Lawrence Yun is Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Research at the National Association of Realtors

National Association of Realtors

The National Association of Realtors , whose members are known as Realtors, is North America's largest trade association. representing over 1.2 million members , including NAR's institutes, societies, and councils, involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries...

. He oversees the production of existing home sales statistics and the popular Home Buyer and Home Seller survey reports. He regularly appears on CNBC, BBC, Bloomberg TV, and is often quoted in the media. Yun is also a frequent speaker at Real Estate conferences throughout the United States. In March 2008, USA Today listed him among the top 10 economic forecasters in the country.

Yun has been with NAR since 2000. Prior to that, he worked as an economic consultant to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Education. While a research associate at the University of Maryland from 1995 to 1998 with the funding from the United States Agency for International Development, Yun helped develop a graduate economics curriculum and lectured at several universities in the former Soviet Union as that country transitioned from communism to a market-based economy.

Yun was born in South Korea. He attended primary and secondary schools in South Carolina. He received his Mechanical Engineering degree from Purdue University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland, studying under Professors Dennis Mueller

Dennis Mueller

Dennis C. Mueller is a Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna. The focus of his academic work on the Principal–agent problem, corporate governance and Political Economy- Biography:...

 and Mancur Olson

Mancur Olson

Mancur Lloyd Olson, Jr. was a leading American economist and social scientist who, at the time of his death, worked at the University of Maryland, College Park...

.

Lawrence Yun, his wife Alla, and son James live in Arlington, Virginia.

Yun took on an unenviable task of following his predecessor David Lereah

David Lereah

David Lereah is the President of , a real estate advisory and information company located in the Washington, DC area. Reecon Advisors is the owner and publisher of , one of the industry's leading Web sites providing intelligence and information on the residential real estate market. The Web site...

, who has been widely criticised and discredited in the media and in the realtor community. Yun has also been at times criticized for his predictions on the housing market.
His talks at national real estate conventions often draw a large crowd as his promotion of NAR's advocacy positions have often been adopted by Congress and the Administration.

He writes short commentaries on the economy and the real estate market on most working days.