this whole conversation.

Seriously. ARA started because they had a complaint, and that was NAR. But an organization cannot grow and sustain itself based on anger and dislike for another organization. They have to stand for something. When ARA can articulate a mission statement without the name NAR in it, when they have found a void they can fill that no one else has filled, when they can show real benefits members get in return for their $20, when they have transparency of where they are spending members’ money, and when they start to make a positive impact in our industry that impacts the nation, then I will take a look at them.

Until then, my $20 stays in my pocket.

Darryl Davis, CSP, is a national speaker, coach, and the bestselling McGraw-Hill author of How to Become a Power Agent® in Real Estate. Over four decades he has trained hundreds of thousands of real estate professionals, and he is the founder of the POWER AGENT® Coaching Program. His independent research on private listings and market transparency was cited by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust in July 2026. The full body of that work is open to the public at PrivateListingsDebate.com. For more information, go to DarrylSpeaks.com.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

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