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    Real Estate Fantasies

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    Celebrity agents are selling a dream, as real homes get more out of reach.There are few acts more optimistic than shopping for a home. You walk through its doors, run your fingertips along its appliances and see your face reflected in its windows and mirrors. You consider untapped versions of your life, imagining yourself waking up every day in that bedroom, cooking every day in that kitchen and letting the years unfold between those walls.Real estate agents understand this allure. The good ones package it up, serving it to clients in the form of property tours that show off not only a house, but also the life that a house can offer. And the really good ones are so adept at spinning the fantasy that they’re building careers on television out of it.For a new story for The Times’s real estate section, which published this morning, I spent time with agents from shows like “Million Dollar Listing” and “Buying Beverly Hills” to understand how they became stars in their own right, and what that tells us about the state of housing in the U.S.Hollywood luxuryLate last year, I flew to Los Angeles to attend an awards show for some of Hollywood’s most famous real estate agents. Seated in the backyard of a sprawling estate once owned by Madonna, I watched as Mauricio Umansky, who stars on Netflix’s “Buying Beverly Hills,” cracked jokes and presented awards like “Stratospheric Sale of the Year.” (The winner was Kurt Rappaport, who represented Beyoncé and Jay-Z in their purchase of a $190 million Malibu pad last May.)“This is the Oscars of real estate,” Alexander Ali, a public relations official, told me that night. He runs a company, the Society Group, devoted solely to promoting celebrity agents and the houses that they list.Millions of us are hooked on his clients’ content. The most recent season of “Selling Sunset” brought in about 3.2 million streaming viewers per episode, according to Nielsen Media Research; “Buying Beverly Hills” drew 1.7 million per episode in its first season.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Approves $418 Million Settlement That Will Change Real Estate Commissions

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      Home sellers will no longer be required to offer commission to a buyer’s agent when they sell their property, under an agreement with the National Association of Realtors.A settlement that will rewrite the way many real estate agents are paid in the United States has received preliminary approval from a federal judge.On Tuesday morning, Judge Stephen R. Bough, a United States district judge, signed off on an agreement between the National Association of Realtors and home sellers who sued the real estate trade group over its longstanding rules on commissions to agents that they say forced them to pay excessive fees. The agreement is still subject to a hearing for final court approval, which is expected to be held on Nov. 22. But that hearing is largely a formality, and Judge Bough’s action in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri now paves the way for N.A.R. to begin implementing the sweeping rule changes required by the deal. The changes will likely go into full effect among brokerages across the country by Sept. 16. N.A.R., in a statement from spokesman Mantill Williams, welcomed the settlement’s preliminary approval.“It has always been N.A.R.’s goal to resolve this litigation in a way that preserves consumer choice and protects our members to the greatest extent possible,” he said in an email. “There are strong grounds for the court to approve this settlement because it is in the best interests of all parties and class members.”N.A.R. reached the agreement in March to settle the lawsuit, and a series of similar claims, by making the changes and paying $418 million in damages. Months earlier, in October, a jury had reached a verdict that would have required the organization to pay at least $1.8 billion in damages, agreeing with homeowners who argued that N.A.R.’s rules on agent commissions forced them to pay excessive fees when they sold their property. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Five Ways Buying and Selling a House Could Change

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      The National Association of Realtors has agreed to change its policies to settle several lawsuits brought by home sellers — a move that could reduce commissions.A settlement reached this week threatens to strike a blow to an established standard of residential real estate: the 6 percent sales commission. It also will change who pays it. The deal, reached after a yearslong court battle initially brought by a group of home sellers in Missouri, calls for the powerful National Association of Realtors, which has long regulated the way U.S. homes are sold, to amend its rules on how Realtors for sellers and buyers are compensated.In most real estate transactions in the United States, both the seller and buyer have an agent representing them. For decades, there’s been a standard for paying these agents: a commission of between 5 and 6 percent of the home’s sale price, covered by the seller and split between the two agents.Commission rates are significantly lower in many other countries. In Britain, they are just above 1 percent, while in Singapore, the Netherlands and Denmark, they hover between 2 and 3 percent, according to a study by the investment firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. The homeowners who sued in federal court in Missouri said that N.A.R., through its rules on agent compensation, conspired to artificially inflate the commissions paid to real estate agents.Now those rules are set to change as early as July, pending court approval of the settlement that includes N.A.R.’s agreement to pay $418 million in damages.There could be more room for negotiation.Real estate agents argue that commissions have long been negotiable, and the standard 5 to 6 percent is practice rather than precept.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More