Do You Still Need to Pay a Buyer's Agent Commission?

By Mark Mahaffey

Mark Mahaffey is the Broker and President of Mark Mahaffey and Associates Real Estate, a full-service real estate firm based in Athens and Watkinsville, Georgia.

If the last time you bought or sold a home was more than a couple of years ago, there’s a good chance you caught a headline about real estate commissions changing and then just moved on. Most people did. And that means most people are walking around with the headline version of this story, which isn’t exactly how it played out.

Back in 2024, a major lawsuit, followed by several more, led to some real changes in how buyer agent compensation works. But what it also led to was a lot of panic on both sides. Buyers assumed they were suddenly going to have to pay their agent out of pocket. Sellers got excited, thinking they’d never have to pay a buyer’s agent again. Neither of those things is really what happened.

What actually changed? In the old days, and we’re only talking about two years ago here, buyer agent compensation was built right into the transaction. It was advertised on the multiple listing service. That’s no longer allowed. The compensation can’t be advertised on the MLS anymore.

What has also changed is that buyers now need a signed brokerage agreement with their agent before they can start looking at homes. That’s a formal relationship, similar to a listing agreement on the seller side. Your agent will walk you through their fees, what’s covered, what’s involved, and how to protect yourself.

But here’s what most people miss. The seller can still pay the buyer’s agent. It just needs to be included in the offer. So the fee didn’t go away. It moved. It went from one column to another, and honestly, from a practical standpoint, it didn’t make a whole big difference.

What buyers need to know. If you’re in the market to buy a home, the biggest change you’ll notice is that initial meeting with your agent. You’re going to sit down, establish the relationship, and get something in writing before you start touring properties. And honestly, that’s how it should have always been done. A good agent shouldn’t just jump in their car and meet someone at a property without any kind of agreement in place.

Once that’s done, a good buyer’s agent is going to show you multiple ways to get their fee built into the offer. Maybe it’s a price adjustment. Maybe it’s worked into closing costs, similar to how loan costs get folded in. The point is, there are ways to handle it, and your agent should be walking you through those options.

And the numbers back this up. According to the National Association of Realtors, 88% of buyers are still using an agent because of the value that an agent brings to the transaction, from helping you find the right home to protecting your interests through the process. So don’t feel like you’re going to be left unrepresented or that the system is stacked against you. Things are still working out just fine. We’re just looking at them in a slightly different way.

What sellers need to know. Now, if you’re on the seller side, you might be thinking this is great news. Your fee costs are getting cut in half because you don’t have to pay the buyer’s agent anymore. Not so fast.

If you’ve been following along, you already know that buyers have ways to build that fee into their offer. That means as a seller, you should expect to see it show up somewhere, whether it’s in the form of a lower offer price or a request to cover it through closing costs. And that’s completely normal. The buyer’s agent is working. They deserve to be compensated. And asking a buyer who’s already stretched thin with a down payment and loan costs to also pay their agent’s fee out of pocket is a big ask.

So it’s not that sellers are suddenly off the hook. The fee is still part of the transaction. It’s just structured a little differently on paper.

The bottom line. The massive commission collapse that the headlines predicted didn’t happen. What happened is a paperwork change in how compensation gets communicated and negotiated. The fee moved from one side of the ledger to the other, but the overall cost of doing business in real estate hasn’t fundamentally shifted.

If you haven’t bought or sold a home in the Greater Athens area in the past couple of years, it’s worth having a quick conversation to see how things work now. Reach out anytime. Call or text us at (706) 540-0336, email us at m.mahaffey@markmahaffey.com, or visit blog.markmahaffey.com. We’ll walk you through it.