On Saturday, a new set of rules governing how most real estate professionals do business in the US officially take effect — and the changes could potentially upend how Americans buy and sell homes.
The rules were agreed to by the National Association of Realtors, the powerful trade association that counts 1.5 million members, as part of a $418 million settlement into antitrust claims. The rules are designed to transform the way Realtors get paid and who pays them. It’s the largest change to the organization’s rules in at least a generation.
In a statement, Kevin Sears, NAR’s president, said that the changes “help to further empower consumers with clarity and choice when buying and selling a home.”
“I am confident in our members’ abilities to prepare for and embrace this evolution of our industry and help to guide consumers in the new landscape,” he said.
Here’s what you need to know:
Two key changes
Historically, buyers were not expected to pay their real estate broker directly. That’s because Realtor commission fees — to both the buyers’ agent and the sellers’ agent — were paid by a home seller.
Commissions usually total 5% or 6% of a home’s selling price, so for a $450K home, roughly the average price of a home in the US, a seller would be responsible for $27,000 in fees. Many experts have said these commissions have been baked into a home’s listing price, inflating home prices.
But beginning this week, seller’s agents will no longer be allowed to advertise commission fees to buyers’ agents on multiple listing services that Realtors use to list and find homes for sale and to facilitate transactions.
That means that a buyer’s agent can no longer use the database to search for houses based on how much they’ll get paid, a practice called “steering,” which led some agents to skip over showing homes that fit their client’s criteria solely because a seller was offering below-market commission rates, critics allege.