The table most brokerages cite on unlicensed assistants is dated 2017

NAR's state-by-state PDF is still the document handed to new coordinators. State regulators have published a great deal since it was written.

Key points

NAR maintains a state-by-state Unlicensed Assistants Table as a PDF dated 2017.

It sits alongside NAR's Field Guide to Personal Assistants.

State commissions including the California DRE and Texas TREC have published guidance since.

Use the table for orientation and the state regulator for authority.

Ask a brokerage compliance officer where the line sits on unlicensed assistance and there is a good chance the answer arrives as a PDF attachment. It is usually the same PDF: the National Association of REALTORS state-by-state table on unlicensed assistants, which carries a 2017 date.

The table is not wrong so much as old. It was assembled to give a national overview of a question that is decided fifty times over, and it does that job well. But nine years is a long time in licensing guidance, and the state commissions have not stopped publishing. The California DRE maintains both a live page and a detailed PDF guide. TREC has published its own conditional guidance pointing at TRELA and Rules 535.4 and 535.5.

Where it still earns its place

For a coordinator taking on a file in a state they have not worked before, the table answers the first question quickly: is this a state that treats the activity permissively, or one that does not. That is a useful triage step. It is not a defence.

NAR's Field Guide to Personal Assistants is the companion document and is maintained on the association's site. Both are membership-oriented material written with brokerage assistants in mind, which is a different working relationship from an independent coordinator contracting with several agents at once.

Primary sources for this story

NAR Field Guide to Personal Assistants

California DRE, unlicensed assistants

Texas Real Estate Commission

Sources cited

NAR