The short version: since August 17, 2024, you are not obligated to pay a buyer’s agent anything. To avoid paying a buyer’s agent commission, you can sell the home yourself, use a flat fee service to put it on the MLS, or hire your own listing agent and instruct them that no part of your commission goes to the buyer’s side. Buyers now sign their own written agreements with their agents and sort out payment before they ever walk through your door.1National Association of REALTORS®. Consumer Guide to Written Buyer Agreements
Why You No Longer Owe the Buyer’s Agent Anything by Default
For decades, a listing agreement bundled compensation for both sides of the deal, and the offer to the buyer’s agent was broadcast on the MLS. A buyer’s agent could see the promised commission before showing the home. Combined commissions typically ran five to six percent of the sale price, all of it coming out of the seller’s proceeds.
Two changes from the National Association of Realtors settlement ended that arrangement. Offers of compensation to buyer’s agents can no longer appear on MLS listings. And buyers must now sign a written representation agreement with their own agent before touring any home, stating exactly how that agent will be paid, whether as a flat fee, a percentage, or an hourly rate.2National Association of REALTORS®. Summary of 2024 MLS Changes
The practical effect for you: your obligation to the buyer’s agent is zero unless you voluntarily agree to pay something during negotiations. That single shift is what makes every option below possible.
Sell the Home Yourself
The cleanest way to pay no agent commission at all is to sell without a listing agreement. No brokerage has a contractual claim to any part of your proceeds, and there is no MLS field through which you could accidentally commit money to the other side. You handle pricing, marketing, showings, and negotiations.
This works best in hot markets where buyers come looking for you, in sales between people who already know each other, and when the property is straightforward: clean title, no zoning oddities, no boundary disputes. The less complexity in the deal, the less you need professional help to carry it.
The honest tradeoff is price. NAR’s own research puts the median for-sale-by-owner price roughly 15 to 18 percent below the median for agent-assisted sales. Part of that gap reflects the mix of homes sold this way (often lower-value properties, or sales to family), so it is not a straight comparison. Still, if your home is worth $500,000 and you underprice it by even five percent through inexperience, you have given back more than you would have spent on a listing agent. Pricing research is the single most important thing a self-represented seller does.
Keeping Showings Safe
When you sell without an agent, strangers contact you directly and walk through your home. Require a mortgage pre-approval letter or proof of funds before scheduling any showing; that one step filters out the unqualified and the unserious. Show the home only during daylight. Tell someone the name and scheduled time of every visitor. Ask to see identification when the person arrives. Skip open houses, which draw people with no intention of buying, and stick with individual appointments for pre-screened buyers.
Vetting Who You’re Dealing With
Nobody is screening buyers for you. This is where independent sales most often fall apart: a seller accepts an offer from someone who can’t actually close, then loses weeks or months before the deal collapses.
For a financed offer, ask for a mortgage pre-approval letter. Check that it names the specific buyer, lists a loan amount sufficient for your asking price, identifies the loan type, and has not expired. Pre-approval letters are typically good for 60 to 90 days. A pre-qualification letter is weaker; the lender has looked at self-reported income without verifying it. Hold out for pre-approval.
For a cash offer, require proof of funds in the form of a recent bank statement or a letter from the buyer’s bank confirming liquid funds sufficient to cover the price. Mutual fund statements, stock holdings, and retirement balances don’t count; the money has to be accessible without selling assets or waiting on transfers. A cash buyer who hesitates to show a bank statement is a red flag serious enough to walk away from.
Use a Flat Fee MLS Service
If you want MLS exposure without a full-service listing agreement, flat fee services place your home on the local MLS for a one-time payment, typically between $100 and $1,000 depending on the package. Basic tiers get the listing into the MLS database and syndicated to sites like Zillow, Realtor.com, and Redfin. Premium tiers add professional photography or limited negotiation support.
You control what the listing says. Under the new rules you can’t advertise buyer-agent compensation on the MLS at all, but a flat fee listing that offers nothing to the buyer’s side signals clearly to the market what kind of deal this is: the buyer handles their own agent’s costs.2National Association of REALTORS®. Summary of 2024 MLS Changes
A common worry is whether a flat fee listing actually reaches the major search portals. It does. MLS-fed listings syndicate automatically to Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, Redfin, and Homes.com because those portals pull from MLS data feeds, not because of any special relationship with your listing broker. Your home shows up alongside every other listing in the area.
Hire a Listing Agent and Specify Zero to the Buyer’s Side
You don’t have to go fully independent to keep buyer-agent costs off your settlement statement. Many sellers want professional help with pricing, marketing, and negotiations and simply don’t want to fund the other side’s representation. That is now a straightforward conversation.
Commission structure in a listing agreement is negotiable. You can agree to pay your agent 2 to 3 percent, or a flat fee, for their services and specify that nothing goes toward buyer-agent compensation. Some agents will push back; some still prefer the old model. The settlement rules make clear this is your choice, not theirs.
There is one real-world risk worth weighing. Some buyer’s agents may be less enthusiastic about showing a home where their client has to pay them directly. Whether that translates to fewer showings depends on your market. In a competitive market with low inventory, buyers go where the homes are. In a slower market with plenty of alternatives, a zero-compensation listing can sit longer. That is not a reason to capitulate, but it is worth building into your pricing strategy. Priced right, buyers find the home.
When a Buyer Asks You to Help Pay Their Agent
Even with a listing that offers nothing to the buyer’s side, a buyer can still ask you to contribute through a seller concession at the contract stage. A concession is a credit toward the buyer’s closing costs, which the buyer could then apply to their agent’s fee among other expenses. Any concession advertised on the MLS can’t be conditioned on payment to a buyer’s broker, but at the negotiation table, nothing stops a buyer from asking.3National Association of REALTORS®. Compensation, Commission and Concessions
You can say no. That is the whole point. If you do decide to negotiate, lender rules cap how much you can contribute:
- Conventional loans (Fannie Mae): the cap depends on the buyer’s down payment. Buyers putting down less than 10 percent can receive concessions of up to 3 percent of the sale price. Buyers with 10 to 25 percent down can receive up to 6 percent. Buyers with more than 25 percent down can receive up to 9 percent.4Fannie Mae. Interested Party Contributions (IPCs)
- FHA loans: seller concessions are capped at 6 percent of the sale price regardless of down payment.
- VA loans: the cap is 4 percent of the home’s appraised value. That cap covers only concessions such as paying the buyer’s agent or prepaying property taxes, not the normal closing costs the seller agrees to pay.
Any concession above these limits gets deducted from the sale price for underwriting purposes, which can sink the loan. If a buyer requests help and you’re open to it, keep the amount inside the limit for their loan type. Ask to see their pre-approval letter so you know which cap applies before you negotiate.
How Much You Can Realistically Keep
Each path converts the old buyer-agent commission into something different. Selling the home yourself keeps the entire commission on both sides, trading it for your own time and the risk of mispricing. A flat fee MLS listing keeps most of it, trading a few hundred dollars for exposure on the portals buyers actually use. A traditional listing agent with no buyer-side commission keeps roughly half, trading the rest for full service on your side of the deal. The right choice is the one that matches how much work you want to do and how much pricing and negotiation help you want.
One thing worth flagging: avoiding the buyer-agent commission does not shrink the rest of the sale. You still owe the ordinary closing costs for your area (title work, escrow or attorney fees, recording charges, and any transfer tax), you still have federal disclosure duties if the home was built before 1978,5US EPA. Real Estate Disclosures About Potential Lead Hazards and the IRS still cares about your gain even when the capital gains exclusion wipes out the tax.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 121 – Exclusion of Gain From Sale of Principal Residence Skipping the buyer’s agent is a commission decision, not a shortcut around the rest of the transaction.