The National Association of Real Estate Brokers Is Where Black Agents, Brokers and Lenders Find Referrals, Data and Each Other

If you sell real estate, write mortgages or appraise property, you should check out the National Association of Real Estate Brokers.

Its members are called Realtists, and the reason is worth knowing. REALTOR is a trademark owned by the National Association of Realtors, whose local boards prohibited Black real estate professionals from joining until 1961. Black brokers could not lawfully use the word, so in 1947 they founded their own association in Tampa, Florida and trademarked a title nobody could take from them.

That title now carries more than 18,000 Realtists in local boards across the country, organized into fifteen regions. Realtists refer business to one another, share lender relationships and move listings, and because membership runs across agents, appraisers, loan officers, mortgage brokers, lenders, housing counselors and developers, a member’s referral network covers the whole transaction.

Membership also comes with something to say. NAREB publishes the State of Housing in Black America report every year, the closest thing the country has to an annual accounting of the Black homeownership gap, and its research found two million mortgage-ready Black Americans who have the income and credit to buy but have not. Its National Building Black Wealth Day reached more than 100 cities with Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. among the partners.

The association meets twice a year, at a summer convention and a Mid-Winter Conference, and honors its TOP 100 producers annually by sales volume.

Membership runs through local boards, with national dues handled by the national office.

Membership details are at nareb.com/membership.