The law is catching up with the situation that robs real estate commissions. It’s time for change. – Chicago Tribune

The house is being burned by the National Association of Realtors, and so far no one from the Chicago-based organization is taking action to put out the fire.

NAR, as it is known, has dominated the home buying and selling business for decades. Today, scandals involving top officials, combined with lawsuits challenging its most cherished rules, leave it in danger of irrelevance and potentially filing for bankruptcy.

Its most recent president, Kevin Sears, correctly warned of the problems ahead. Between angry Feds and a series of class-action lawsuits, the organization’s anti-competitive policies will not survive. “The way we run our business will change,” Sears said. “This will change if we embrace it and adapt to it, or it will be forced down our throats.”

The possibility that NAR will have to open fully is increasing day by day. Real estate agents fail to take obvious steps to save themselves. A group accustomed to money and influence clearly lacks the determination to solve its self-inflicted problems at a major turning point in its history.

Instead, this group continues to defend predatory business practices that cost American consumers billions of dollars a year.

What a shame. Over the years, NAR has been a useful source of research on the housing market and an effective advocate for its members. It has been a visible participant in civic life, with offices in the heart of Chicago. And as mentioned earlier on this page, many affiliate real estate agents work hard for their clients and bring valuable expertise to the home selling process, justifying the commissions they earn.

But we hate NAR’s anticompetitive practices as much as we hate to see a local institution struggle. NAR needs to change its rules so consumers can more easily negotiate competitive fees. The NAR decree needs to fix the home sales process, which is being manipulated for the benefit of real estate agents at the expense of everyone. He needs to stop making the same arguments that fail both in the courts and in the courts of public opinion.

Consumers should be grateful to his group to hear John Baker, CEO of Related Illinois Realtors, say this. The American people have real estate agents to thank for the consumer protections available in law today, he told the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board during a recent visit. He said rules that have been attacked in courts to stifle competition exist for a reason; This reflects years of effort to balance the interests of all parties and keep the market open to those once denied equal access.

In fact, NAR rules exist primarily to ensure that real estate agents get paid. Their policies work against home buyers and sellers, who are forced to pay some of the highest commissions anywhere in the world, making homes less affordable.

The tide is turning through cases like the historic Sitzer v. Burnett case, which resulted in a federal jury awarding $1.8 billion in damages to Missouri plaintiffs last year. (Similar lawsuits against NAR are pending in Illinois and other states.)

The biggest problem in Sitzer-Burnett was the NAR rule that required sales reps to guarantee 2%-3% commissions to agents representing buyers. This rule was crucial to increasing overall fees consistent with NAR’s control over the online Multiple Listing Service.

NAR argued that there is no such thing as a mandatory, fixed or standard commission and that everyone is free to negotiate. But anyone who has bought or sold a home knows that the argument is practically pure bullshit. Traditional real estate agents don’t do living room presentations offering various commissions. Backed by NAR’s monopolistic policies, these companies are rarely open to anything other than the usual 5% listing fee.

Starting today, NAR must eliminate mandatory commissions entirely.

If a buyer decides that retaining a buyer’s agent is too costly, there should be no penalty, secret or otherwise, for working directly with the seller’s real estate agent; In this case, the real estate agent should not pocket the fee that would go to the (currently non-existent) real estate agent. buyer’s representative. Given the success of alternative brokerages that provide self-service technology, such as Redfin, many Americans can easily find properties that interest them.

The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., could issue a ruling at any time that is expected to revive the Justice Department’s antitrust case against NAR, which was shut down in the final days of the Trump administration. While class-action lawsuits have the potential to financially devastate NAR, federal trust stealers are in a position to impose sweeping changes.

NAR make changes that will save the organization and save American consumers billions of dollars in inflated commissions. Get ahead of this legal juggernaut.