Who Pays Realtor Commission Now, After the NAR Settlement

3 min read · Last updated 2026-08-03 · Reviewed by Joseph Mena, CFO of Cash Flow Deals.

You and your buyer now negotiate your respective representation commissions directly. The 2024 NAR Sitzer/Burnett settlement, effective August 17, 2024, ended the automatic publication of buyer-side commission offers in shared property databases and requires buyers using professional representation to sign a written agreement before touring homes. You can still offer buyer-side compensation or sell independently. With Cash Flow Deals, you choose between the Fast Cash Offer, where we buy your house as-is and close, and the Premium Cash Offer, where a pre-approved FHA or conventional buyer we already have, ready to go, pays more and buys directly from you.

Factor	Traditional Route	Cash Flow Deals
Who sets the commission	Seller negotiates a listing fee with their agent, buyer-agent compensation is negotiated separately off the MLS since August 17, 2024	Cash Flow Deals is paid a separate, itemized fee on the closing statement, not a percentage tied to price
When the number is final	Final commission depends on negotiation and can shift as the deal moves through offers	For your Fast Cash Offer and Premium Cash Offer, the number is agreed before any work starts, and it changes only if you agree. The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed — foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure — we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens.
Who handles the paperwork	Seller and agent, or seller alone, manage disclosures, contracts, and negotiation	You choose: with the Fast Cash Offer, we buy your house as-is and close; with the Premium Cash Offer, a pre-approved FHA or conventional buyer we already have, ready to go, pays more and buys directly from you, with title transferring straight from you to that buyer.

What Changed on August 17, 2024

The National Association of Realtors reached a nationwide settlement in the Sitzer/Burnett case, and the practice changes took effect August 17, 2024. Two changes matter most for sellers. First, buyer-agent commission is no longer automatically displayed as a fixed number on the MLS listing itself. Second, buyers now have to sign a written agreement with their agent before that agent can tour homes with them. Both changes were built to make commission a discussion between real people instead of a number that shows up on a listing page before anyone talks price.

Who Actually Pays the Commission Now

Nothing in federal law requires a seller to pay a buyer's agent, and nothing ever did. What changed is how that offer gets made. A seller can still choose to offer compensation to a buyer's agent to make the home more attractive to buyers who are working with representation, but that offer now gets negotiated and put in writing off the MLS, not posted as a blanket percentage on the listing. A buyer can also pay their own agent directly out of their own funds, which was always legal and is now more common.

What This Means If You're Selling

A seller weighing a traditional listing has to decide, upfront, whether to offer any buyer-agent compensation and how much, since that number no longer appears automatically to every buyer's agent browsing listings. That decision affects showings, since some buyer's agents steer clients toward homes where compensation is clear. Sellers who want to skip that calculation entirely sometimes look at other paths, including selling without an agent or working with a company that prices its fee as a flat, separate line item rather than a percentage tied to buyer-agent negotiations.

Cash Flow Deals' Process for Sellers Who Want a Fixed Number

With Cash Flow Deals, you choose between the Fast Cash Offer, where we buy your house as-is and close, and the Premium Cash Offer, where a pre-approved FHA or conventional buyer we already have, ready to go, pays more and buys directly from you. The number is agreed before any work starts, and it changes only if you agree. The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed — foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure — we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens. We cover repair costs, and we figure out a way, so nothing comes out of your pocket. With Premium, only what the buyer's lender requires gets fixed, with costs settled from the sale proceeds out of our share. With Fast Cash, you sell as-is without making repairs. For Premium, you sign with us at the agreed number and give us permission to bring in a buyer in our place. That buyer signs a new contract directly with you; title transfers once, directly from you to the buyer, whose lender funds the purchase. Cash Flow Deals is paid as a separate line item on the closing statement. If the buyer's loan falls through, that is our problem, not yours, and you can still take the Fast Cash Offer at its own number, alongside your Premium Cash Offer choice. You can compare what you would receive under either offer with what another sale would leave you after commissions, repairs, and closing costs.

Options Beyond a Single Listing Agent

A traditional full-service listing is only one path. Selling without any agent, working with a discount broker for a reduced listing fee, or using a flat-fee service to get onto the MLS are all still available, and all of them now operate under the same August 17, 2024 rules on buyer-agent compensation. The right path depends on how much time a seller has, how much negotiation they want to do themselves, and how much certainty they want about the final number before repairs, inspections, and buyer financing enter the picture.

Common questions

Do I have to pay my buyer's agent's commission now?

No. Federal law never required a seller to pay a buyer's agent, and the 2024 NAR settlement didn't change that. What changed is that any offer to pay buyer-agent compensation now gets negotiated and written down instead of posted automatically on the MLS.

Is realtor commission a fixed percentage?

No. Commission has always been negotiable. The Sitzer/Burnett settlement, effective August 17, 2024, reinforced that by requiring written, itemized buyer-agent agreements instead of a blanket rate shown on every MLS listing.

What is the NAR Sitzer/Burnett settlement?

It's the nationwide settlement the National Association of Realtors reached after a jury sided with home sellers in the underlying Sitzer/Burnett case. The practice changes from that settlement took effect August 17, 2024, including removing buyer-agent compensation fields from the MLS and requiring signed buyer representation agreements.

Can I sell my house without paying any commission at all?

Selling without a listing agent, or using a company that charges one flat fee instead of a percentage commission, are both ways to avoid a traditional commission structure. Each comes with its own trade-offs worth weighing against what a full-service listing typically nets.