file photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, on Tuesday, a federal jury in Missouri found the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and several major brokerage firms guilty of conspiring to artificially maintain high real estate agent commissions, leading to nearly $1.8 billion in damages. The lawsuit was brought by around 260,000 home sellers in Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois, who claimed that the NAR and prominent brokerages like Keller Williams, Anywhere, Re/Max, and HomeServices of America had conspired to inflate commissions paid to real estate agents, impacting the cost of home transactions for both sellers and buyers. The verdict holds the defendants responsible for the damages, which could be tripled to over $5.3 billion under U.S. antitrust law.
I’d expect websites such as Zillow to have a big impact on commissions
When I put my house on the market, Its going online first.
I’d be willing to pay an agent a fee but not 6 percent.
It’s about time someone looked into this.
As houses have doubled in price so have the realtor commissions, which we end up paying for.
All real estate commissions in New Jersey are negotiable. That is the law. Don’t list a home (or any real estate) for sale without negotiating the commission.
I had no idea that in NJ the fee was negotiable…no one ever told me that at Coldwell Banker. Oh my gosh