“If you’re a buyer, you probably won’t see this form,” McFall said.
Real estate agents are not the only ones paying close attention to these new forms.
Prentiss Cox, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said it remains to be seen whether buying and selling a home will become cheaper. The current commission structure is difficult to overhaul, he said, in part because of ongoing “collusion” practices that force buyers and sellers in the U.S. to pay 5 to 6 percent to sell a home, not including other fees, while the rest of the world pays about half that.
According to a new analysis of MLS data by Redfin, the typical U.S. seller paid a 2.55 percent commission to the buyer’s agent alone in mid-July, down from the 2.62 percent average in January. The study did not include commissions paid to the agent.
The average commission paid to a buyer’s agent in the U.S. is $15,377, up slightly from $15,124 in January. The dollar amount has increased slightly, although the percentage has decreased due to increased real estate prices.
Redfin said that while it’s possible that news of the NAR settlement contributed to the recent decline by making consumers more aware that they can offer a buyer’s agent any commission they want or no commission at all, commissions had already been gradually declining before the settlement. Over the past decade, the average buyer’s agent commission fell from 2.89% in 2013 to 2.66% in 2023.
