1 Year After the NAR Settlement Consumers are Still Winning With Realtors!

Anthony Lamacchia:

One year ago, just this week, remember, August 17th, 2024 will live forever. That date will be known in the real estate industry because that’s when the implementation of the settlement went into place. Okay, and here we are a year later.

What’s changed? The sun is still shining, although not as much today. The lights are still going off and on. Buyers are still buying.

Sellers are still selling. And here’s the part the plaintiff attorneys and all the disruptors don’t want to hear. Consumers still want to work with realtors as much as they always have forever.

I distinctly remember the week of the trial when attorney Ketchmark was on CNBC saying, you’re a real estate cartel. Remember those days and all those videos I was doing with that accent? We were getting pelted in the media, right? The media totally was hijacked by the plaintiff’s attorneys and the Department of Justice and everyone else like that fake reporter at the Deborah Kamin. Despite all of that, people are still using realtors every single day.

So that’s the first thing that hasn’t changed. Here’s another one. Do you all remember when I debated attorney Ketchmark in January of 24? And he said, tell me, tell me another industry where someone pays for someone else’s fees.

Why should a seller be paying a buyer agent fee? Right. Here we are a year later. Sellers are paying buyer agent compensation on over 95% of transactions.

We’ve been monitoring this very closely here at our company. And I’ve spoken to several others like title companies who have seen the same thing. It’s industry wide.

Why? Because of just what I explained to attorney Ketchmark on the phone the day after Thanksgiving in 2023 and what I explained in the debate. No buyer says, hey, find me the house where I can come out of pocket. No buyer says, hey, Mr. Realtor, I want to come out of pocket to pay you.

And the biggest reason mortgage guidelines still, still do not allow for buyers to finance the commission that they owe to their buyers agents. So what’s really changed? People are still reusing realtors, right? And fees are still being paid primarily by sellers. But you know, what’s funny about that argument, the old saying in real estate, who pays the commission? The buyer, the seller.

Without each, no one pays. But you get my point on the closing disclosure. Where is it coming from? Coming from sellers.

Now here’s something else that hasn’t changed and actually has gotten more favorable to realtors. Ready? Inman put an article out. Real estate still adapting to new normal one year after NAR rules.

Now, remember they say NAR rules and the national association always gets pelted in the media and I’ve defended them. There’s some stuff I didn’t like, especially during the case, but I’ve mainly defended them because I know that they’re trying and they’re a trade organization, not a private organization with a, you know, leader that can be as boisterous as I can. Right.

But they always get hit. Well, they got backed into a corner. So they had to agree with this settlement with some of these ridiculous rules and some of these ridiculous things like commission should come out of the MLS.

That’s another topic. I’ll tackle that next, but let’s stay focused on commissions for a minute. Halfway through this Inman article, commissions dropped, then ticked back up.

Make no mistake. Buyer-agent commissions are down from where they were before the Sitzer-Burnett trial and Verdict put a spotlight on agent compensation. That’s according to the latest Redfin data, which shows, follow me here, the average buyer-agent commission in the second quarter of this year sitting at 2.43%. That’s second quarter 2025.

That’s up from 2.36% when the rule changes took effect, though it’s down from 2.51% at the start of 23. You know what’s really funny about that? When they cite the start of 23, folks, commissions are always historically higher when it’s a little bit tougher of a time of year to sell a home, i.e. late fall, very, very early winter. Commissions are always higher during those times, so this data is a little bit skewed.

It’s not comparing the same time to the same time, but if you compare this past quarter, second quarter to around when the implementation was done or the settlement was proposed, late Q1 of 2024, early Q2, it basically is the same. Now, here’s my non-data analysis, which is more accurate than all of this data. Buyer-agent commissions are going up.

Thank you. Thank you, Attorney Ketchmark. I look back and I feel a little bad about all the criticism I threw your way at that time because even though I was right on everything I said, I was a little tough on you, and I know that some in the industry felt I was a little tough, and I don’t feel bad about it, honestly, because I was right about everything I said.

I said that sellers would still pay compensation. I said realtors were going absolutely nowhere. I said you would not hurt compensation, but you would complicate the transactions, and I was right about all of that, okay? So this isn’t necessarily my victory lap, but it’s my recap one year after, okay? Realtors are going absolutely nowhere.

The other change that occurred was commissions coming out of the MLS. So here we are one year later operating on a less transparent system. Why that’s good for anyone, I don’t know, but it is making it so that buyer-agents are charging more.

Why? Because there was many years, but especially when the market’s hot, periods of time and over time, that realtors simply accepted what listing agents were offering in many cases, not all cases. Of course, there was some negotiation between realtor and buyer, not usually realtor, buyer’s agent, and seller, but now they’re having to negotiate it every time, and you consumer advocates, you all, Stephen Brobeck, nice guy, tried hard for many years, was on the right side of many topics, like back in the 90s when he said that all consumers should have a buyer’s agent when buying a home, but he was on the wrong side of this. All of you consumer advocates said if there’s negotiation, the commissions will go down.

You’ve been wrong, and you’re going to continue to be wrong, and when the data comes out a year, two years from now, commission’s going to be up a lot. So thank you all. I should be thanking you.

Any industry that has outside forces that come in and utilize judicially sanctioned extortion and rip off an industry like what happened to our industry, but then end up being able to charge more later because of those people, well, I guess I should be happy about that. Truth be told, I’m not. I’m not, because they came in and took, fleeced so many great companies in our business.

We were one of the fortunate ones that wasn’t, but we’re negatively affected as well. So that’s pretty much my entire recap. One year later, I’m sure more will come out.

There are some other things going on. That brilliant law professor, Tanya, and very tenacious law professor, Tanya Monastery, I think is the correct pronunciation. She still has an appeal with the Eighth Circuit, and she seems to think she’s going to win.

I’ve had conversations with her, and she thinks the entire settlement will get upended. I know a lot of good lawyers that don’t think that’ll happen, but I’m curious about it, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Stay tuned to Crush It in Real Estate.

Follow me on Instagram for other updates along the way. If you like this video, click the like button, please. Thank you all so much.

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