Why the NAR lawsuit will not lower commissions and may actually increase them

[Henry Lazerow]

This mainly boils down to the fact that if co-op is not listed on MLS then all buyers agents will have buyers sign an agency agreement prior to showing properties. These agency agreements say if seller pays less then 2.5% then buyer is liable for the difference, I have never seen one say 2.0%. In real life on MLS many listings currently show 2.0% co-op. This ruling will basically bring those 2.0% listings up to 2.5% co-op the difference will be paid by lender/seller credits, etc.. This increases net commissions.

But what if market decides not to offer co-op? The market already always could list at $1 co-op but very few actually did that, sellers also could always list with flat fee $500 MLS agents but most know the value of good agents and rarely did that. So from this point of view really nothing changes. $1 vs $0 is practically the same thing for real life purposes.

One of my main flipper clients *sold 8 million for him roughly $200,000 of commissions is actually a licensed agent, selling a property is about much more then cutting costs and its actually rare to see people go for the cheaper options out there. There have always been cheaper options for buying/selling using rebate agents or flat fee services but they never took off as a good full time agent paid well enough to be highly focused on your deals has value. 80/20 rule. 

I loaded up on Zillow and Compass stock yesterday. Will flip them off in a year or two when the market realizes this ruling has no negative changes. Putting my money where my mouth is!

[Russell Brazil]

I gave an interview to Axios last month where I walked them through how this would actually increase commissions.

I'm also purchasing Compass stock, as I believe they will be the big winner financially from the fallout of this.