For Awareness - Moehrl v National Assoc of Realtors

[Ryan Wamsat]

I ran across this article, which may be of interest to many here: Class-action lawsuit takes aim at real estate commissions

The article contains a link to a PDF of the complaint, which is Moehrl v National Assoc of Realtors.  

This section seems to be at the heart of the matter:

"This method of setting the buyer broker commission is wholly different from the method that would exist absent the Buyer Broker Commission Rule. Absent this rule, buyer brokers would be paid by their clients and would compete to be retained by offering a lower commission.The Buyer Broker Commission Rule ensures that price competition among buyer brokers is restrained because the person retaining the buyer broker, the buyer, does not negotiate or pay his or her broker’s commission. In addition,the seller’s inflated commission offer cannot be reduced by buyers or their brokers, as Defendants also prohibit buyer brokers from making home purchase offers contingent on the reduction of the buyer broker commission.Real estate brokers handle most residential real estate sales in the United States.In a typical transaction, separate brokers will represent the seller and the buyer of a home.Both the buyer broker and seller broker(also known as the listing broker)are paid a percentage of the property’s sales price.Currently, total broker compensation in the United States is typically five to six percent of the home sales price, with approximately half of that amount—and increasingly more than half—paid to the buyer broker."