Real estate broker Compass to pay $57.5M in commission suit

Real estate brokerage firm Compass, Inc. (COMP) will pay $57.5 million to settle antitrust claims in correlation to the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) landmark settlement on commission rates. Yahoo Finance Live gives an overview of the housing market as real estate companies and homebuyers contend with this settlement.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor’s note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

JARED BLIKRE: Compass is the first big brokerage to reach a settlement over allegations it was part of a conspiracy to keep real estate commissions high. Compass has agreed to a settlement of over $57 million. This comes just after one week after the National Association of Realtors’ landmark settlement. And now we have shares of Compass, they are edging higher this morning.

And just a quick look at the Wi-Fi interactive for some charting here. This has been a slow and steady decline over the last five. This goes back to 2021 coming to market. You can see 82%, down 82% over that time.

Here’s the one year, it’s sideways. So this is another, kind of, trendless chart we’re looking at here. To the upside might be interesting if we got to $4 and might get there on the open. We’ll have to see.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, certainly. There’s been a lot of coverage on this ever since a NAR settlement was agreed a week ago today and exactly what this is going to do for many of the platforms like Compass. And I was taking a look at a couple of analyst notes out this morning and many of them are in agreement that Compass is actually amongst the worst positioned or positioned to be hit the hardest because of this just given the heavy reliance that their business does have on some of those commission fees that are generated through the buying and selling process.

So again, we are expected to see more agreements like this. The announcement that we’re getting here from Compass today, $57.5 million to settle some of those antitrust claims. Now, exactly how this is going to overall, taking a step back, and talking about the NAR’s settlement here, how that is going to impact the housing market, there is some debate just in terms of whether or not it’s going to be good for consumers or buyers potentially in the end, if it’s going to help the pricing of homes come down just a bit. But we certainly have seen this story trending on Yahoo Finance because so many people are trying to figure out what exactly it’s going to mean for them personally if they’re thinking about selling their home or if they’re out there thinking about buying a home.