Greater than a yr has handed since a number of New York Metropolis-based brokerages and commerce teams settled a wave of antitrust lawsuits over dealer commissions, and predictions concerning the hit on fee charges have up to now not come true.
The common fee charged by brokers in New York is roughly 5.7 p.c of the acquisition worth, which works out to 2.9 p.c for the itemizing dealer and a couple of.8 p.c for the client’s agent, in keeping with a survey revealed by Intelligent final month.
The speed within the Empire State was on par with the nationwide common, which was larger than the 5.4 p.c reported in 2025 and 5.3 p.c in 2024.
The numbers don’t inform the entire story, because the survey was primarily based on simply 500 brokers. The report doesn’t parse out New York Metropolis, the place charges can range by sub-market and are possible decrease given the dominance of the luxurious market. Commissions are usually a smaller share of deal costs on the high-end of the market.
Nonetheless, they’re an excellent indication that the litigation over commissions and the fallout, together with the billions of {dollars} brokerages agreed to pay, have had little impact on the amount of cash brokers earn from offers — a sentiment echoed by some New York Metropolis-based brokers.
“Everybody anticipated a race to the underside,” stated Douglas Elliman’s Frances Katzen, referring to the influence of the lawsuits and subsequent guidelines decoupling commissions. “As an alternative, you’re seeing a flight to high quality.”
Final yr, New York’s main commerce affiliation, the Actual Property Board of New York, started requiring patrons’ brokers to obtain signed agreements. The mandate got here a yr after the group forbid itemizing brokers from promoting compensation provides to patrons’ brokers on the residential itemizing service, amongst different adjustments.
Whereas the insurance policies have had little impact on fee charges, Katzen stated, they’ve pressured brokers to have extra direct conversations with their shoppers, as a substitute of counting on trade conventions. (Many brokers beforehand said that commissions have all the time been negotiable, particularly in New York Metropolis, the place a number of patrons and sellers have made a number of trades all through their lives.)
“The commissions haven’t disappeared, they’ve recalibrated,” Katzen stated. “The fact is New York just isn’t a one-size fee market. It simply made the dialog extra express.”
If something, the brand new panorama has made it tougher for patrons and sellers to barter commissions in a while within the transaction course of, stated Briggs Elwell, whose firm RLTYco gives fee advances, amongst different companies.
“Brokers are being instructed they should pre-negotiate their break up forward of time,” Elwell stated, including that that interprets to much less “wiggle room” within the closing hour of a deal. “There’s no room for that final ditch negotaibility.”
Compass’ Tali Berzak stated that from her perspective, commissions hadn’t drastically modified following the lawsuits and the rule adjustments, however as a substitute, shoppers, significantly patrons, have been changing into extra discerning concerning the brokers they select to work with now that extra of their cash might be on the road.
“What [these lawsuits] did was put energy within the fingers of patrons brokers the place they by no means had energy earlier than,” Berzak stated. “As a purchaser’s agent, when you’re not displaying your worth early on, patrons are going to discover a new individual to work with.”
Not so quick…
If there’s someday a residential actual property reporter ought to keep away from checking social media, it’s April 1. Instagram turns into a minefield as brokers take to the platform to put up a number of bulletins. Some are clearly ridiculous (comparable to Palm Seaside’s Margit Brandt, who posted a listing for the state of Florida, asking $1 trillion); however others are rather more tough to suss out.
Listed below are a couple of that tripped up our workforce this week:
- Ryan Serhant introduced the rollout of a brand new house perfume, full with a promo video of the celeb dealer within the bathe, in addition to a separate web site prompting guests to fill out a contact type for pre-orders. We’re, admittedly, nonetheless unsure whether or not it is a prank or the soft launch of a brand new income stream.
- Elliman’s Frances Katzen and the agency’s Assouline Staff each introduced they’d be leaving the brokerage to begin their very own ventures. Katzen called hers Off Market and described the agency as “the AI-equivalent of each different brokerage, simply with higher instincts and fewer conferences” and as having “completely no funds for our brokers.”
- Elliman’s Michael Lorber posted on Instagram that he was leaving the agency to hitch Compass.
NYC Deal of the Week
The most costly house to hit the town register this week was a townhouse that when housed famed designer Oleg Cassini’s workshop. The property at 15 East 63rd Avenue offered for $34.5 million, ending a years-long saga to dump the house owned by Cassini’s sister-in-law, Peggy Nestor.
The 25-foot-wide townhouse, which was on the heart of a chapter continuing on the time, hit the market in 2024 asking $65 million. It spans 18,000 sq. toes and has seven bedrooms, eight loos and three terraces.
Learn extra
How NYC fits into the broker commission battle
REBNY, 26 NYC resi firms hit with antitrust suit
The Daily Dirt: How the NAR policy changes affect NYC brokers
