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Comment by ryan_lane | Hacker News Reader

There is no legal maximum for the percentage real estate agents can take, in the US. Rates are also not fixed, by law, and are required to be negotiable. There's a general standard for rates (typically 5-6%, split between agents/brokers), but there's nothing stopping them from setting it to 99%, other than the fact that people won't pay it.

Source: was a licensed real estate agent for a long time.

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I might be misremembering, as I worked on the loan side, but wasn't the 6% standard set by the state's realtor association until 2024?

No. "Realtor" is a trademarked term for a member of the National Association of Realtors. Real estate agents are licensed by state governments, but prices for real estate agents are not legislated by state governments.

If this is the 2024 settlement that you are referring to, it did not say anything about the price a Realtor can charge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnett_v._National_Associatio...

>The cooperative compensation rule has been eliminated as a result of the settlement. Seller's agents are no longer required to offer compensation to buyer's agents when listing a home for sale on a Realtor-owned multiple listing service. In addition, Realtors acting as buyer's agents must enter into contracts with buyers before touring any homes, allowing buyers to negotiate how much they will pay their buyer's agent.

I'm aware that prices for agents are not legislated by state governments, but prior to 2024, as a realtor that was a member of your state's association, you were standardized at a 6% rate. Because that's what your association standardized. That's partially what the suit was about. What percentage of real estate transactions are done with agents who aren't members of XAR?

Federally, it is illegal to set a rate with clients. By law, rates must be negotiable. There's no regulation around sharing commissions between real estate agents, so maybe this is where you're getting confused?

This is why I keep using standard instead of law. Rates have always been negotiable by law but in practice they weren't. Oh well, not in this industry any longer so I'll just stay ignorant on this topic.

Higher sale price homes rarely use standard rates. Funny enough, you can pretty easily see this even on shows like selling sunset, when they show you the sales price and the potential commission. There's also points in the show where they explicitly discuss rates and points at which they negotiate it.

It's also super common to negotiate a rate with an agent if you're buying a new house and selling your old one, by offering to let them be agent for both.

Right but higher sale price homes aren't the ones that happen most frequently, which is why we have television shows around them. Completely agree with your last point, 1031 exchanges discounted even higher.

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