One case brought in 2019 in federal court in Missouri by a couple of home sellers ended Tuesday with a federal jury ordering the National Association of Realtors and some of the nation’s biggest real estate brokerages to pay almost $1.8 billion in damages after finding they artificially inflated commissions paid to real estate agents.
The focus of the lawsuits is an NAR rule that requires that home sellers pay not only a commission on the sale of their home to their listing agent, but also cover the commission for the agent representing the homebuyer as a condition of being able to put their property on the Multiple Listings Service, where a majority of U.S. homes are listed for sale.
If NAR’s “Mandatory Offer of Compensation Rule” were not in place, then homebuyers would foot the bill for their agent’s commission, which would open the door for competition — and lower commissions — among agents vying to represent a homebuyer, the plaintiffs contend.