Few events in recent real estate history have rattled the industry more than the antitrust lawsuits filed against major brokerages and the National Association of Realtors (NAR), accusing them of artificially inflating agent commission rates.
NAR settled the Sitzer-Burnett case for $418 million and agreed to rules that the plaintiffs believed would help bring down commission rates — primarily by removing blanket offers of compensation to buyer brokers on NAR-affiliated MLSs.
But nearly a year after the terms of the settlement took effect, there’s little evidence to suggest commission rates are coming down to a substantial degree. And a recent survey from Clever Real Estate shows the opposite.
Clever polled 806 real estate agents across the country on commission rates and dollar amounts to find that the average rate is currently about 5.44%, with the listing agent getting 2.77% and the buyer’s agent getting 2.67%.
For a transaction on a median-priced home, this amounts to about $20,000 that’s split between the two agents.
The new rules mandated by the settlement went into effect in August 2024, but the commission rate in Clever’s survey actually went up relative to 2024, rising from 5.32%. The current rate is below the figures in 2023 (5.49%) and 2021 (5.5%).
The findings are in line with other studies on the topic. A HousingWire survey conducted earlier this year found that 58.8% of respondents said their commission rates were about the same, while 29.4% said they had decreased.
But the HousingWire survey also found that 42.6% of agents have gotten “pushback” from clients about commission rates.
In May, researchers at the Federal Reserve released an analysis of Cotality data and determined that buyer representation agreements — another requirement under the settlement — don’t have an impact on real estate commissions.
Anywhere Real Estate reported in April that the average commission rate was down 2 basis points annually to 2.41% among its franchises and down 6 basis points to 2.35% among its broker owners.
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