REALTORS® in the American Workforce, by State

In a previous blog post, we took a look at the share of REALTOR® members relative to the number of employed persons nationally in the US over time.

In this post, we take a look at the share of REALTOR® members by state and thanks to some nifty visualization tools, we have the luxury of seeing this data through time and space.

What stands out in the map below regardless of the year that you look is that there is geographic variation in the ratio of REALTOR® members to employed persons by state. If you take a look at this variation over time, you find that there is also some consistency in the shares by state.

Hawaii is a perennial leader, coming in with the highest share of REALTOR® members per employed persons in 19 of 34 years. Arizona is a close 2nd, coming in with the highest ratio in 15 of 34 years. These two states are the only two to rank number one in this metric from 1980 through 2013. In that time, the highest share of REALTOR® members per employed persons ranged from 0.9 to 2.3 percent.

By contrast, the state with the lowest share of REALTOR® members per employed persons has been more variable. In the 34 years observed, Mississippi, Maine, West Virginia, South Dakota, and North Dakota have all rotated in and out of this position. In every year, the state with the lowest share of REALTOR® members per employed persons has ranged between 0.2 and 0.4 percent.

Some states, such as Maine and North Carolina, started out with a lower share of members per employed person in the 1980s and now have consistently higher shares. Alaska and Louisiana saw higher shares in the early 1980s than they have in the most recent decade.

It’s beyond the scope of this short blog to get into the causes and outcomes of this variation by state and through time. This is merely the first step—understanding what the trend is. How has the share of REALTOR® membership relative to employed persons varied in your state?

CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERACTIVE MAP