Several major trends emerged in the 2016 Member Profile. One notable change in the demographics of NAR members is that a cadre of experienced REALTORS® may be retiring or looking to retire in the next two years.

In the 2016 Member Profile, we saw an influx of new members entering the business for the first time. Members that have less than two years of experience increased from 17 percent to 28 percent. Concurrently, the share of members with the most experience also dropped. In the 2015 survey, REALTORS® with more than 25 years of experience declined from 21 percent to 15 percent in 2016.

Looking at age, we saw the share of older members drop also signaling that a group of REALTORS® could see retirement on the horizon. In the 2015 Member survey, 41 percent were 60 years and older. By 2016, the share dropped to only 30 percent of members over 60 years.

Furthermore, we asked members how certain they are about remaining in the business for the next two years and the share fell slightly from 84 percent in the 2015 survey to 83 percent in 2016. Five percent were not certain that they would remain in real estate, up from three percent in 2015. For REALTORS® with 16 years or more experience, six percent were not certain that they would remain in the business in 2016, up from three percent in 2015. NAR membership was reported at 1,173, 710 in April 2016—that’s an estimated 70,422 REALTORS® with more than 16 years of experience that may retire in the next few years.

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