New rules for the residential real estate market mean that starting Saturday, anyone in the market to buy or sell a home will encounter unfamiliar processes, and possibly a bit of confusion.
The “practice changes” stem from a 2023 legal decision over the way real estate agents were compensated.
Traditionally, when a home was sold, a commission of roughly 5% to 6% was paid by the seller and divided between the agents for the buyer and the seller. That structure helped keep commissions higher than they would otherwise be, the lawsuit alleged. It also meant a seller had to pay the agent representing the other side of the deal, a practice many observers thought was inappropriate.
“So much of the industry doesn’t make sense from a common sense point of view,” said Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow with the Consumer Federation of America, who’s been advocating for realtor commission changes for decades. “The key argument was it’s just not fair for sellers to pay both the listing agent and the buyer’s agent.”
Now, a seller will need to decide whether, and how much, to pay a buyer’s broker. Whatever the decision, that information can no longer be included in what’s known as the “multiple listing service” or MLS, the official real estate data service used by local realtor associations.
Whatever the seller decides about compensation may, however, be communicated personally by phone or text, or advertised by social media, a sign on the…
