How much do realtors charge is a harder question than it was two years ago, and most of the answers you will find online describe an arrangement that no longer officially exists.
Massachusetts has no legally set commission. There is no statutory rate, no state schedule, and nothing preventing you from negotiating. What there is now is a different structure, and understanding it is worth real money.
What changed in August 2024
For decades a Massachusetts seller typically agreed one total commission with their listing agent, and the listing agent then offered a share of it to whichever agent brought the buyer. That share was advertised on the MLS, so buyers’ agents could see what they would be paid before showing a property.
Following the National Association of Realtors settlement, MLS systems removed those buyer agent compensation fields on 17 August 2024. A listing agent can no longer advertise buyer broker compensation through the MLS, and a seller is no longer automatically responsible for paying the buyer’s agent at all. Buyer agent compensation is now something a buyer negotiates directly with their own agent.
Here is the part that matters commercially, and it is where the theory and the practice diverge. Most sellers still offer to cover some or all of the buyer agent’s fee, as a concession negotiated within the offer rather than advertised on the MLS. Not because they must, but because refusing narrows the pool of buyers who can afford to bring an agent.
So the honest answer to what you will pay is: the listing side is now clearly yours, the buyer side is now genuinely negotiable, and in practice many transactions end up looking similar to how they looked before, arrived at by a different route.
The numbers, hedged appropriately
Total commission in Massachusetts has historically run around 5 percent, with the listing side around 2.5 to 3 percent. Those are historical patterns rather than rules, and the settlement has made the whole thing more negotiable than it used to be.
Treat any figure, including that one, as an opening position rather than a price. Commission is negotiable, it always was, and it is more so now than at any point in the last thirty years.
Commission is not the whole cost of selling
This is where sellers comparing routes go wrong, because they compare commission against zero and stop.
A Massachusetts seller also pays the deeds excise, the state transfer tax under Chapter 64D, at roughly $4.56 per $1,000 of the sale price. They obtain the smoke and carbon monoxide certificate required before closing under Chapter 148, Section 26F. They pay their own attorney. If the property is on septic, they typically pay for the Title 5 inspection. Property taxes and municipal charges are prorated or paid off, and outstanding water and sewer balances are cleared from proceeds.
One thing worth saying plainly, because it is the most common shock at a Massachusetts closing table. The biggest surprise is rarely a single fee. It is structural. Sellers expect the offer price to arrive as a check and then discover what has to be cleared from the proceeds first. Taxes and municipal charges lead that list, followed by attorney and title charges, then water and sewer.
Our guide to what happens to equity when you sell works through that arithmetic properly.
The four routes, and what each actually costs
| Route | What you pay | What you get | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full service listing agent | Listing commission, plus whatever you concede to the buyer side | Marketing, negotiation, the largest buyer pool | Property in good condition, time available |
| Flat fee or discount brokerage | A fixed fee or reduced percentage | MLS exposure with less hand holding | Confident sellers, straightforward property |
| For sale by owner | No commission, plus your own attorney and time | Everything, including the work | Direct buyer already identified |
| Cash buyer | No commission, and no repairs | Certainty and speed, at a discount to market | Condition or timing rules out the open market |
The comparison that matters is not commission against no commission. It is net against net, after costs, after repairs, and after the months each route takes.
How much do realtors charge compared with selling to a cash buyer?
Directly, a cash sale has no commission. Indirectly, it has a larger cost, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
A cash offer is calculated backwards from what the property is worth repaired, minus the cost of the work, minus holding and resale costs, minus a margin. In our experience that usually lands at 60 to 70 percent of after repair value before transaction, financing and holding costs. Heavy rehab sits closer to 55 to 60 percent. A clean cosmetic property can stretch toward 70 to 75.
That discount is typically larger than the commission you save. Which means a cash sale is the better route when something other than price is the binding constraint: condition that will not finance, a deadline that is real, a property you cannot prepare for market, or a situation where certainty is worth more than the last few percent.
Where the house is in reasonable condition and a lender would finance it, the open market has far more buyers and will usually pay more, even after commission. We would rather say that than pretend otherwise.
If you want to run the comparison properly, request a cash offer and set it against a realistic listing estimate minus commission, minus repairs, minus carrying costs for the months a listing takes. And if you are considering handling it yourself, our guide to selling without a realtor in Massachusetts covers what that actually involves here.
Before you sign a listing agreement
- Ask what the listing side fee is, separately from anything offered to the buyer’s agent. Since August 2024 these are genuinely two decisions, and a single blended number obscures that.
- Ask what happens if the buyer has no agent. The answer should be that you pay less. Confirm it in writing.
- Check the term and the protection period, which is how long after expiry the agent still earns on a buyer they introduced.
- Ask what is included, specifically photography, floor plans and whether anything is charged separately.
- Get the full seller cost estimate, not just commission. Deeds excise, attorney, smoke certificate, Title 5 if applicable, and the municipal charges coming off proceeds.
- Negotiate. There is no fixed rate in Massachusetts, there never was, and the current structure makes that more true rather than less.
Commission structures are changing and individual agreements vary considerably. Read the listing agreement itself, and have a Massachusetts real estate attorney look at anything you do not follow.
Homeowners We’ve Helped
Boston Investors
-
After 94 days on the market, two buyers backed out over the roof and septic. We were tired of dealing with it. The cash offer came without asking us to make the repairs, and we closed in 21 days. Once we looked at the actual numbers, it made much more sense than continuing to list. The whole process was simple and we’re very happy with how it worked out.
