Ralph Harvey, Jason Saphire and Ben Caballero are three of the most prolific agents in America. They collectively sold over 10,000 homes last year alone, and you won’t ever find them on the buy-side of a transaction. But these listing-only agents are still having to adjust their practices to conform with the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement that goes into effect on Saturday.
“We are changing our approach with a lot of things, and we are doing that with the collateral we put out, there is a video series we put out, and there are obviously conversation we are having with sellers on what it is they need to do, how it needs to be done and what their options are for doing it,” Harvey said.
In 2023, Harvey, who is brokered by ListWithFreedom.com, recorded 2,692 transaction sides for a total of $826.462 million in sales volume, according to 2024 RealTrends Verified data.
Harvey typically charges sellers a few hundred dollars to list their property on the MLS and will charge a 0.25% commission when the home successfully sells. He sees his role in the transaction as simply ensuring the seller stays in compliance with laws and regulations. If a client wants additional services such as professional photography, he connects them with vendors who charge the seller for those services directly.
Saphire, who like Harvey only lists properties on the MLS, but also offers additional al a carte services such as contract review, transaction coordination and negotiation coaching for additional fees, has also adjusted how he is educating sellers on offering commissions to buy-side agents.
Like many of these limited listing services agents, Saphire, who is brokered by HomeZu, operates in multiple states and markets, making it complicated as different MLSs are handling the removal of offers of buyer agent compensation differently.
“Depending on who I’m talking to, I have to explain if the commission has already been dropped from the MLS, or when it will or if it isn’t in the case of MLS PIN here in Massachusetts,” Saphire said. “But generally, what I am telling them now is that the buyer is responsible for the buyer’s agency fee, so even if you are going to pay a commission, technically you are just contributing to the buyer so they can satisfy their obligation to their buyer’s agent.”
Saphire said that he is recommending sellers factor that into their list price and noting that the vast majority of buyers will ask them to help with their buyer’s agent fees, as they won’t be able to afford it out of pocket.
“It is up to the sellers if they want to offer a commission or not,” Saphire said. “At this point I don’t even want to touch it and I’d be thrilled if I didn’t have to even talk about it. I just want to be out of the commission game.”
While Saphire can’t completely step away from discussions of buyer broker commissions, especially since he operates in MLS PIN, which did not opt into NAR’s settlement and is still allowing offers of cooperative compensation on its site, he is doing his best to make sure his sellers are fully in the driver’s seat when it comes to commissions.
If agents reach out to him about the potential for seller concessions or buyer broker compensation on a property, Saphire is planning on telling them that it is up to the seller to convey their willingness to pay a commission and that HomeZu will not participate in any commission negotiations. So far, he says he has not been inundated by calls asking about commissions, which he considers a good sign.
Harvey is embracing a different strategy and publishing any offers of buyer broker compensation sellers are willing to offer on his firm’s website, a permitted carve-out under the settlement terms.
“Our solution is that we are putting all of our listings on our website with the commission information, which we previously didn’t have on the website,” Harvey said.
Harvey said he is also noting that the commission offers are subject to change, in case the seller decides to go a different route.
Like Saphire, Harvey would like to see an end to discussions of buyer broker commissions. Ideally, Harvey said, buyers would simply ask for seller concessions if they wish to use the money to pay for their own agent’s services.
“There should really be no talk of commissions,” Harvey said. “I think that is the best practice that agents can have and I’m hoping that is the way the industry moves, and that seems like where quite a few players are going.”
For Cabellero, who works solely with production home builders and closed 7,012 transaction sides in 2023, according to RealTrends data, he decided the best way to communicate offers of buyer broker commissions was through an automated system.
“Builders can put that information on their website if they want or, since we know what the commission they are offering is, we have set up a process where agents can call us directly and we can tell them what the commission is, which is something we are doing in addition to what we have done before,” Cabellero, who is brokered by HomesUSA.com, Inc., said.
As of early August, he had over 3,200 listings and he “couldn’t even begin to help all the agents who might potentially call,” which led to the decision to create an automated system to handle inquiries from agents.
Cabellero isn’t the only one relying on automation to help him navigate some of the chaos that is expected to ensue. Harvey’s firm, which he refers to as a “technology company at its core,” has built out a system to help him and his staff navigate the various regulations in the 48 states and roughly 400 MLSs he operates in.
“If you come to our system, you put in the address of the property you want to list then our system will know what area you are located in and what local documents and forms are required and prompt you to fill those out,” Harvey said.
Saphire, who operates in Texas, Florida, Virginia and the New England region, has not built out any automations, but he has spreadsheets to track when MLSs are changing rules, what those rules are, and which forms he may need to use.
Although the agents said they are getting used to the fairly used to the confusion, the patchworked rollout of these business practice changes nationwide has not made for the smoothest of transitions. But ultimately, they believe these changes will be for the best, especially for their limited services business models.
“I do think more people are going to find us. Consumers have always had options, but I think now consumers are going to be more aware of their options and that is a food thing for all of us,” Harvey said. “I think that it would be responsible for us as a profession and individual professionals to understand those options to that we can best inform consumers about who we are, how we differ and guide them on what is the best for them. I spoke with a consumer a week ago and they were really happy with our customer service, but they wanted to cancel their contract with us because they decided they were not up for taking on so much of the responsibility for the transaction and that is OK.”
