BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The National Association of Realtors says $418 million will be paid out as part of a settlement to help compensate home sellers across the U.S.
Some have claimed the settlement could lower home prices and change the way we buy and sell homes, but others, like Vermont realtor Jolene Greene, say the claim is misleading and not much is going to change at all.
“That’s clearly not true, there’s always been the ability to negotiate commissions,” said Greene.
It all has to do with how much commission is charged by real estate agents. The NAR agreed to do away with policies that helped set agent commissions to resolve lawsuits claiming the rules forced people to pay inflated costs to sell their homes.
The lawsuit would make it so agents could not require a 6% commission. “That was very wrong. I can’t think of the last time I sold a house for 6% commission,” said Greene.
That’s because Vermont already didn’t have that requirement, so what Vermonters could see is a change in transparency so buyers wouldn’t know upfront how much they would have to pay the agent. They could instead negotiate that price.
Greene says there are multiple factors contributing to how much a seller has to pay their agent, like marketing, how expensive the house is, and how long it’ll take to sell.
“That’s always been negotiable. If I say, ‘alright, I’m not going to work for less than that, you can go to the agent down the street.’ It’s always been like that, it’s still like that,” said Greene.
Headlines started popping up about the end of 6% commission when home buying, but local real-estate experts say they don’t see this being a game-changer.
Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation loan officer Brian Vaughan says this could instead negatively affect those who already might not have a ton of money to buy a home.
“We have clients who struggle to get to the level they need to get at in order to buy a home, so now if they need to add in the fact that they’re supposed to pay the real estate agent directly, then that could just further compound the difficulty that they have,” said Vaughan.
As of right now, Vaughan says it’s hard to know for sure what effect this could have if finalized, but he doesn’t expect a dramatic change.
“The real estate agents that I know in this state are really just good people who are trying to help their clients buy homes,” said Vaughan.
This is just a proposed settlement, with nothing finalized yet. People should expect to know the exact details and outcome in July.