What the NAR Settlement Actually Changed for Buyer-Agent Commissions in Florida
3 min read · Last updated 2026-06-05 · Reviewed by Camilo Palacio, Licensed Florida Real Estate Professional (License #3280644, REALTOR®)
The NAR settlement took effect August 17, 2024, and it ended the practice of automatically publishing a buyer's agent commission split inside an MLS listing, and it required buyers to sign a written buyer-broker agreement before touring homes with an agent. It did not ban buyer-agent commissions outright. It decoupled that offer from the MLS, so it is now negotiated directly and disclosed separately instead of baked into the listing. Cash Flow Deals does not use a traditional buyer's-agent structure at all, since its sale is arranged through licensed brokerage partner Silver Door Realty on a flat-fee basis, so this change does not affect a seller working with Cash Flow Deals the way it affects a traditional listing.
| Before August 17, 2024 | After August 17, 2024 | Selling Directly Instead |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer-agent commission was published inside the MLS listing | Buyer-agent commission is negotiated outside the MLS and disclosed separately | No buyer-agent commission to negotiate |
| Buyers could tour homes without a signed agreement | Buyers sign a written buyer-broker agreement before touring | No buyer touring or agent negotiation phase |
| Listing and buyer-agent commissions were bundled together | The two commissions are disclosed and negotiated as separate items | One flat fee arranged through Silver Door Realty |
What the NAR Settlement Actually Did
The NAR settlement grew out of the Sitzer/Burnett class-action lawsuit and took effect August 17, 2024. Before that date, a seller's listing agreement typically included a commission offer to whichever agent brought the buyer, and that offer was published directly inside the MLS listing itself, visible to every agent searching the database.
After the settlement, that automatic publication stopped. A buyer's agent commission is no longer displayed inside the MLS listing. Instead it gets negotiated and disclosed as its own separate item, outside that system. The settlement also introduced a new requirement on the buyer side: a buyer now has to sign a written buyer-broker agreement with an agent before that agent can tour homes with them, spelling out how that agent gets paid.
This was a real, industry-wide change, not a rumor or a minor policy tweak. It affects how every MLS-based sale in the country handles buyer-agent pay, Florida included. What it did not do is eliminate buyer-agent commissions as a concept, ban sellers from offering to cover them, or change how a listing agent's own commission works.
What Changed for Sellers, and What Did Not
A seller can still offer to cover the buyer's agent commission as part of getting a deal done. That has not disappeared. What changed is where and how that offer gets made. It is no longer baked automatically into the MLS listing where every buyer's agent can see it before showing the house. It gets negotiated directly, often inside the purchase offer itself, and disclosed as a separate line item.
The listing agent's own commission, typically in the 5 to 6 percent range paid by the seller, was not restructured by this settlement. What has shifted is transparency and negotiation dynamics: buyers are now more aware of what their own agent charges, since they have to sign an agreement upfront, and some buyers are negotiating to have sellers cover that cost as part of the offer rather than assuming it is automatic.
In practice this has added a new negotiation layer to some deals. A seller reviewing an offer now sometimes sees a buyer-agent commission request handled as its own term, rather than an assumption baked into the transaction from the start. It has not made selling more expensive on average. It has made the commission conversation more explicit.
How This Plays Out for a Direct Sale Instead of a Listing
None of this negotiation layer applies to a sale that never uses a traditional buyer's-agent structure in the first place. Cash Flow Deals makes a direct offer arranged through its licensed brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty, on a flat-fee basis, so there is no MLS listing commission split to negotiate, no buyer-broker agreement to review, and no separate line item to haggle over after an offer comes in.
The transaction still runs through a regulated brokerage and closes through Title Guaranty of South Florida, so the legal and paperwork structure is intact. What is different is that the entire commission conversation the NAR settlement reshaped for traditional listings simply does not come up, because there is no separate buyer's agent whose commission needs to be negotiated in the first place.
For a seller who has been watching the news coverage of this settlement and wondering whether it changes their own plans, the honest answer is that it mainly matters if you intend to list on the open market and work with a buyer who has their own agent. If you sell directly instead, that entire layer of new disclosure rules and negotiation simply is not part of the transaction you are entering into.
Common questions
What was the NAR settlement and when did it take effect?
It was a class-action settlement, stemming from the Sitzer/Burnett lawsuit, that took effect August 17, 2024. It stopped the automatic publication of buyer-agent commission offers inside MLS listings and required buyers to sign a written buyer-broker agreement before touring homes.
Do sellers still pay the buyer's agent commission after the NAR settlement?
They can, but it is no longer automatic or built into the MLS listing. It is now negotiated directly, often as a term inside the purchase offer, and disclosed separately.
Does the NAR settlement mean commissions are illegal now?
No. Commissions are still fully legal and still commonly paid. The settlement changed how the buyer-agent commission is disclosed and negotiated, not whether it can exist.
How does the NAR settlement affect selling a house directly instead of listing it?
It largely does not, for a sale like Cash Flow Deals' model that is arranged through a licensed brokerage on a flat-fee basis without a traditional buyer's agent. There is no MLS buyer-agent commission split involved in the first place.