Compass International Holdings has joined the American Real Estate Association, Inman learned exclusively on Tuesday.
Agents on the company-owned side of Compass International Holdings’ nine brands — @properties, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, Century 21, Christie’s International Real Estate, Coldwell Banker, Compass, Corcoran, ERA and Sotheby’s International Realty — will receive complimentary membership for the remainder of 2026 and all of 2027.
Currently, agents can join ARA for $20 per year or pay $1,500 to become a founding member, which covers dues for 10 years.
Mauricio Umansky
“When we launched the American Real Estate Association, our mandate was clear: build a unified voice of reason and deliver relentless advocacy for the true professionals who power this industry,” ARA co-founder Mauricio Umansky said. “Welcoming into ARA the incredible real estate professionals across the brands affiliated with Compass International Holdings is a pivotal moment for us.”
“It proves that the future of real estate belongs to dedicated, highly skilled advisors who put clients first and demand a higher standard for our profession,” he added.
ARA is nearing its second full year of operations, with Umansky and co-founder Jason Haber launching the Association amid the fallout from the National Association of Realtors’ stinging Sitzer | Burnett buyer-broker commission lawsuit loss and a scathing New York Times exposé detailing former president Kenny Parcell’s alleged sexual misconduct.
In the years since, Umansky and Haber have been steadily building a coalition of brokerage partners, including Umansky’s The Agency and Douglas Elliman and, just last month, REMAX. ARA also absorbed the New York Residential Agent Continuum (NYRAC) as its first local chapter and testing ground for what ARA wants to bring to its more than 30,000 members nationwide.
These moves caught the attention of Compass International Holdings Chairman and CEO Robert Reffkin, who has been one of NAR’s loudest critics over the past several years, homing in on the Association’s Clear Cooperation Policy.
Robert Reffkin
“Competition makes every industry better,” he said in a written statement. “For too long real estate professionals have lacked real choice in national representation.”
“By joining the American Real Estate Association, we are supporting a competitive alternative that must earn agents’ trust and prove its value,” he added. “Our agents will have the choice to join this residential real estate association that is now competing for its members to provide better value.”
In a phone call with Inman, Haber said he believes the partnership with Compass International Holdings will bolster ARA’s visibility and credibility — finally breaking the idea that the Association is simply a pet project.
“That’s fair. I get that,” he said in response to a question about whether the partnerships will push industry members to take ARA seriously. “But I think we’ve done a lot of the really important foundational work, and I think that’s been recognized. We’ve made enough of a name for ourselves and what our vision is for the future of the industry.”
Haber said the Compass International Holdings partnership represents a major opportunity for membership growth. ARA’s latest official count puts them at a membership of 30,000, not counting the recent influx of REMAX agents activating their membership.
Jason Haber
If agents at Compass’s company-owned brokerages are as eager as REMAX agents to join ARA, the Association could find itself in the upper echelon of trade associations before year’s end. Haber said ARA will reach out to Compass International Holdings franchisees in the coming weeks about partnerships and membership benefits for their agents, further expanding the membership growth potential.
“The opportunity for us is very significant,” he said.
As to whether ARA is ready for this kind of growth, Haber said the Association has been using its NYRAC chapter as a testing ground for what it can offer nationally. The Association has also invested in an upcoming website relaunch, which will serve as a hub for its member benefits and services, community calls and online events, and a slate of other features members have requested.
“We’re hoping to roll [the website] out within the next 120 days. I don’t want to go into the features it’ll have right now, but it’ll have what I think our agent community wants. It’s a starting point. We’re delivering on [our] vision of the future,” he said. “And as we deliver more, I think our community and our members will see a clearer picture of where we want to go, where we want to take the industry.”
Haber said he hopes the partnerships, alongside the revamped website and ARA’s burgeoning advocacy work, which includes supporting the Missouri Association of Realtors’ push against a state tax amendment that could open the door for real estate transfer taxes, prove that ARA is here to stay.
“We have to earn [our membership] every single year,” he said. “Every day for us has to be the Super Bowl because we don’t have agents who are going to be joining us because they ‘have to’. We will never have that. Our agents will join us because they want to.”
“That’s the bar that we set. We don’t want to be a trade group that people have to join,” he added. “We want to be the trade group that people want to join.”
