From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarrow. This is the Daily.

Last year, a historic legal settlement created sweeping new reforms that were supposed to lower the price of buying and selling a home across the country.

But those reforms would cost realtors money, and so those realtors, it turns out,

have found ways to evade the new reforms.

My colleague, Deborah Kamen, explains how they did it.

It's Tuesday, April 29th.

Deborah? Welcome back to the time. Deborah.

Welcome back to the Daily.

It's nice to be here again.

It's really nice to see your face.

In the flesh.

In the flesh.

So a year ago, as many listeners, I hope I'll remember, you came on the Daily to describe this really bombshell legal settlement that was supposed

to transform how homes are sold in the United States. And I want to start by having you remind us

what that settlement was all about and why it was we felt wrongly, as it turns out, that this was

going to be such a watershed moment.

The expectations were sky high. The words that were being used by economists and analysts in the

industry, earth-shattering, watershed, landmark, the greatest change to the real estate industry

since the New Deal. Things that were really pinning hopes that

this was going to shake up a stagnant housing market and offer real relief to consumers in the U.S.

who desperately need it. And a lot of that was pinned to the idea that rules were going to be

followed to the letter, and they were not. So here we are a year later, and things have shifted a tiny bit, but we're talking about a drizzle, not a watershed.

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