“NAR will pay $52.25 million into a settlement fund over a multi-year period… The settlement covers REALTOR® members, state and local REALTOR® associations (including those that do, and do not, operate Multiple Listing Services (MLSs)), REALTOR® MLSs, non-REALTOR® MLSs, and real estate brokerages with a REALTOR® as principal… This extends protection to a broad segment of the industry and represents a more comprehensive release than has been achieved in any previous NAR settlement.”
Remember the $418 million Sitzer-Burnett settlement? That was the seller side.
This is the other side of the trade.
Tuccori is the buy-side class action — homebuyers claiming they were the ones actually paying the buyer-agent commission all along through inflated home prices. And in case you were wondering whatever happened to Batton, the other buyer case that’s been hanging around since 2019 — NAR is paying to make that one go away too. They’ll seek a stay in Batton because, as the release puts it, “NAR’s settlement in Tuccori is intended to release the claims in the Batton case.”
Translation: we’re buying our way out of both. Great strategy but we shall see.
A few things worth noting:
$52.25 million is a lot cheaper than $418 million. Whatever you think about the merits of the buy-side theory, the plaintiffs’ bar clearly thinks it’s a harder case to win than the seller side was. Buyers didn’t sign the listing agreement. Buyers didn’t pay the commission directly. The damages theory is a longer walk.
The release is broader than anything before it. Non-REALTOR MLSs are in. Brokerages with a REALTOR principal are in. State and local associations that don’t operate an MLS are in. If you were worried about being the next named defendant, this probably matters to you more than the dollar figure. Seems like NAR is not forgetting the large brokerages this time around.
It’s opt-in. Meaning the folks who already settled separately — or who’ve been named in their own cases — don’t get to free-ride. You have to raise your hand.
The headline number will get the attention. But the real story here is NAR continuing to clean up the legal landscape one case at a time, buying peace for as much of the industry as they can drag under the tent. After the year they’ve had, writing a $52M check to make the buy-side disappear is probably the best Monday they’ve had in a while.
And on another note, I got wind of this directly from NAR the day before the news came out. As I mentioned in a previous post this is not your old, “shut up the adults are talking” NAR. This story is representative of the post settlement NAR, under Nykia. The Doctor is in.
