Elliman joins upstart American Real Estate Association

The American Real Estate Association hooked an industry heavyweight.

Douglas Elliman is joining the ranks of the burgeoning trade group founded last January by the Agency CEO Mauricio Umansky and Compass agent Jason Haber. The brokerage will add its roughly 6,600 agents to the organization, which currently totals about 20,000 members.  

Elliman is entering the fold alongside its CEO, Michael Liebowitz, who will serve on the association’s management board — a new committee aimed at bringing together brokerage leaders from across the country.

“We believe in supporting organizations that prioritize the interests of real estate professionals and their clients,” Liebowitz wrote in a statement. “I am pleased to join the American Real Estate Association board as they work to amplify agent voices and address the evolving needs of our industry.”

Executives accepting appointments to the board will bring their firm with them to the group, though agents are able to opt out of membership if they choose. Membership for a single year costs $20 or $1,500 to be considered a founding member with 10 years of dues included,   according to the group’s website.  

Liebowitz is the first member of the board, and the association is slated to announce others later this year. Elliman’s general counsel, Deva Roberts, has also joined the organization as a member of its board of directors, which includes other industry leaders such as R New York president Stefani Berkin and Briggs Elwell, co-founder of the commission advance company, RLTYCo. 

Roberts told The Real Deal that changes to the industry, including the fallout from antitrust lawsuits over broker commissions and a New York City law barring brokers hired by landlords from collecting fees from tenants, pushed her to join the organization. 

“I’m seeing a pattern: a desire to encroach upon agents’ ability to do their jobs,” said Roberts. “I want to make sure that encroachment doesn’t continue.”

Elwell said the association is aiming to have 150,000 members by the end of the year once other brokerage executives accept positions on the management board.

News of Elliman’s onboarding comes as the trade group announced the change of its moniker from the acronym AREA to ARA. It’s also on the hunt for an executive director to lead the group’s transition from a volunteer-run operation to a staffed nonprofit. 

ARA established its first local chapter at the start of this year, when it brought the New York Residential Agent Continuum under its umbrella. The advocacy group, known as NYRAC, was founded by residential agents eight years ago and counted about 200 members at the time of its merger with ARA. 

The trade group landed its first major membership boost last April, when R New York joined with its roughly 800 agents. At the time, the brokerage addition increased ARA’s membership count by 30 percent to 3,800. 

Umansky and Haber launched ARA as the industry’s leading trade group, the National Association of Realtors, faced scrutiny over allegations of inappropriate behavior from its top leaders, executive turnover and antitrust lawsuits over its policies. 

Though Haber and Umansky initially billed ARA as a rival to NAR, they’ve since softened their stance against the industry giant, with Haber telling The Real Deal last year that he hoped to work alongside NAR, which he described as having significant influence at the federal level. 

“We don’t spend time bashing them, we’re critical when they are worthy,” Haber said at the time. “We hope they’re successful and navigate through this.”

Umansky is suing NAR over one of its policies on so-called pocket listings. In the lawsuit, the brokerage founder claimed the trade group enacted the rule, known as Clear Cooperation, in response to the launch of Umansky’s private listing database, the Pocket Listing Database. 

Umansky initially filed the lawsuit in 2020 and agreed to pause it four years later. However, as the debate over Clear Cooperation — sparked by Compass CEO Robert Reffkin’s fierce opposition to the policy — reached a fever pitch, Umansky reignited the suit.