Talk:Real estate agents and brokers/Archives/2014

Dubious

Use of the name "realtor"

The only citation for this claim:
There are 1.3 million Realtors, mostly in the United States, and an additional 1 million licensed real estate agents who are not members of NAR and cannot use the term "realtor".
is a link to the front page of the NAR itself, which has no backing for such a claim. I could create the National Association of Wikipedians today and claim that others' cannot use the title "wikipedian", but that doesn't make it true. This should be addressed, preferably with official government sources, as the article should not be used to push the NAR's agenda.
Sarysa (talk) 00:17, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I admire your skepticism, but I'm removing the tag. See National Association of Realtors#Trademark status. That claim is correct for the time being. --BDD (talk) 23:47, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

While the paragraph is correct as to the law, I think it should be reworded to make clearer that "realtor" and "real estate agent" are used 100% interchangeably by most lay Americans, trademark be damned. The fact that Realtor is a proper noun is not widely known, outside of agents themselves (and linguists).

Non-NAR agents may be careful not to claim "realtor" in official business/ads, but I bet many of them still use the term to describe themselves when asked at a party or the supermarket "What do you do?". 209.172.25.168 (talk) 03:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I can think of many professions where there is a greater or lesser lay confusion over job titles. I've heard bookkeepers being referred to as accountants and in the UK legal executives referred to as Solicitors (the most common client facing qualified lawyer). Common error does not make this correct any more than calling another brand of cola a Coke. Dainamo (talk) 15:02, 31 December 2013 (UTC)