Housing Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2023

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The second week of the Sitzer/Burnett class-action buyer broker commission antitrust lawsuit kicked off with a bang. A judgment as a matter of law is permissible if there is no legally sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to find for the nonmoving party (in this instance, the plaintiffs) on the issue.

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Housing Wire

JULY 17, 2023

With real estate inventory at a near-record low, buyers seeking a place to call home are facing stiff competition as bidding wars continue to be commonplace. It is critical that title professionals and our industry partners spread awareness about this type of fraud and educate buyers about the steps they should take to protect themselves.

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Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

According to court documents filed on Monday, RE/MAX 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

OCTOBER 26, 2023

During plaintiff lead attorney Michael Ketchmark’s cross examination of Warner, he presented her with some statistics showing that HomeServices affiliated agents in four Missouri markets paid buyer broker commissions of roughly 3% in at least 88% of the transactions completed between 2015 and 2022. It is human nature,” Frazier said.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 6, 2023

million settlement with plaintiffs in two bombshell buyer commission lawsuits have been made public, and they stipulate that the brokerage conglomerate make significant changes to its practices. The terms of Anywhere Real Estate ‘s $83.5 It won class-action status last year and could result in over $1 billion in damages.

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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? and relied on salaried agents rather than commission-paid agents, who typically cost sellers 5-6%. One of the researchers, Will Fried, had a hunch.

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Housing Wire

MAY 26, 2023

Secret Service , notified the title industry of a rise in what is known as vacant lot fraud, or seller impersonation fraud. “We We started to hear a lot about seller impersonation fraud early on in the year,” Tyler Adams, the CEO of CertifID, said. “We Oftentimes this leads to the discovery of vacant lots. million, according to NAR.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 28, 2024

At the moment, IPCs “include concessions from the seller to the buyer for items that are traditionally paid by the buyer such as loan closing costs or rate buy-downs,” but as buyer agents are customarily paid by the listing agent, their fees are excluded from caps on the IPCs. NAR also sent a letter to the U.S.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Moving past cooperative compensation In early August, Bright MLS , the nation’s second largest MLS, began allowing listing agents to use a $0 blanket offer of compensation for buyer brokers and still list a property on the MLS. This change does allow for listing agents to no longer offer any monetary compensation to buyers’ brokers.

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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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Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Many of these laws target specific types of real estate deemed crucial to national security, such as farmland or property near military installations, while other laws apply more broadly to all types of land. Laws should also be clear on the role title insurance professionals play in facilitating transactions with foreign owners.

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Housing Wire

APRIL 3, 2024

The Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) this week submitted a letter to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) that urges the agency to “provide comparable down payment treatment for FHA borrowers, regardless of whether or not the seller is willing to pay the home buyer broker commission,” according to an announcement by the organization.

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Sellers Buyers Agents Real Estate Agent 378

Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

In May 2022, the Florida Legislature introduced a new condominium safety law, which mandates more rigorous inspections and stronger financial reserves for HOAs. Before the new law was enforced, many condo associations were investing their reserves in government-insured instruments, sacrificing their liquidity to generate a return.

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Will Springer Realtor

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Our state is at the forefront of improving a document that each buyer and seller receives near the start of the purchase and sale process, and for the first time, our industry will be required to have a contract with buyers. The agency term of 12 months will be the standard but buyers can agree to any length in writing.

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Law Buyers Sellers Real Estate 61

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Just hours after securing a victory for his home seller clients in the landmark Sitzer/Burnett commission lawsuit, Michael Ketchmark, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, filed another class action antitrust lawsuit against some of the real estate industry’s biggest players, in U.S. District Court for Western Missouri.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

On Wednesday, Manhattan home seller Monty March filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, alleging that Real Estate Board of New York rules governing the multiple listing service in Manhattan kept commissions high and violated state and federal antitrust laws. is safe from a commission lawsuit.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 12, 2023

A home seller plaintiff in California filed an antitrust lawsuit on Friday in U.S. The lawsuit was filed by Christina Grace, who sold a house listed on Bay Area Real Estate Information Services MLS (BAREIS MLS) in April 2020 and paid a commission to the buyer’s agent. “In

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Realtors Sellers Buyers Real Estate 433

Housing Wire

MAY 1, 2024

Less than a week after HomeServices of America settled the home seller commission lawsuits for $250 million , the firm again finds itself in the crosshairs of antitrust litigation. Lutz’s attorneys wrote that this has “led to higher home prices paid by buyers.” “

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Sellers Realtors Real Estate Agent Real Estate 395

Housing Wire

JANUARY 18, 2024

The suit, known as Fierro, after its lead plaintiff Gael Fierro, a Californian home seller, accuses the real estate industry of colluding to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions. Patrick Thurber, a California home seller, is an additional named plaintiff in the suit. It was filed on Wednesday in U.S.

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Realtors Brokerage Realty Real Estate 504

Appraiserblogs

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

Could it be because of the racial bias complaint filed against me by an unhappy Seller… Fannie Mae accomplished what they set out to do in July 2011, when they initiated their Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) and the Uniform Collateral Data Portal. So what’s caused the sudden loss of income? Related Posts: Low Appraised Value = Racial Bias?

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Sellers Valuation Law Contracts 128

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 31, 2023

One option is that NAR and the MLSs can no longer require cooperative compensation, but listing agents and their sellers can still offer the buyer broker compensation if they so choose. It is a situation where buyers need to pay their own agents and sellers have to pay their agent separately?”

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 16, 2024

The first was a motion for judgement as a matter of law and the second was a motion for a new trial. They also testified to the importance and value of the MLS as a core service that agents provide to sellers and buyers. These actions by the three firms are all a matter of public record. This court ignored all those precedents.

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Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed a claim made by the plaintiffs under a federal antitrust law. But Wood, who is also overseeing the Moehrl commission lawsuit , preserved nearly all of the plaintiffs’ claims under state antitrust laws (with exceptions in Tennessee and Kansas).

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Housing Wire

MARCH 29, 2024

In its proposed brief, CMLS writes that in its statement of interest, the DOJ is looking for “an injunction that prohibits offers of buyer broker compensation by MLS PIN participants.” Second, the trade group points out that the practice of sellers and listing brokers paying buyer brokers is lawful throughout MLS PIN’s service area.

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Sellers Real Estate Buyers Contracts 415

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

31, 2023, the Gibson lawsuit pits three Missouri home sellers, Don Gibson, Lauren Criss and John Meiners, against National Association of Realtors , Compass , eXp World Holdings , Redfin , Weichert Realtors , United Real Estate , Howard Hanna and Douglas Elliman. Its agents also offer buyer broker compensation.

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Real Estate Sellers Realtors Real Estate Agent 406

Housing Wire

JANUARY 26, 2024

Lamacchia also stressed that it is impossible to claim that the system is rigged because sellers can choose how much compensation they offer the buyers’ broker, or whether they even want to offer cooperative compensation. Home sellers can do as they please, and if they don’t want to hire a Realtor, they don’t have to.

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Realtors Law Agents Real Estate 418

Housing Wire

MAY 8, 2024

After 2010, qualified mortgage laws were in place, meaning everyone getting a mortgage has to be able to repay the loan. Since most sellers are buyers, inventory should be stable if demand is stable. On top of more legitimate buyers, we fixed the credit markets, meaning housing credit looks fantastic.

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Inventory Law New Listings Sellers 468

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Current legislative proposals would require states to “mandate a real estate-related disclosure form with specific flood-related questions,” which would require 49 states to “make significant amendments to its laws and regulations” leading to an administrative and enforcement burden, NAR said.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 15, 2024

While many in the real estate industry were surprised by the news Friday morning that the National Association of Realtors had agreed to a nationwide settlement of the commission lawsuits for $418 million, Marty Green, a principal at law firm Polunsky Beitel Green , was not one of them. There is an agreement but what about approval?

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Agents Brokerage Advertising Real Estate 434

Sacramento Appraisal Blog

MARCH 20, 2024

It’s important to cultivate objectivity and keep some things in mind about buyers, sellers, and concessions. Everyone is talking about the National Association of Realtors (NAR) lawsuit settlement, and I have a few thoughts too.

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Realtors Sellers Buyers Appraisal 344

Appraiserblogs

OCTOBER 7, 2021

Newsom This law requires a purchase agreement in a real estate transaction to inform a seller and buyer of the opportunity to report, through the Department of Consumer Affairs’ internet website or telephone number, any suspicion of a discriminatory appraisal by the holder of a real estate appraiser license.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

The jury reached an outcome that was neither supported by the law nor the facts that were presented in this case,” Kasper said in a video posted Thrusday. According to Kasper, while the plaintiffs are portraying this outcome as a win for consumers, getting rid of cooperative compensation will only harm homebuyers and sellers.

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Agents Legal Sellers Clients 408

Inman

MAY 10, 2023

LGBTQ+ real estate professionals explain the impact of more than 320 anti-LGBTQ laws on LGBTQ homeownership and housing rights, in the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance's third annual survey.

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Sellers Buyers Law Real Estate 100

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 3, 2023

This is a dramatic and peculiar stance, given that same company a couple of years ago launched a $1 million annual advertising campaign touting a 1% listing fee, but only if the seller turned into a buyer for them. Meaning, they were counting on buyer agent compensation to pay their bills. How, then, will a buyer agent get paid?

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Appraisal Buzz

MARCH 25, 2024

The transaction is a complex interplay between buyer and seller. While it’s true that we must consider the empirical evidence, like chemists in a lab, we are not able to rely on natural laws, neatly organizing the component parts on the periodic table. Of course, this applies to the work of real estate appraisal as well.

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Sellers Appraisal Real Estate Buyers 379

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 17, 2023

The highly anticipated trial of the Sitzer/Burnett buyer broker compensation class action lawsuit kicked off in earnest on Tuesday morning, with opening arguments taking place in the Kansas City courtroom belonging to U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Bough.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Keller Williams was denied its motion for judgment as a matter of law, which it had filed earlier Wednesday. HomeServices’ motion for judgment as a matter of law was also denied. He testified that, in most cases, homebuyers would be unable to include buyer agent commission costs into their financing. The D.A.N.G.E.R.

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Buyers Sellers Agents Law 374