Issue #10 | September 10, 2026

I was sitting at his dining room table when he said it.

"Why the hell would I pay for the buyer's agent to negotiate against me?"

I felt my face go a little red. Not at him, at the question. Because it's a fair one. I've been asked about commission before, but ever since the 2024 lawsuit, there's a lot of misinformation floating around, and a lot of people are just plain angry, convinced somebody's getting a free ride they didn't earn. So I took a breath, and told him it was going to take a few minutes to explain properly.

When Both Agents Worked for the Seller

Thirty plus years ago, a seller hired a listing broker for around 6%, and part of that was offered to whoever brought the buyer. Here's the part most buyers never knew, that second agent usually still legally represented the seller, not the buyer. The buyer just assumed otherwise.

A Federal Trade Commission study back in 1983 found that most buyers believed the agent driving them around town was working for them. Legally, in most cases, that wasn't true.

Texas addressed much of that confusion in 1995 with Senate Bill 489 and more clearly spelled out who actually represented whom. Buyer representation became real. But here's the thing nobody flagged at the time, who the agent represented changed, who paid for it didn't. The seller kept funding both sides, even after the buyer's side stopped representing the seller.

That arrangement held for almost thirty years. Then it went to court.

The $1.8 Billion Question

In 2023, a Missouri jury sided with a group of home sellers in a case called Sitzer/Burnett, and awarded $1.78 billion in damages against the National Association of Realtors and several large brokerages. Because it was an antitrust case, that number could have tripled past $5 billion. NAR settled for $418 million instead, and a set of new rules took effect in August 2024.

My own read: the case never argued that a commission wasn't earned. It attacked how it was posted and agreed to, a much narrower target than most headlines suggested.

Here's what actually changed. Buyers now sign a written agreement before touring a home, and the commission offer disappeared from the MLS. Here's what didn't. Sellers can still pay it.

The Buyer Pool

Here's the part I actually walked my client through, because it's the part that matters to him as a seller.

The Buyer-Pool Principle

Every dollar a buyer has to bring to closing shrinks either the number of buyers who can afford your home, or the price the ones left can pay for it.

That's the seller's real question. Not "why do I have to pay this," but "which arrangement puts the most qualified buyers in a position to pay me the most money." Sometimes the answer runs through a check you didn't expect to write.

Here's what that looks like on the ground. Picture two buyers looking at the same $500,000 house. One has $150,000 in the bank. A $15,000 commission out of pocket stings, but he shrugs it off and hires whoever he wants.

The other buyer has worked for years to save $45,000, his entire down payment, closing costs, and moving budget. Tell him to find another $15,000 for his own agent, and something has to give. A smaller loan. A lower offer. A cheaper house. Or he skips representation entirely and negotiates a $500,000 contract by himself, against a seller who has a professional in his corner.

Notice who that actually hurts. The wealthier buyer barely notices, and can afford the best help money buys. The buyer who needs guidance the most is the one priced out of getting it. And the seller who thought he'd "saved" $15,000 may have just knocked his most motivated buyer out of the running.

The Takeaway

A seller wants to walk away with the most money the market will pay. That goal doesn't always point toward the smallest number of line items. Sellers already understand this instinctively when they spend $5,000 on paint or $3,000 on landscaping before listing, nobody enjoys writing those checks, but they write them because spending money is sometimes how you make more of it. Buyer-agent compensation belongs in that same column, not in the "cost to eliminate" column. Because cost elimination isn't always value creation. Before you decide whether to pay it, ask what refusing it does to your buyer pool, not just what it saves you on paper.

Intelligence Brief

One Year Later: Did Commissions Actually Change?

The rules took effect in August 2024. So, did anything happen to the money? Redfin's data says: barely. The average buyer's agent commission dropped to 2.36% the quarter the rules took effect, then crept back up, 2.37%, 2.40%, 2.43%, and by the third quarter of 2025 sat at 2.42%, almost exactly where it started.

Insider takeaway: A lawsuit changed the paperwork and the disclosure. It hasn't meaningfully changed the commission rate.