Housing Wire

MARCH 15, 2024

These housing professionals have been gaming out the potential impact on buyers’ agents – a significant source of referrals. Loan officers and mortgage executives expect home sellers and homebuyers to negotiate more aggressively on commission paid to buyer agents, potentially bringing costs down.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 20, 2024

Those too young to remember the wild west of real estate believe that real estate commissions have always been evenly split between seller’s and buyer’s agents, with each receiving a portion of the sale price. This misconception obscures the reality that, historically, buyers lacked formal representation.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 19, 2024

For many real estate brokerages and roughly 1 million Realtors, the nationwide settlement agreement that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) negotiated due to the ongoing commission lawsuits marks the end of their cooperative compensation litigation concerns, at least for the time being. billion ), Douglas Elliman ($42.8

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Central to the complaint is NAR’s Participation Rule, which requires listing brokers to make a blanket offer of compensation to buyer brokers in order to list a property on the MLS. “By By enforcing this mandate, the NAR establishes an anticompetitive market where sellers are coerced into subsidizing the buyer’s costs.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 31, 2023

A Kansas City jury has found the National Association of Realtors , HomeServices of America and Keller Williams guilty of colluding to inflate or maintain high commission rates through NAR’s Clear Cooperation Rule, in the Sitzer/Burnett buyer broker commission lawsuit. The defendants have been ordered to pay damages of $1.78

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Housing Wire

APRIL 26, 2024

HomeServices of America , the last remaining brokerage defendant in the landmark Sitzer/Burnett antitrust commission case , has agreed to pay $250 million in damages to settle lawsuits that will change agent compensation across America. The New York Times first reported the story. The jury verdict came to $1.76 billion in damages.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 16, 2023

At the crux of the case is the allegation that commission rates are too high, it’s unfair that the seller pays the buyer’s agent’s commission, and that the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) Code of Conduct and MLS Handbook lead to set pricing. ” What’s at stake?

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 29, 2024

As for the defendants, real estate brokerages River Point Realty , Bovard-Anderson , Priority Realty , Rubinoff Realty Services and Found It PA were added in the amended complaint. The addition of the five local brokerages is not the only recent change to the list of defendants. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 18, 2024

Jessica Edgerton , chief legal officer at LeadingRE , was also caught off guard by the timing of everything. “I If the seller is willing to have that discussion, then you and your buyer can see what they would be willing to cover.” They wish that there was more guidance or framework of what all of this will look like in practice.”

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Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

According to court documents filed on Tuesday, Anywhere Real Estate and the home sellers suing the firm in both the Moehrl and Sitzer/Burnett cases, which both deal with buyer brokers’ commissions, have reached a preliminary settlement agreement, settling all claims in both suits.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 22, 2024

Based on NAR’s settlement, agents working with buyers will need a signed buyer representation agreement starting in mid-July, pending final court approval of the settlement. Bills Clarke said this is exactly how agents already work with sellers, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to implement buyer agreements into a business. “We

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Housing Wire

AUGUST 4, 2022

Tech-focused real estate brokerage Radius , flush with $14 million in venture capital raised this past April, has launched a mortgage lending arm in California that it plans to roll out to additional markets sometime next year. Presented by: Axis Technical Group.

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Housing Wire

APRIL 10, 2024

R New York , a brokerage boasting approximately 800 agents, has joined the American Real Estate Association , an alternative to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), according to The Real Deal. to allow buyer agent compensation to be rolled into the loan. million members. So why should agents have this requirement?”

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

I actually started out as a buyer’s agent myself… and I see buyer’s agency as being a very valuable tool for buyers,” Sanford said during the Q&A session. I’m concerned, quite frankly, about what this might mean to buyers who may not be able to afford representation if things change up too much.”

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Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

But three multibillion-dollar class action antitrust lawsuits looming over the real estate industry may soon reshape how buyers interact with agents. You’ve got current economic conditions that are not opportunistic for a homebuyer right now, inflation is still out there and it’s all constraining buyers’ ability to spend. “You’ve

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Buyers Agents Loan Officers Real Estate 397

Housing Wire

JANUARY 2, 2024

Umpa sold his Ohio home with Redfin and his Maryland home with Compass , and the suit states that he “paid a substantial buyer-broker compensation,” in both transactions. Because this blanket offer must be made available to every buyer-broker using the MLS (i.e., The lawsuit is seeking class action status for everyone in the U.S.

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 16, 2024

“The gravamen of Plaintiff’s complaint is that anti-competitive BAREIS MLS rules, which Defendants agreed to, implemented, and enforced, require Class members to make a blanket, unilateral, and effectively non-negotiable offer of buyer broker compensation when listing a property on the BAREIS MLS,” the amended complaint states.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Three researchers believe a first-of-its-kind dataset has enabled them to definitively answer a long-debated question: why have buyer agent commission rates been so stable historically? So how is the uniformity and permanence of buyer agents’ 2-3% rate possible in a free market? One of the researchers, Will Fried, had a hunch.

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Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

The trade group’s legal woes have brought it back to California, where is already facing other commission lawsuits. 2021 to a buyer represented by a Redfin agent. While this is certainly not the only lawsuit Redfin has been named a defendant in, it is the first suit in which it is named as the sole real estate brokerage defendant.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Regardless of the outcome, real estate brokers are doing all they can to prepare their brokerages and their agents for more transparency, education on the value real estate agents bring to the transaction, and more, according to the 2023 Q4 BrokerPulse survey , a forward-looking housing market sentiment survey by HousingWire.

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Housing Wire

MAY 6, 2024

Redfin has joined the growing list of real estate brokerages that have settled the commission lawsuits. brokerage that has saved consumers more than $1.5 As part of the settlement agreement, Redfin has agreed to pay $9.25 million into a qualified settlement fund within 30 days of the court’s preliminary approval of the agreement.

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Housing Wire

JULY 19, 2023

A typical commission dispute arises when, after signing a listing agreement or buyer-broker agreement: A seller-client “cancels” a valid purchase contract. Similarly, commission disputes can arise when a buyer-client ultimately purchases a property shortly after the relationship with their real estate agent ends.

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 18, 2024

The complaint names 35 entities as defendants, including the National Association of Realtors , local and national brokerages, MLSs and local Realtor associations. Patrick Thurber, a California home seller, is an additional named plaintiff in the suit. 17, 2020, and the present.

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Housing Wire

APRIL 23, 2024

The settlement agreement also mandates that MLS participants working with buyers must enter into a written buyer broker agreement. But the settlement does provide a mechanism for brokerages to opt in to the agreement if they so choose, or they can negotiate their own settlement, as Compass and The Real Brokerage have recently done.

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Inman

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

A majority of potential buyers say they're open to paying their agents in the wake of legal threats to commissions, according to results from a joint survey conducted by Inman with Dig Insights.

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Buyers Agents Legal Brokerage 187

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

HomeServices of America can preserve some of its legal war chest — for now, at least. The residential brokerage was dismissed this week from one of the early real estate commission lawsuits , known as “Batton 1” after its lead plaintiff, a homebuyer named Mya Batton. Judge Andrea Wood of the U.S.

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Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

“In the absence of NAR’s Mandatory Offer of Compensation Rule, the expense of buyer broker commissions would be incurred by their clients (homebuyers),” the complaint states. This would lead to competition among buyer brokers to offer lower commission rates. 16, 2020, and the present.

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Real Estate Realtors Realty Brokerage 441

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 4, 2023

District Court in Boston granted the Department of Justice’s request to extend all settlement related deadlines in the Nosalek buyer broker compensation class action lawsuit on Tuesday. Unlike the two other buyer-broker commission lawsuits, Moehrl and Sitzer/Burnett , NAR is not a defendant in the Nosalek lawsuit.

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Buyers Realtors Sellers Legal 421

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Defendants in the Sitzer/Burnett class action lawsuit, which deals with buyer brokers’ commissions, are facing two fewer claims. The past few weeks have been eventful for the Sitzer/Burnett lawsuit, as well as the larger Moehrl lawsuit in Illinois, which also deals with buyer-broker commissions. Bough, a U.S.

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Buyers Law Realtors Agents 431

Housing Wire

APRIL 24, 2024

Another brokerage has decided to settle the commission lawsuits. The firm is not disclosing the dollar amount it is paying as part of the settlement agreement, but it noted that the terms are similar to those previously negotiated by Anywhere , RE/MAX , Keller Williams , Compass and The Real Brokerage.

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Brokerage Real Estate Agents Sellers 355

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 2, 2023

MLS Property Information Network’s (MLS PIN) settlement agreement in the Nosalek class action antitrust buyer-broker compensation lawsuit has hit yet another snag. ” It continues: “Buyer-broker commission rules are the subject of several pending antitrust suits and a pending appeal in which the United States is an appellant.”

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Buyers Realtors Real Estate Sellers 409

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 26, 2023

She said that HomeServices does not meddle in operations, give advice, or advise on commissions or how the brokerage approaches Realtor association membership. Despite not requiring NAR membership, Frazier said the brokerage does require agents to follow the NAR Code of Ethics. We don’t want people unrepresented.”

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 16, 2024

So, while I make no claim as to the specific deep legal issues, I have some familiarity of antitrust actions and more in the conduct of legal actions in a courtroom. They also testified to the importance and value of the MLS as a core service that agents provide to sellers and buyers. This court ignored all those precedents.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Can we ask if the buyer is represented now? Can we even discuss things about the house because if we inform the potential buyer of something about the house that makes them not want the house, even if it isn’t something necessarily bad, are we going against our agreement with our seller?”

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Open Houses Brokerage Agents Realtors 479

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Less than three weeks out from the trial start date, plaintiffs in the Sitzer/Burnett buyer broker commission class action lawsuit filed a notice to withdraw three named plaintiffs. The two-page filing offered no explanation for the decision. “The

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Brokerage Realtors Agents Design 409

Housing Wire

MARCH 25, 2024

Cooperative compensation is still legal,” Papasan stressed. They noted that NAR’s settlement prohibits disclosing offers of cooperative compensation, broker compensation or total broker compensation, but it does not address including remarks noting that buyer agent compensation will not be offered.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

It appears that no real estate brokerage firm in the U.S. The 105-page complaint takes aim at a REBNY Listing Service rule called the Buyer Broker Commission Rule, which states that the brokers “shall each be paid an equal share of the commission as specified in the Exclusive Listing.” is safe from a commission lawsuit.

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Real Estate Brokerage Sellers Law 473