Nearly two years after the National Association of Realtors’ landmark commission settlement introduced new rules and reshaped how agents are paid, most real estate agents say their commissions haven’t meaningfully changed — a reality increasingly reflected in the data.
Roughly two-thirds of agents report no significant shift in commission levels since the 2024 settlement, according to a survey conducted between February and March by Cotality and ResiClub. Most of the 213 agent respondents had been in the industry for at least eight years, ResiClub co-founder Lance Lambert said.
The results align with a growing body of data pointing in the same direction. Buyer’s agent commissions rebounded after an initial post-settlement dip, rising from 2.36% in Q3 2024 to 2.42% in Q3 2025, according to Redfin data shared late last year.
Inman Intel also previously reported that commissions largely held up through the first full year under the new rules, in part because sellers have become more likely, not less, to cover the buyer-side fee.
“What I’ve seen from agents when I’ve surveyed them is that they haven’t seen too much change post-NAR settlement,” Lambert told Inman. “Some of them have said that they’ve seen them go up a bit. Some have said they’ve seen them go down a bit. But generally, most say not too much change.”
Lambert said the survey results should be treated as directional, but noted that transaction-level data tells a similar story.
“You don’t want to rely solely on survey data,” he said. “But if there was a really big shift, we would be at least seeing something bigger than what we’re seeing right now.”
Buyer-side compensation under more pressure
While most agents report little overall change, pressure is building in a specific part of the business. About 34 percent of agents said buyer-side compensation is where they’ve felt the most strain since the settlement — more than any other category. Negotiations with sellers (30 percent) and buyers (19 percent) followed, with listing-side compensation (17 percent) drawing the least concern.
That buyer-side pressure is unfolding against a backdrop of historically low housing turnover. When adjusted for population growth, resale turnover during the past three years has been the lowest in more than four decades — a sustained slowdown that has agents competing over a shrinking pool of transactions.
Lambert suggested that some of the focus on commissions reflects broader affordability pressures more than the settlement’s direct impact.
“You have affordability that is very strained,” he said. “Politicians are under pressure, so then they’re looking for scapegoats — one of those, earlier on in this period, was agents themselves and their commissions.”
Attrition may have already run its course
Even as pressure builds on buyer agents, Lambert said the industry may have already absorbed much of the disruption many predicted would follow the settlement.
The prolonged transaction drought has accelerated agent attrition, particularly among newer entrants who joined during the pandemic boom years. But that shakeout now appears to be stabilizing: 92 percent of agents surveyed said they expect to remain active in the industry for at least three more years, and 83 percent said five years or more.
Lambert noted the survey skewed toward more experienced agents — about 80 percent had been in the industry at least eight years — which may partly explain the high retention outlook. Still, he said the broader signal holds.
“The industry attrition has maybe started to level off,” he said. “The silver lining for the industry is that maybe a lot of what was going to happen has already occurred.”
For now, commissions appear more resistant to rapid change than many anticipated.
“I think the honest economic observation is that there’s some stickiness to them,” Lambert said. “They went through this period where they were challenged, and it’s not the earth-shattering shift that was predicted when the settlement occurred.”
Where commissions go from here remains an open question — one Lambert said is genuinely difficult to forecast. But for agents navigating the market today, the reality looks far closer to a slow development than the sweeping reset many expected.
