The current housing crisis has forced many REALTORS® to seek employment other than their given profession.

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) reports continued losses in Membership for 12 straight months. Since peeking in October 2006 at 1,370,758 Members the organization has seen a steady loss in Membership to the figure of 1,257,491 in July of 2008. This represents 113,267 REALTORS® leaving the industry or better than 8%. While this is significant the losses for the last 12 months shows a considerably more rapid exit by real estate agents and practitioners.

One would expect that in an industry as hard hit as real estate has been since the so called “Real Estate Bubble” burst would experience an exodus but at this pace? Can part of the problem be the guardian of the industry? Could it be that NAR itself has aided in many cutting many careers short? Possibly but let me explain my reasons why I think NARS actions and inactions helped to aggravate an already serious problem.

To begin with NAR has set themselves up as the “Gate Keeper” to all that is real estate. Our government recognizes NAR as an authority. Our court system even holds non-NAR members to the same code of ethics sighting our code of ethics as “accepted and acceptable business practices”. With all that said why didn’t NAR make a stronger case on Capital Hill against sub prime lending? We certainly have the lobbyist and are reminded of the same in almost every Local Board meeting nationwide weekly. NAR could have made a major impact that would have helped to reduce the damage suffered by our industry. The answer is simple. During the recent real estate boom NAR Membership (and income from dues) skyrocketed from 763,585 in January of 2001 to 1,370,758 in October 2006. That is an amazing 44.3% increase. That is why NAR did not interfere with the sub prime debacle to any significant degree.

But now that we are here, what is NAR doing to help their declining Members? They are allowing Local Boards to raise or implement fees such as IDX access fees or raising dues completely. Between MLS fees, State Dues, National Dues, IDX Access fees, Super Key Fees and all of the other fees going up it is no wonder REALTORS® are abandoning ship and going out of business. It makes no sense to me. It is almost like an SUV Dealer going up on his vehicles because they are not selling. Someone please explain the logic here.

NAR needs to get off their collective asses and reign in their Local Boards. We need help not more or higher fees.

Our Local Board here in San Diego (SANDICOR) just went to a RETS (Real Estate Transaction Standard) system that replaced the old IDX (Internet Data Exchange) for the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). In addition to being a total disaster leaving outdated data on our San Diego real estate site for days, we are told there will be a new monthly fee associated with the new RETS service. This comes AFTER I paid my website guy to change over to RETS. Now I did NOT ask to go to RETS but have already had out of pocket expenses. This RETS update is a NAR mandate however, NAR states that all Boards must offer RETS by mid 2009, not replace IDX.

Both NAR and our state and local boards need to figure out ways to help real estate Agents make more income instead of ways to help us spend more. Otherwise we can look to our ranks to continue to diminish.

The San Diego Real Estate and housing market now offers some great buys. With all the fallout from the foreclosures a buyer can really score a tremendous deal on both, a San Diego Home or San Diego Condo.

The San Diego real estate market is one of those rare areas that still showing a lot of new buyer activity. This past June the housing market reported almost 1850 San Diego Homes sold with the San Diego North County Inland area being the highest in sales at 530 home sales for the month. Central San Diego County was second with 487 homes being reported as sold for the month.

The condo market is holding its own as well, with 944 San Diego condos being reported sold during the month of June 2008. The Central market appears to be the strongest as it reported 415 condos being sold for the month of June alone. That is almost half of the total condos sold in San Diego County for the month of June 2008. Second was North County Inland as it reported 176 total condos sold for the month while both San Diego South Bay and San Diego North County Coast were tied with 127 reported San Diego condominiums sold for the month.  While North County Inland reported 176 North County condos sold for the month and East County reported a modest 99 East County condos sold for the month of June 2008.

With this type of activity still going on in both the San Diego home and condo sales you can easily see how the San Diego Real Estate market is still one with lots of activity.

If you are a first time home buyer today’s market has a lot to offer. There are some really great buys in San Diego. We are starting to see the real estate investors and or second home buyer’s re- enter the market and that is always a good sign.