Key Details:
- The Consumer Policy Center’s 2025 report, The Homebuyer Experience: Contracts and Commissions, surveyed 281 buyer agents in 26 metro areas and found that 95% still quote rates between 2.5% and 3%.
- Two-thirds said they’d accept a lower commission from sellers than buyers, and nearly one-third would drop at least one percentage point.
- The report calls for separating buyer and seller compensation and allowing mortgage financing of agent fees.
According to the latest report from the Consumer Policy Center, The Homebuyer Experience: Contracts and Commissions, buyer agents are more likely to lower their commission for a seller who pushes back than for the buyers they represent.
Through the CPC lens, this is a red flag. But let’s take a closer look.
Between July and September of 2025, the CPC conducted “mystery shopper” interviews with 281 active buyer agents in 26 metro areas. During these phone interviews, the callers posed as cash buyers planning to move in two months and purchase homes “somewhat above” the area’s median price. Each metro sample included agents from the most active brokerages and at least one from a different company.
Based on those interviews, CPC’s data points to a difference in how buyer agents handle commission negotiations with their buyer clients compared to sellers who request lower rates.
This is despite more than a year of pressure following the landmark commission settlements.
To recap, those settlements were meant to create more transparency and negotiation power for home buyers. Instead, the CPC report alleges the industry has largely found ways to sidestep change.
Byron Lazine and Nicole White broke down the report on this week’s episode of The Real Word.
Read on for the highlights and for Byron’s and Nicole’s perspectives on the report’s findings.
Agents Push Back Hard on Buyer Negotiations
According to the report, most buyer agents resist any effort by buyers to negotiate commissions.
Buyers who attempt to do so are often told it’s unnecessary because “sellers pay the buyer commission.” While that may be the case, it’s not a guarantee and shouldn’t be presented as such.
Others point to a “standard” or “usual” rate for their market. Or worse, they argue that if sellers don’t offer compensation, it could discourage buyer agents from showing the property.
Yet, when it comes to sellers, the data tells a different story.
- Two-thirds of agents said they’d be willing to accept a lower commission from sellers than what they requested in the offer.
- Nearly one-third of that group would even accept at least one percentage point less.
Stephen Brobeck, senior fellow at the Consumer Policy Center, states this is why there hasn’t been a significant decline in agent commission since the NAR settlement:
“Our research reveals an important reason that commission rates have not declined since the settlement of class action litigation forced changes in realtor practices over a year ago. The settlement provided home buyers with new opportunities to negotiate commissions, but the industry has figured out how to minimize these opportunities.”
Rates Remain Near-Uniform Across Markets
Despite all the public scrutiny, rates haven’t budged much. According to the CPC data:
- 95% of agents quoted rates between 2.5% and 3%.
- The few quoting below that range were primarily in the Boston area.
- Only one agent quoted above 3%.
The CPC compared this year’s findings to a 2022 study across 20 of the same cities. In that time, the share of agents quoting a 3% commission rose from 40% to 64%.
Based on that finding, the report speculates some agents are treating the higher rate as a “risk premium” to offset potential losses when sellers demand lower payouts.
Across metro areas, quoted rates remain “strikingly consistent.”
As CPC fellow Wendy Gilch explained:
“This homogeneity largely reflects the influence of informal industry standards that are supported and enforced by most agents and brokers. Unlike prices for other consumer services, real estate commissions do not vary with the competence, reputation, and efforts of individual agents.”
Buyer Contracts Add Another Layer of Complexity
Beyond commissions, the report sheds light on how buyer-agent contracts are being used post-settlement.
When it comes to buyer-broker agreements, now required under NAR’s settlement, the study found uneven compliance.
A number of agents told the mystery shoppers that no contract was necessary before showings. Nearly half said they’d offer short-term agreements or allow buyers to terminate without penalty, and many included clauses that allowed brokers to reassign clients to other agents.
Byron and Nicole reviewed a litany of agent statements from the report, many of which pointed to either inadequate training or a complete lack thereof.
Byron called out a few in particular with a line that immediately set the tone:
“The training in this industry has gotten so bad that several agents actually said this over the phone interview to a buyer. Now, if you’re training on this every single day, you would never say this…
“If you’re not training on the things you’re saying to customers each and every day and staying sharp, you’re getting rusty… And there’s too few managers that are actually doing the training level required for agents.
“Several agents actually said, on these phone interviews, that they were charging the ‘standard’ or ‘usual’ rate in their area. And the report goes on to say, ‘evidence of price-fixing.’ That is! When you use that word, the definition of it, you’re in it. You’re in the crap when you use that word. And there is no standard. There is no usual. You create what your offering is and have a compensation (or compensation levels) that you’re willing to do the work for.”
Policy Implications and Next Steps
The CPC’s policy recommendations cut to the heart of the issue. The report calls for a full separation of buyer and seller compensation, meaning each side would pay its own agent.
Pretty sure most buyers right now would be less than thrilled to hear that. But neither do they need buyer agents saying things like “none of my buyers has ever paid a buyer agent commission.”
According to the report, 27 agents said this. And 17 went even further with “the buyer won’t ever pay.”
The CPC report also recommends that federal agencies allow buyers to include agent compensation in their mortgages, which could be helpful as an option for buyers who pay their own agent’s commission.
That said, even the report’s authors admit this kind of structural change won’t happen overnight. They note the “most viable path” would be for federal agencies and lenders to make it easier for buyers to roll their agent’s fee into their financing package, a move that could normalize transparency over time rather than forcing it abruptly.
According to Brobeck, that change could “finally” open the door to genuine price competition among agents, giving buyers the ability to negotiate more effectively.
As Brobeck warned:
“The continuation of near-uniform commission rates, prima facia evidence of price-fixing, is an easy, tempting target for critics. There will be continuing public criticism and eventually, there will be more class action litigation.”
Practical Advice for Buyers and Sellers
Wendy Gilch summarized her takeaway with blunt advice for home buyers:
“Buyers should negotiate their agent’s commission upfront and ignore the ‘99% of sellers will pay it’ sales pitch as commissions are negotiable at multiple points. The more you negotiate, the more opportunities you create for savings.”
She added a warning for sellers as well:
“Watch for uniformity in buyer agent commission requests; it’s often a red flag for unchallenged risk premiums.”
That “uniformity” is often a result of unskilled agents using the word “standard” or “usual” to justify the rate they’re quoting. And that needs to stop.
We’ll leave you with Byron’s final comments from The Real Word:
“I guess I’m not shocked because I know that there are a number of brokerages, unfortunately, that just don’t train every day… You’ve got to know how to position this. You’ve got to have a framework.
“This creates opportunity for people to create better offers. You should be working on your offer all the time, tweaking your offer. Your offer is your service to customers, right? This is a service industry.
“So, I’m not surprised. I’m definitely disappointed in some of those quotes [from agents]. When they (CPC) use words like ‘several,’ it tells me there’s probably more agents than not that are on the right side of this. But there you go. The punchline here is reports like this open up the door for more litigation in our industry (we’re seeing a ton of it), not less. And they actually said that in this report.”
Watch the full episode for more.
