You may have recently read that Bright MLS, one of the largest MLSs in the US, is moving to “Zero Commission” as an option for sellers and listing agents.
I know that many will say that the ability to offer $1 has always been an option, but has it really, and is that not the crux of Moehlr, Sitzer, Nosalek, and the DOJ?
In a “Seller’s Market,” an “Informed” seller may opt out of paying a commission to someone whose job it is to negotiate against the seller, at least for the first 30 days or so of the listing.
And yes, there are other possible outcomes.
Keep in mind that most buyers were unrepresented by a fiduciary prior to 1992. Subagency (where all brokers and agent members of the MLS represented the seller) was replaced with the “Offer of Compensation” in the early 1990s, after agency disclosure laws spread from state to state, and the “Offer of Compensation” has been a “Pillar of MLS” ever since (as was Subagency prior to the 1990s.
Both are what I refer to as the “Compensation Vehicles” that brought competitors together to create something that is the envy of the real estate world, the residential real estate marketplace in the US, made possible by MLS.
What will be the next compensation vehicle, or will buyers, unwilling or/and unwilling to pay a commission, be unrepresented by a fiduciary in what is for most, the biggest purchase of their life?
