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REAL ESTATE
Real Estate Commissions Hold Steady as New Rules Roll Out
Feared plunge hasn’t happened
When the National Association of Realtors agreed to new rules around commissions in early 2024, the news spurred breathless headlines about a potential plunge in consumer costs.
Nearly a year later, the effects look muted. “Overall buyer agent commissions have barely budged since new real estate commission rules went into effect on Aug. 17, though they have come down a bit since the rules were announced nearly a year ago,” national real estate brokerage Redfin reports.
The average buyer’s agent commission was 2.37 percent for homes sold in the fourth quarter. That was up ever so slightly from 2.36 percent in the third quarter, but down from 2.45 percent a year earlier, before the new rules were unveiled.
A quick recap: Regulators and industry critics for decades had targeted real estate commissions as collusion or otherwise unfair. But the critics had made almost no progress. Then came a federal suit challenging to the legality the commission structure, a case the industry lost.
As a result, in March 2024, the real estate industry announced that buy-side agent commissions no longer would be set by sellers and advertised in multiple listing services…
