Realtors Agree to Open Listings To Online Discounters
Antitrust Settlement Is Unlikely To Reduce Home-Sales Commissions in Near Term
By JAMES R. HAGERTY and JOHN R. WILKE
May 28, 2008; Page B1
The Justice Department said it reached a settlement with the National Association of Realtors in an antitrust case over the trade group's effort to control how home listings are displayed on the Internet.
The settlement prevents the Realtors -- whose more than 1.2 million members handle nearly all U.S. home sales made through agents -- from adopting rules that the department said could have handicapped discount brokers that rely heavily on the Internet to attract and work with clients.
The department said the settlement should encourage more competition among real-estate brokers. But it appears unlikely to have much influence on the commissions consumers pay on home sales, at least in the near term, industry executives say.
The antitrust suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago in 2005, challenged Realtor rules that allowed brokers to block their listings of homes for sale from being displayed on other brokers' Web sites. The Justice Department said that policy would restrain competition from brokers that rely mainly on Web sites to interact with their customers. If such brokers couldn't offer their clients information on the full range of homes available, consumers would go elsewhere, the department said.
Under the settlement, the Realtors agreed to adopt new rules that don't discriminate against online brokers. The settlement says online brokers should be allowed to provide the same information via the Internet that conventional brokers offer to people who walk into their offices.
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