GW Experts: National Association of Realtors Settles Lawsuits by Agreeing to Slash Sales Commissions

The National Association of Realtors has agreed to settle a series of lawsuits by paying $418 million in damages and by eliminating its rules on a standard 6 percent sales commission, according to The New York Times. The settlement might mean that American homeowners could see a drop in the cost of selling of their homes.

Faculty experts at the George Washington University are available to offer insight, analysis and commentary. If you would like to speak an expert, please contact GW Senior Media Relations Specialist Cate Douglass at [email protected].

Vanessa Perry, interim dean of the GW School of Business, is a professor of marketing, strategic management and public policy at GW and non-resident Fellow of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Her research is focused on consumers in housing and financial markets, marketplace discrimination, and public policy interventions and she has studied closely the homeownership gap in the U.S. Perry previously worked for the mortgage giant Freddie Mac, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Perry also published a paper on the matter, titled “Be Careful What You Ask For: The Economic Impact of Changing the Structure of Real Estate Agent Fees.” 

Robert Van Order holds the Oliver Carr Chair in Real Estate at GW, is the co-chair of the Department of Finance and a professor of finance and economics. He was chief economist of Freddie Mac from 1987 until 2002. In that capacity he worked on the development of Freddie Mac models of mortgage default, prepayment and pricing; approaches to risk, capital structure and capital requirements; mortgage market structure; and analysis of housing and the economy. Before that he served as director of the Housing Finance Analysis Division at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Paul E. Carrillo is a professor of economics. His research lies at the intersection between real estate, urban economics, public economics and econometrics, and has been published in leading economics and real estate journals. Prof. Carrillo currently serves as the Co-Editor of the Journal of Housing Economics and Associate Editor of the Journal of Regional Science and Regional Science and Urban Economics. He is an expert on multiple listing service.