One year after a settlement, sellers and buyers alike say that some agents are using loopholes to resist change.
Kirk Downing knows the ins and outs of selling a home: His is a military family, and he, his wife and their two young sons have moved five times in the past 12 years.
So when The New York Times published the story of Mike Chambers, a homeowner in Colorado who tried to sell his house in February without a Realtor, only to learn that local agents were organizing to keep buyers away, it hit close to home.
Mr. Downing was among hundreds of readers who wrote in the comments section or sent personal notes after that article was published, all sharing experiences of feeling forced to pay high real estate commissions. They shouldn’t have had to — a landmark legal settlement involving the National Association of Realtors last year was meant to upend the long-held system of how real estate agents are paid, and by whom. The lawsuit rocked the industry and prompted economists to predict that the settlement would loosen the housing market, foster competition and eventually do away with the long-held standard of 5 to 6 percent as the de facto commission rate paid by sellers.
But one year on, average commissions have dipped by a small amount, with one study showing a reduction, on average, from 5.64 percent to 4.96 percent in the months following the settlement. Other studies show they haven’t budged at all.
Sellers and buyers alike say that some agents are using loopholes to resist real change.
Mr. Downing’s wife, Michelle, is a recruiting officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. She recently received orders to relocate to Savannah, Ga., just two years after the couple bought a new home in Columbus, Ohio, for $425,000. They know they’ll probably lose money on a sale — home prices in Ohio have fallen by an average of $100,000 over those two years, according to Realtor.com, and the couple recently spent $30,000 on improvements, thinking they’d be in Ohio for several more years.
