Massachusetts’ biggest MLS joined the rest of the nation Sept. 2 in barring commission offers on its listings. iStock illustration
Nearly a year after the biggest national commission settlement was approved, buyer agent commissions haven’t budged much. For real estate leaders in Massachusetts, that’s just fine.
That settlement and a related one involving the state’s biggest multiple listings service, MLS PIN, bar sellers from offering compensation in listings. MLS PIN’s compensation policy changes went into effect Sept. 2 as the fall home-selling season opened.
With commission data no longer publicly available on multiple listings services, it’s impossible to know precisely what agents are being paid in Massachusetts. But three pieces of research from the last three months offer clues.
On a national scale, the average U.S. buyer’s agent commission was 2.43 percent for homes sold in the second quarter, up from 2.38 percent in 2024 according to an August Redfin analysis of commission data in deals involving its agents or its in-house mortgage lender. It was the third consecutive quarter that commissions trended upwards after the new National Association of Realtors (NAR) commissions rules went into effect in August 2024.
A national survey, published by RISMedia in September, found that the Northeast saw a smaller initial impact from commission policy changes. Buyers agent commissions in the Northeast were only down by 0.02 percent from before the settlement.
And a mystery shopper-based study by the Consumer Policy Center released earlier this month found the typical rates for U.S. real estate agents is between 2.5 percent and 3 percent. The Consumer Policy Center study 281 buyer agents. Most agents quoting rates below this level were from the Boston area, according to the CPC.
At least one major brokerage contacted for this story, Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty, also said its agents’ commission rates have not declined since the settlement.
With home prices in Massachusetts being among the most expensive in the nation, commission rates don’t necessarily have to be as high as in other locales for an agent to earn the same take-home pay, said Theresa Hatton, CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
“Commissions have always been market rate,” she said. “In New England, we don’t have an extensive amount of land that’s not been built up, or that has infrastructure and is able to be built up so our prices are higher and commission rates could be lower, because you could still make a living earning percentage less than, let’s say, if you were selling in Oklahoma. Markets are just different.”
Buyers Sticking with Representation
Agents have adapted well to the new rules, said Colleen Barry, Gibson Sotheby’s CEO.
“There was a lot of fear in the early days, and that’s not uncommon when any kind of change occurs,” she said. “But ultimately, since we had known that this was coming for a while, we had already been prepared to address the change, to get out ahead of it, and to educate all of our agents so that they could easily work with and educate the consumers they were working with. For us, it was more of we had already anticipated it, so it was no big shock.”
Some feared buyers would simply opt to not have independent representation when looking for a home. According to a study from Jefferson Duarte and David Zhang of Rice University’s Jesse H Jones Graduate School of Business, the change hasn’t been drastic. There was only a 1.7 percent increase in unrepresented buyers nationwide since the commission settlement went into effect in November 2024.
While commission rates didn’t drop as federal antitrust lawyers and consumer advocates had hoped, Mark Triglione, the 2025 president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors, argues the changes have been positive for consumers a year after the settlement.
Brokers say higher-end buyer’s agents now have a better chance to prove their worth to clients instead of relying on whatever commission split the seller was willing to offer. iStock illustration
“Buyers agents were always negotiable, but to be honest, a lot of buyers didn’t know that,” he said. “So, I think that this has opened the eyes to all buyers that they know that the commission is negotiable and that’s good.”
The biggest change has been that the conversation regarding commissions happens at the beginning of the buying process, Barry said.
“So now, when someone is meeting a potential client, for the first time, they’re talking to a customer,” she said. “They’re having a conversation about compensation up front and I think that’s a real positive. The reality is, everybody that I’ve ever hired to do work on my home, I want to know up front what I’m paying before they start the work and I think that’s really just what has happened to the industry.”
Sam Lattof
For Agents, ‘More Paperwork’
But for buyer agents, the impacts have been minimal and tend to amount to increased paperwork in the form of certifications clients must sign that they understand the new rules.
“If they are a good, professional agent, it makes no difference,” Hatton said of the changes regarding negotiating rates. “It just is more paperwork. So, they used to see what their commission was in the MLS and then it could still be negotiated after that. Now they’re just doing it one-on-one, up front with their clients on each transaction.”
Real estate leaders interviewed for this story argued the changes would actually help buyer agents display their value and negotiate commission rates, rather than be dependent on the seller agent’s offer.
“In the past, they were typically being held to whatever commission the seller agent was offering out,” Barry said. “So, if you’re in a marketplace and there was an agent who decided they weren’t going to offer out a lot of things, or for some reason, maybe through negotiation with their seller, they weren’t able to get what maybe a company like ours would get, then we were kind of held to that within reason.”
Buyer agents who are aiming to provide more of a white-glove or luxury service model can charge more in commission rates, she said.
