It is fitting that the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are the backdrop for the final two weeks leading up to when the real estate industry will undergo its largest structural change in decades — a feat of near-Olympic proportions.
Like the athletes in Paris, Realtors and brokers across the U.S. have been busy training and preparing to be ready for Aug. 17, the date on which the terms of the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement are set to go into effect.
Under the terms of the settlement, agents will no longer be allowed to share their seller’s offers of buyer broker compensation on an MLS. They will also have to obtain a signed buyer representation agreement prior to a buyer’s first home tour.
In only a matter of weeks, real estate professionals nationwide will find out whether their training has paid off.
In Minnetonka, Minnesota, Bryan VantHof — who is a member of the RE/MAX Advantage Plus-brokered The Minnesota Real Estate Team — said he feels ready to handle whatever the industry and the housing market throw at him.
“I was nervous at first, but I enjoy a challenge, and at this stage, I feel like I’ve got a strategy in place that is really going to set me apart from people who are still trying to figure it out,” VantHof said.
His confidence didn’t just come out of nowhere. VantHof has spent several months training to prepare for the business practice changes.
“We’ve had so many meetings,” VantHof said. “And in those meetings, we’ve had different leaders come in and talk about how these rule changes impact things from a Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, VA or FHA standpoint. They also brought in a forms specialist, who really dug into the new forms to really explain them to us, so we know when and how to use each one and so we can explain the contracts to our clients in plain English.”
VantHof said RE/MAX Advantage Plus is planning on using the forms provided by Minnesota Realtors, which did not come out until recently, leaving him with just a few weeks to fully digest the contents of the forms.
“We were given a few months to kind of play all of this out in our minds, and then with like two weeks of notice, we get hit with all the forms and how procedures will work in our state — because every state has its own laws, which changes what the settlement looks like in each state,” VantHof said.
Training on forms has been a central focus of brokerages across the country.
“Personally, I haven’t done so much training on forms myself in over a decade,” said Anthony Lamacchia, the broker-owner of Massachusetts-based Lamacchia Realty.
For Lamacchia, it is essential that his agents and brokers are able to clearly explain and communicate about the forms they are asking clients to sign.
“Agents in some states, or at some brokerages, are getting these lawyered-up forms thrown at them and no one is explaining to them how to answer questions from clients. And the agents are scared,” Lamacchia said.
While learning the forms has been an integral part of many brokerages’ training efforts, agents say the role-playing exercises they have engaged in to practice buyer and seller presentations, along with answering buyer and seller questions, have been valuable.
“We’ve been role-playing how to handle questions from buyers and sellers so that we are armed with answers and know how to handle these situations,” said Brian Huskey, the associate broker of Montana-based ERA American Real Estate.
Huskey said these training sessions have been mainly confined to his brokerage, which consists of 15 agents, although some have involved the greater Anywhere Real Estate network, which his firm is a part of. But Huskey said he would love to see wider industry collaboration on trainings.
“It would be great if we were all on board with the same handful of talking points, because if a consumer goes to four different agents and they all give them different answers, that doesn’t look good for our industry,” Huskey said. “But if we all had the same group of talking points to answer questions with, we’d be able to better establish that we are the experts on the industry and home sale transactions.”
Back over on the East Coast, Ruth Kennedy Sudduth — a principal at LandVest Christie’s International Real Estate in Boston — said she too is feeling prepared heading into the Aug. 17 implementation date, largely due to the training her brokerage has provided.
“I really commend LandVest and Christie’s for the efforts to concertedly not just educate, but listen to the brokers and the agent community about the kinds of issues the business practice changes raise and develop practices that are responsive to that,” Sudduth said. “I feel really well supported.”
While Sudduth said she is ready to tackle the changes, she is keeping a close watch on how some of these policies may evolve.
“I think everybody needs to think big picture about where the thrust of public policy is headed and try to be consistent with that, and also just try to be transparent with their clients,” Sudduth said.
Although many agents feel prepared and supported by their brokerage, Steve Capezza, the president of white-label brokerage Side, knows that is not the case for others.
“For Side partners, they will have to deal with these new rules that are going into effect — that said, they’ve spent months preparing our teams and our partners to be successful and I fully expect them to be,” Capezza said.
“Of course it is a change, so there is always going to be a bit of a change curve, but I think they’ll move through it relatively smoothly. That said, observing the majority of brokerages across the country and the lack of enablement they have put out, there could be a lot of agents that don’t know what to do on Aug. 18. They are going to meet with a buy-side prospect through a referral or an online lead, and that conversation is going to be pretty challenging for them.”
While agents acknowledge that this may be the case, many are seeing the changes as a chance for them to truly shine.
“It’s not something to be scared of,” Huskey said. “Change is scary, but if you are able to produce your value, you don’t have anything to worry about. If you can show people what they are paying you is sufficient for the service you are providing, you’ll be fine.”
