Let’s Give it Up to the REALTOR® Association

For 100+ years they have maintained a marketplace for us to buy, own and transfer real estate; protected our property ownership rights, and have helped build better relationships with the communities in which they live and work – kudos to the REALTOR Association on all three levels.

More specifically to the last 10 years, at the beginning of the 21st century, most home buyers had never viewed a home online; the three top home sale marketing methods were yard signs, newspaper ads and open houses; and nearly nine out of 10 buyers financed their purchase with a fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage. What a difference a decade makes.

Here we go investors… Median home values over the past decade have increased more than 25 percent, from $137,600 in November 1999 to $172,600 in November 2009 (the most recent existing-home data available).

“REALTORS® have been around for more than 100 years, but one constant during that time has been the persistence of homeownership as the American Dream,” said 2010 NAR President Vicki Cox Golder. “As the first decade of this century comes to a close, NAR stands ready to meet the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead by helping our REALTOR® members better serve their clients and communities and ensuring that those dreams of homeownership remain possible for all who want to achieve it.”