As of August 17th, home sellers are not required to pay the buyer-agent’s commission. Listing agents are forbidden from mentioning any compensation being offered to the buyer-agents in the active listings, but the CRMLS requires that the amount that was paid is posted in the listing at closing.
CRMLS runs the MLS for north county. Agents can also belong to the San Diego Association of Realtors which does not require posting of the buyer-agent commission paid.
I’m adjusting the timing to show these reports on a monthly basis so today’s data is for the 201 sales between October 16th and November 30th. There were 83 of the 201 who posted the commission paid to the buyer-agents by the seller. We can’t assume that the other 118 sellers (201-83) didn’t pay a commission because reporting isn’t required.
I haven’t heard of any buyers yet who got stuck having to pay their buyer-agent because the seller refused to pay. Undoubtably, there are buyer-agents who were paid a partial fee by the seller and then the buyer made up the difference – that’s the intent of the buyer-broker agreement being required now.
These are the reported commissions paid to the buyer-agents between La Jolla and Carlsbad:
Erosion is underway. It’s because some agents are weak and desperate, as I mentioned in April, and the buzz in the realtor community is that agents are quiting en masse. I’ll be nice and call it ‘retiring’. So those buyers who want an agent who charges less can certainly find them – and they will get the quality of service that they deserve.
But virtually all of the sellers are paying some commission to the buyer-agent, and about half are paying more than 2%.
This isn’t the world we wanted. This isn’t the world we asked for. This is what 12 jurors in Missouri thought you deserved (as did the attorneys who charged $100,000,000+ for prep work and a week in court).
