CNN
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When Dana McMahan sold her home this spring, she decided to try to maximize her take-home profit by skipping out on the help of a full-service Realtor.
Traditionally, home sellers in the US have been responsible for paying real estate commissions. The standard 5% or 6% commission was usually split between the seller’s broker and the buyer’s broker, referred to as cooperative compensation.
“I think it’s safe to say that for quite some time I’ve really not felt like it was fair for a home seller to be paying a 6% commission,” McMahan said.
McMahan, a content creator in Louisville, Kentucky, was slightly ahead of the curve when she opted out of the standard commission-sharing model: Beginning August 17, a new set of rules went into effect for the 1.5 million real estate professionals who are part of the National Association of Realtors designed to shift the conversation about how Realtors get paid.
Amid record-high home prices and elevated mortgage rates, NAR’s changes may only seem like tweaks to the opaque process of buying and selling a home. But many experts predict the new rules may eventually spur increased price competition in the real estate industry, opening up the possibility for Americans to save thousands of dollars on Realtor commissions in the future.
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