Buyer Agency After the Rule Changes: What You Sign, and What You Pay

Since August 2024, a buyer working with an MLS-affiliated agent signs a written representation agreement before touring homes, and that agreement must state the agent's compensation in specific terms. Offers of compensation to buyer agents can no longer be published in the MLS. Sellers may still offer compensation, but it is negotiated outside the MLS rather than advertised inside it.

These changes came out of the National Association of Realtors settlement, and they apply nationally. What they mean for a Massachusetts buyer in practice: the conversation about who pays your agent now happens at the beginning, in writing, rather than being an invisible arrangement embedded in the listing.

That is genuinely better for buyers, but only for buyers who read the agreement. It is a contract, and its terms vary between brokerages.

What Must the Written Agreement Contain?

The compensation term has to be objective and specific — a flat fee, a percentage, an hourly rate, or zero. It cannot be open-ended or defined as "whatever the seller offers." The agent cannot receive more than the amount stated, regardless of what a seller might offer. Beyond compensation, look at:

• Duration: a short initial term is reasonable; a long exclusive commitment to an agent you just met is not.
• Scope: a specific property, a defined geography and price range, or everything everywhere — narrow is better at the start.
• Exclusivity, and what happens if you find a house yourself — read this carefully.
• How it ends: a right to terminate matters, as does whether obligations survive termination for properties the agent already showed you.

Everything in that agreement is negotiable, including the compensation figure and the term length. There is no standard rate in Massachusetts and there never was. An agent who tells you a number is fixed by rule is mistaken.

Who Actually Pays the Buyer's Agent Now?

It depends on the deal, which is the honest and unsatisfying answer. In many Massachusetts transactions, sellers still offer compensation to the buyer's agent — a seller wants their property shown to as many qualified buyers as possible. What changed is the mechanism: it is no longer advertised in the MLS, so your agent has to ask on each property, and the answer is now a negotiable term of your offer rather than a given.

Where the seller offers less than your agreement provides, or nothing, the difference falls to you. That can be negotiated into the transaction — asking the seller to contribute toward buyer-side compensation is a normal offer term now, though it is also one more thing competing for room in a multiple-offer situation.

The practical upshot: ask your agent, before you write an offer, what the compensation situation is on that specific property and what it means for your cash at closing. A good agent raises this unprompted.

What Should You Ask Before Signing?

1. What is your compensation, and what happens if the seller offers less?
2. How long is this agreement, and how do I end it?
3. What geography and price range does it cover?
4. How many buyers are you working with right now?
5. Who covers for you when you are away?

Ask them of more than one agent. The written agreement requirement has made it normal to interview before committing, which is a change worth using.

Describes rules in effect as of 2026. General information, not legal advice.