The real estate industry is more politically split than you think

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Election Day is two weeks away, which means all eyes are now trained on Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Polls for the race remain tight, so it’s still unclear who Americans will ultimately favor. But amid a tumultuous year with a slew of commission-related legal settlements and ongoing pressure from the Department of Justice, Inman was curious whether one candidate or another was running away with support from real estate professionals.

Conventional wisdom suggests real estate leans somewhat right. So, is that actually true today? Have recent legal developments changed Realtors’ views, or prompted more political engagement? Has the political landscape in real estate been upended in the same ways it has across the broader electorate?

To find answers, Inman turned to data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission website, searching for political donations from individuals who listed “Realtor” as their occupation. Inman initially set a date range covering all of 2023 and 2024. However, that resulted in hundreds of thousands of entries.

To narrow the focus, Inman instead set a date range beginning on March 15 — which is the day the National Association of Realtors announced its landmark commission lawsuit settlement. The logic behind this date is that the settlement opened a new chapter for the industry and made government regulation an even more prominent issue for real estate professionals. It also more or less coincides with the intensifying of this year’s election season — meaning donations made in response to events such as the debates or geopolitical events will all be included.

To see how this year compared to the last presidential election cycle, Inman also gathered data from mid-March through mid-October of 2020.

The data Inman analyzed does not include contributions from businesses or trade organizations, and it should not be construed as equivalent to votes. Only a small subset of passionate people make political contributions, and, in the end, comparatively less enthusiastic voters who still go to the polls ultimately decide the outcome of elections.

But the data does help take the political pulse of real estate’s rank and file, and the takeaway is surprising: Big Democratic organizations and campaigns have so far out-earned their Republican equivalents. Those results represent a reversal from the last election cycle in 2020 and, ultimately, suggest the industry is more politically diverse than is sometimes assumed.

Big donations for Democrats

Since mid-March, Realtors have donated to 867 different political action committees, campaigns, candidates and other organizations that are documented by the FEC. Out of those organizations, Democratic PAC ActBlue — which among other things focuses on soliciting donations from smaller contributors — was the biggest winner. In total, the organization has brought in $2,498,241 from Realtors since mid-March.

That money came from about 20,000 Realtors.

(A caveat: Inman attempted to accurately count the number of unique political contributors for this story. However, it’s possible that a small number of contributors were counted more than once if they made donations under different names. For example, a person who donated once as John Smith, then later donated again as Jonathan Smith, may have ended up in the data set twice. However, such instances are likely rare, meaning the number of contributors should be more or less accurate.)

The second biggest winner in the Realtor donations game was Vice President Kamala Harris’ official campaign, which took in about $860,683 from just over 2,000 contributors.

Other Democratic organizations that scored large sums from Realtors include the Harris Victory Fund with $174,474 (eighth place on the list), liberal super PAC American Bridge 21st Century with $100,000, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee with about $91,116 (11th place), the Democratic National Committee with about $65,837 (13th place), the Harris Action Fund with $19,800 (17th place), and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee with $17,672 (20th place).

Outside the top 20, the list is dominated by congressional and local campaigns, as well as smaller PACs.

In total, major Democratic or Democratic-leaning organizations with a focus on either the presidential race or general national politics, and which landed in the top 20 slots on the list, brought in a total of $3,827,826 between mid-March and mid-October. Such organizations ultimately took eight of the top 20 spots on the list.

Republicans earned less

On the other side of the aisle, the third place spot on the list goes to the Republican fundraising platform WinRed, which brought in $751,241 from just over 7,000 individual donors.

Republicans additionally took the fourth through seventh spots on the list. In fourth place was Donald Trump’s campaign, which brought in $616,739. Fifth place went to the Republican National Committee, at $335,987. In sixth place was another Trump entity, Trump 47 Committee, with $268,350. And seventh place went to Trump National Committee JFC, a PAC, which raised $241,462.

Additionally, the National Republican Senatorial Committee brought in $89,427 (11th place), Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee scored $55,075 (13th place), and the National Republican Congressional Committee earned $42,082 (14th place).

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Team Kennedy also landed in the top 20, at 16th place, by bringing in $31,521. Kennedy had been running as an independent, but in August suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.

In total, national and White House-focused Republicans took eight of the top twenty spots in the list — the same as the Democrats — but across all campaigns and PACs brought in $2,400,367.

Surprisingly mixed results

Real estate has long had a reputation as a somewhat conservative industry. In 2019, for instance, political donation tracking organization Open Secrets described the industry as “Trump’s top ally in 2020” (though that assessment was based on contributions from industry “affiliates” including companies, rather than just the individual donations Inman has focused on for this piece).

The Biden administration has also become more aggressive toward real estate — for example, by working to revive its investigation into the National Association of Realtors. Such moves have led to speculation that real estate professionals might mobilize for change in the White House.

So far, however, it appears that among the rank and file of the industry, opinion is divided and that Realtors have not turned against the Democrats. The $2.4 million nationally focused Republican organizations raised over the last seven months is well below Democrats’ haul of $3.8 million.

Republican totals inch up somewhat if Kennedy’s funding is counted in their favor, or if smaller organizations are included; conservative PAC Save America, for example, scored the 22nd spot on the list by raising $16,627. But that’s still not enough to bridge the gap. The Democrats still have an edge over Republicans among individual Realtors.

It’s also worth noting that Democrats’ fundraising lead among Realtors is primarily due to the success of one organization, ActBlue, which, again, focuses on smaller donors.

As mentioned above, contributions are not votes, and Democrats or Republicans could ultimately win more Realtor support at the ballot box. But what we know now is that Realtors have been inspired to give more money to team blue. And that paints a picture of a more divided real estate industry than is commonly understood to exist.

It’s also worth noting that in addition to national PACs and White House campaigns, Realtors have also donated to hundreds of other PACs and candidates. Mixed into the top 20 spots, for instance, is Ted Cruz’s senate campaign (number 20) and that of his challenger Colin Allred (number 16). The fact that Allred is beating Cruz for Realtor contributions further bears out the broader trend of Democrats having a fundraising edge right now among real estate professionals.

In total, Realtors have donated $7,863,825

How 2024 compares to 2020

To get a better sense of how unique, or not, 2024 is, Inman also pulled data from mid-March to mid-October for 2020. (Inman left the date range the same so as to have more comparable numbers, even though in the case of 2020 it would’ve been possible to get data that continued all the way through the election.)

As was the case in 2024, ActBlue was the top destination for contributions from individual Realtors in 2020, with the PAC collecting $3,930,582 — about $1.5 million more than it collected during the same period this election cycle.

Biden’s campaign took the fourth spot and collected $1,370,190. In total, Democrats or Democrat-affiliated organizations focusing on national races and the White House took eight of the top 20 spots in 2020 — the same as 2024 — and raised $6,490,489. That’s considerably higher than the roughly $3.8 million that equivalent organizations have raised this year.

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans took seven of the top 20 spots 2020. However, those seven spots included number two for WinRed, which raised $3,805,614 — a far better showing than the organization has so far had in 2024. In total, Republican campaigns and PACs with a national or White House focus in 2022 raised $6,981,159. That beat the Democrats by about a half million dollars and blew away this year’s haul.

These numbers could mean any number of things. The past four years have been among the most brutal for real estate in a generation thanks to high rates and resultant slow sales. And that has driven some Realtors out of the business.

The comparatively lower campaign contribution numbers from Realtors in 2024, then, could reflect the fact that there are fewer Realtors in general and that those who remain may have less disposable income to spend on politics. Another possibility is that more money is flowing into politics via other avenues, rather than as individual campaign contributions.

Alternatively, it may also be that some people in real estate are simply less enthusiastic about this election compared to four years ago. It is, after all, Donald Trump’s third time running for the presidency, and it’s conceivable that some fatigue has set in.

Still, it’s difficult to ignore the fact that the showing from top Republican organizations this time around has been considerably more middling. Team red edged out team blue during the last election cycle by a not-insubstantial amount. The old stereotype that the industry was conservative-leaning held true.

This time, however, the tables have turned. Whether that means the industry has experienced some sort of political shift, or if other facts are behind this change, is hard to say. But what’s clear is that in 2024, real estate professionals appear to be more politically split than many might have expected.

Email Jim Dalrymple II