Members of Southern California’s real estate industry say it’s too soon to decipher the impact of the $418 million deal unveiled on Friday, March 15. The National Association of Realtors said Friday that it agreed to a new rule banning sellers from offering compensation to buyers’ agents through a Realtor-affiliated MLS, or home-listing database.
But it was unclear if that will end the decades-old practice of requiring sellers to pay buyers’ agents. “This settlement changes rules so that competition will occur at the commission level,” Steve Berman, a lead attorney in the case, said in a statement.Carter, the regional MLS CEO, tried to explain the settlement Friday to a meeting of brokers in Arcadia.
“We are in defendant in one of the cases,” Kissinger said. “And as a defendant in a case, … that’s concerning. There is substantial risk to us. We were certain in the belief that the case did not have merit. But, you know, the court and the jury are going to do what they’re going to do.”“We support NAR for taking the steps” toward settling the cases. “If it would have been litigated further, it could have been quite detrimental to the the industry.
It’s possible sellers could list an amount for concessions in their MLS listings, instead of compensation offers, and buyers could use those concessions as they choose — perhaps paying for repairs, for closing costs or to compensate their agents, Carter said.