A “For Sale” sign is posted in front of a single-family home on Oct. 27, 2022, in Hollywood, Florida. and major brokers last year lost a federal antitrust suit, the verdict unleashed new scrutiny of the industry and its practices. With new commission rules set to go into effect in August as a result of the settlement, critics — even some inside the industry — are growing louder, saying the National Association of Realtors is a “cartel.
Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, points to those modest requirements as evidence that healthy competition is alive and well. “Real estate is a perfectly competitive industry,” Yun said at a convention at the end of last year. “They ceased using price schedules after being sued successfully by the Department of Justice in the 1940s,” Brobeck says. “But they’ve been able to successfully maintain 5% to 6% commissions, mainly through widespread informal collusion in a cooperative industry where most agents and brokers are desperate for clients, so are strongly supportive of high commission levels.
“We were the first ones to go to the VA and say, ‘Look, these changes are coming around,’ ” Blanco says.. And Blanco raises an intriguing point: Can NAR be unfriendly to consumers if its goals often are aligned with tens of millions of American homeowners? The answer, apparently: It’s complicated.The debate about NAR’s structure comes against the backdrop of a high-profile challenge to the way Realtors do business. In March, NAR settled a brought by home sellers in Missouri.