A Class Action Suit Could Upend The Entire Real Estate Industry
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2023
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
But selling a home can be expensive too. In part, that's because of the commissions real estate agents collect when a home is sold.
Depending on the price of the home, commissions can be tens of thousands of dollars.
A class action lawsuit brought by a group of Missouri home sellers against the National Association of Realtors argues that these fees hurt consumers by artificially inflating home prices.
This past week, a federal jury awarded the home sellers $1.8 billion.
Adrian Ma and Wailin Wong, co-hosts of NPR's The Indicator, break down how that decision could change the entire real estate industry.
Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | A couple of years ago, Nick Kraus and his wife were looking to buy their first home. |
| 0:10.8 | How much did you know about the home buying process before going into it? |
| 0:14.0 | Basically nothing. |
| 0:16.0 | Yeah, I knew vaguely what a mortgage was. |
| 0:18.0 | We watched some like, you know, Instagram Reels and some YouTube videos about like what to look for |
| 0:24.0 | visiting homes and stuff like that. So like almost 90% of people who buy homes |
| 0:29.2 | nowadays Nick and his wife decided to enlist the help of a real estate agent, |
| 0:33.5 | someone to help them scope out properties, set up walk-throughs, |
| 0:37.2 | negotiate the sale and handle contracts. |
| 0:39.7 | And despite doing all that work, |
| 0:42.0 | Nick and his wife were a little surprised to find out their agent didn't charge them a dime. |
| 0:46.5 | I think she just kind of mentioned that they would get paid by the seller. We didn't have to worry about it. |
| 0:51.0 | Do you think it's weird that the seller pays your agent because the |
| 0:56.9 | buyer's agent is supposed to represent the buyer's interest but the seller is |
| 1:01.0 | the one who pays your agent. |
| 1:03.7 | I did, yeah. |
| 1:06.7 | Not going to complain. |
| 1:07.7 | Nick Kraus may not be complaining, but the plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit are. |
| 1:14.6 | Consider this. |
| 1:15.6 | The fact that a home seller pays money |
| 1:18.0 | to a buyer's agent, that's at the heart of a massive |
| 1:20.9 | class action lawsuit against some of the nation's biggest real estate |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.