The National Association of Realtors announced a settlement in the Sitzer-Burnett class action case

Financial Terms:

$418 million total settlement amount. This sum will be paid as follows: $5 million upon preliminary approval of the settlement agreement; $197 million within 90 days of final approval of the settlement agreement; $72 million within one year of the approval of the settlement agreement; and $72 million within two years of approval of the settlement agreement. NAR issued a statement indicating that annual dues would not increase as a result of the settlement terms. 

Amended Business Practices and Changes: 

No prohibition on the offering of cooperative compensation by sellers/listing brokers to buyer representatives. However, offers of cooperative compensation will not be permitted to be facilitated through MLSs. Brokers may offer cooperative compensation through their own websites - and presumably other means / broker-to-broker.

Sellers may indicate in the Notes/Comment section of the MLS a willingness to provide a financial concession of specified sums that a buyer may apply toward a myriad of costs, including their buyer representation costs (of note, this Notes/Comment section cannot be used as a "workaround" for the prior cooperative commission data field).

Agents must use some form of an agreement when working with a buyer (more analysis will be needed on this point due to State law and other regulatory issues). 

NAR announced these changes will go into effect mid-July 2024. 

Settled/Released Parties: 

• The parties released in the settlement include: the National Association of Realtors, State and Local Association of Realtors, Association-Owned MLSs, Real Estate Brokerages with closed annual real estate sales volume of less than $2 Billion based on 2023 Real Trends reporting (essentially smaller brokerages are released).
• Mid-Size to Larger brokerages (those with 2023 Sales Volume in excess of $2 Billion) are not included in the settlement. Individual real estate agents were also included in the release.
• HomeServices' agents were not included in the release; this is presumably due to the ongoing involvement in the Sitzer-Burnett case. It is important to note that no agents of HomeServices were included as named defendants in the Sitzer-Burnett case. 
• While HomeServices remains the single defendant in the Sitzer-Burnett and Moehrl cases, the numerous other copycat cases naming most of the other national brokerages remain ongoing as well.