Two Years After the NAR Settlement, Buyer-Agent Commissions Went Up. Here’s How to Keep the Savings Anyway.

When the National Association of Realtors agreed to a $418 million settlement in 2024, headlines promised a revolution: commissions would be negotiated in the open, buyer-agent fees would fall, and home buyers would finally stop paying for a system they never chose. Two years in, the verdict is clear — and it’s not the one buyers were promised. Buyer-agent commissions are slightly higher today than when the new rules took effect.

The numbers tell the story. Redfin’s transaction data pegged the average buyer-agent commission at 2.36% in Q3 2024, the quarter the new rules kicked in. By mid-2025 it had climbed back to 2.43%, and it held near 2.42% through the end of the year. A February 2026 survey of 533 agents by Clever Real Estate found the average buyer-side commission at 2.82%, with total commissions (both sides) averaging 5.70% — up from 2.67% on the buyer side just eleven months earlier. Even a Federal Reserve analysis found that the slow drift down from 3% over the past 25 years came from rising home prices, not from regulation. The settlement changed the paperwork. It did not change the price.

What that costs you on a median home in 2026

NAR’s own June 2026 data puts the median existing-home price in the US at $440,600, with 30-year mortgage rates at 6.49%. Run the commission math on that median home:

• At Redfin’s measured 2.52% rate for homes under $500K, the buyer-agent commission is about $11,100.
• At Clever’s surveyed 2.82% average, it’s roughly $12,400.
• In Canada, buyer-side commissions average around 2% per side — 2.16% in Ontario per Rate-My-Agent’s study of nearly 1,000 transactions — so a $700,000 Toronto-area home carries roughly $15,000 in buyer-agent fees.

That money doesn’t appear out of thin air. Whether it’s technically paid by the seller, baked into the list price, or negotiated as a concession, it’s real value moving through your transaction — and under the old model, none of it comes back to you.

The settlement gave you leverage. Most buyers aren’t using it.

Here’s what genuinely did change: since August 2024, you must sign a written buyer-agency agreement before touring homes, and that agreement must state — in dollars or a percentage — exactly what your agent will be paid. Commissions can no longer be advertised on the MLS, and they are explicitly, legally negotiable. That’s real leverage. The problem is that most buyers sign whatever number the agent writes in, and the industry’s default number hasn’t budged. When one side negotiates for a living and the other side does it once a decade, “negotiable” tends to favor the professional.

The flat-fee alternative: a worked example

This is where the math gets interesting. A flat-fee buyer’s service charges one fixed price for representation and returns the rest of the buyer-side commission to you at closing. On that $440,600 median US home with a 2.5% buyer-agent commission on the table:

• Buyer-side commission in the deal: ~$11,015
• Landian’s flat fee: $4,999
• Cash back to you at closing: ~$6,000

On a $700,000 home at 2.5%, the commission is $17,500 — and the same flat fee leaves roughly $12,500 with you instead of your agent’s brokerage. That’s a year of property taxes in most states, a rate buydown, or simply a smaller loan. And because the fee is flat, the incentives finally point the right way: a percentage-paid agent earns more when you pay more for the house. A flat-fee agent earns the same either way, so the advice can just be advice.

Landian was built for exactly this moment: a flat $4,999 fee, licensed representation from a network of 850+ agents across 64 US and Canadian jurisdictions, and the rest of the buyer-side commission returned to you at closing. The settlement opened the door. Walking through it — and keeping the five figures on the other side — is up to you. See what you’d save at landian.co.