Source: EconLog
by Craig Richardson
“On March 15th, 2024, the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors (NAR) came forward with a stunning announcement: in response to two 2019 class-action lawsuits, it finally agreed to a settlement sum of $626 million and promised dramatic changes in the real estate business. The lawsuit charged that the NAR had excessive market power that allowed them to create handsome commissions for their agents, resulting in higher housing prices for prospective home buyers. A year later, a few law firms earned millions of dollars, but the settlement provided scant benefits to prospective homeowners other than some important clarifications about the structure of agent commissions. Indeed, the lawsuit was all based on a mistake about the scope of NAR’s market power. That mistake led to a domino effect of further errors in how to fix the supposed problem.” (06/04/25)
https://www.econlib.org/how-a-lawsuit-against-realtors-went-sideways/