Who pays the buyer's agent in Massachusetts

How it used to work, and what replaced it.

Buyer-agent compensation used to be published in the MLS and paid from the seller's proceeds, invisibly to the buyer. Since August 2024 it is negotiated directly between a buyer and their agent, and a seller's contribution is negotiated as part of the offer.

Under the old arrangement a listing agreement set a total commission, and the listing agent offered a share of it to whichever agent brought a buyer. That offer was published in the MLS. Buyers generally signed nothing and paid nothing directly, which made the whole system feel free to the person it was actually priced into.

The National Association of Realtors settlement removed compensation offers from the MLS and required buyers to sign a written representation agreement before touring. Two consequences follow. Your agent's compensation is now a term you agree with them. And a seller's contribution toward it is now a term you negotiate in your offer, like the price or the closing date.

Sellers still contribute frequently — it makes a listing more attractive to buyers who are budget-constrained. But it is an inducement now, not a fixture.

The gap that catches people.

Your agreement says your agent receives some amount. A seller may offer less than that, or nothing. The difference is generally yours to pay, in cash, at closing — and it usually cannot be financed.

This is the mechanic worth understanding before you tour a single home. Suppose your agreement provides for a given compensation and the seller of the home you want offers half of it. You owe the remainder. Suppose the seller offers nothing at all — a for-sale-by-owner, or a seller advised not to contribute. You owe the whole figure.

Because it is a payment to your own agent rather than a cost of the property, it generally cannot be rolled into the mortgage. That makes it a cash-at-closing item sitting alongside your down payment, your attorney and your prepaids — the same category as the rest of what you bring to the closing table.

The practical move is to ask the question as a scenario at the interview: on a home at my price, with a seller contributing nothing, what do I write a cheque for? An agent who answers that clearly has thought about your side of it.

There is no standard rate, and anyone quoting one is wrong.

Compensation is negotiated on every transaction. Published averages describe what other people agreed to, not a prevailing rate, and treating them as a benchmark is how the settlement's whole point gets lost.

You will find plenty of pages quoting an average Massachusetts commission to two decimal places. Those figures are surveys of past transactions. They are not a rate card, they are not binding on anyone, and citing one back to an agent is a weaker negotiating position than simply asking what they charge and why.

This site does not publish a rate for the same reason it does not publish an unsourced tax figure: it would be asserting a fact that is not one. What can be said accurately is that the number is a term, that it is negotiable, and that the negotiation now happens with you rather than around you.

What you are actually buying is covered in what a buyer's agent does. Whether the number is fair is a judgement about that work, not about a benchmark.

Questions about buyer-agent compensation.