THE BOMBSHELL REAL ESTATE COMMISSION LAWSUIT IS ONE STEP CLOSER TO A TRIAL!

Hi everybody, Joe Hillner with Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty, where we guarantee the sale of your home or I'll buy it!

Every week, I share market data to keep you informed about the local real estate market.

Here is this week’s Boca Market Watch.

Single Family Homes

This past week, 54 new listings, that's so so , and ranging in price from $425K to $10.5M! 11 homes back on the market, while 46 homes listed took a price decrease, and 1 seller raised their asking price. And another poor week, with 34 different properties under contract, and 24 going pending. 15 homes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired outright. And an avg week with 54 homes sold, ranging from $375K to $5.5M!

Condos and Townhomes

74 new listings, not terrible, and ranging from $115 Grand to $8 Million! 10 units came back on the market, 59 properties with a price decrease, and 9 sellers with an increase. And a so so week with 49 different properties under contract, and 33 going pending! Just 16 condos or townhomes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired. 65 closed sales this week, down from last week, and ranging in price from $125K to $2.1M.
 

Here's what's making news right now

A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied a request from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Anywhere, Keller Williams, RE/MAX and HomeServices of America to overturn class certification for a lawsuit that could ultimately lead to billions of dollars in commission reimbursements to homesellers nationwide.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denied the defendants' petition, preventing NAR and the real estate franchisors from appealing the class certification decision and allowing the case to proceed as a class action lawsuit. This means the long simmering and closely watched case — known as Moehrl, after the lead plaintiff — is likely headed to trial, though the district court has not yet set a trial date, pending requests from the defendants that some class members' claims be resolved through arbitration.

NAR spokesperson Wes Shaw said, "While it's not common for an appeal court to grant an early appeal on class certification, the National Association of Realtors is disappointed by the ruling," This decision is non-substantive and does not go to the merits of the case," Shaw continued. "We look forward to making our case at trial and are confident we will prevail because pro-competitive, pro-consumer local MLS broker marketplaces ensure equity, efficiency, transparency and market-driven pricing options for home buyers and sellers."

The May 24 ruling comes more than a month after NAR and the franchisors filed their petition seeking permission to appeal a district court ruling granting class-action status in the case, which was originally filed in 2019. The suit alleges that some NAR rules — including one that requires listing brokers to offer buyer brokers a commission in order to list a property in a Realtor-affiliated multiple listing service (MLS) — violates the Sherman Antitrust Act by inflating seller costs.

Like a smaller federal case in Missouri known as Burnett (formerly, Sitzer), the Moehrl suit seeks to have homebuyers pay their brokers directly, rather than having listing brokers pay buyer brokers from what the seller pays the listing broker. Sitzer/Burnett goes to trial on Oct. 16. At the Moehrl trial, potentially millions of homesellers in 20 MLS markets nationwide can ask to be reimbursed for an estimated $13.7 billion in damages. If the court awards treble damages, that figure could go up to $41.1 billion — an amount attorneys for the defendants stressed in their petition is “far more than the defendants’ combined market capitalization”, and therefore pressures the defendants to settle to avoid “a catastrophic multibillion-dollar damages award.”

But in a response filing, attorneys for the plaintiffs said the defendants haven’t actually told the court what their assets are “which is required, to show undue settlement pressure.” Plaintiffs’ attorneys also noted that the same defendants had argued they faced such pressure in the Burnett case, whose estimated damages are a fraction of those in the Moehrl case, but the defendants have not settled.

The Moehrl case is one of several lawsuits that have been filed against NAR in recent years alleging that the association's rules violate antitrust laws. In 2020, a federal judge in California ruled that NAR's rules requiring listing brokers to offer buyer brokers a commission were anticompetitive and violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The judge ordered NAR to stop enforcing the rules, but the association has appealed the ruling. The outcome of the Moehrl case could have a significant impact on the real estate industry. If the plaintiffs are successful, it could force NAR to change its rules and could result in billions of dollars in damages being paid to homesellers.

In early 2021, in an attempt to try to find some middle ground that might get the DOJ to drop the case, NAR unilaterally implemented some rules to add more transparency to the system. Coming Soon status for a new listing was officially created and defined, and a Clear Cooperation Policy to govern listing practices and how brokers are required to share their listings was adopted. Nevertheless, the DOJ wasn’t satisfied and continues to press forward with their suits. It seems likely that there will be a trial, and we could see it happen this year. If so, all bets are off as to what the RE industry will look like afterwards. We live in interesting times…