Should a New Jersey seller pay the buyer's agent?
What the research says a low buyer's agent commission costs.
You do not have to, but most sellers still do. Two studies found that homes offering buyer's agents well below the local norm took longer to sell, and that more of them went unsold. What you pay is your decision, and we do not recommend a rate.
In New Jersey, broker compensation is fully negotiable and not set by law.
Source for all three: Iowa Law Review, 2025, listings from 2021–22, before today's rules. For reference, the average U.S. buyer's agent commission was 2.42% in Q3 2025 (Redfin), and about 2.5% in New Jersey in a 14-agent survey (Clever, August 2026). Figures checked November 11 and 12, 2026. They describe many listings and do not predict one home.
What a lower commission saves, and what a slower sale takes back
Enter your own numbers. The percentages are what the seller pays the buyer's agent.
Not counted above: in a typical market in that study, homes offering under 2% were 75% more likely to still be unsold after 120 days than homes offering the going rate. That is a relative increase, not a 75% chance.
Get this worked out for my home
All figures are illustrations. The 32.7% case uses the study's comparison of commissions under 2% with the going rate, and assumes your higher figure is the going rate where you sell. The 16% case rounds its separate 15.5% and 16.9% findings. Neither estimates what changing between your two figures would do, and the studies do not establish that a lower commission lowers the sale price. It leaves out your listing fee, transfer fees, taxes, payoff and attorney costs. Our full New Jersey net sheet adds those.
What happened to homes that offered buyer's agents less
From a study of listings in 34 large U.S. markets, tracked on Redfin from June 2021 to February 2022 (Barry, Fried & Hatfield, Iowa Law Review, 2025).
They took longer to sell
Days on the market until under contract, against homes offering the going rate.
Even a commission just below the local going rate went with a slower sale.
More of them went unsold
Chance of not selling within 120 days of listing, in a typical market.
A Massachusetts study of 1998–2011 listings found the same direction: commissions under 2.5% were 5% less likely to sell and took 12% longer (Barwick, Pathak & Wong, 2017).
Fewer buyers looked at them
Page views on Redfin, against homes offering the going rate.
The authors read this as buyer's agents sending these listings to fewer clients.
The data are from before August 2024. We found no published study of sale outcomes under today's rules (as of November 12, 2026).
Not every analysis agrees. Bright MLS, which covers parts of New Jersey, reported that homes offering less did not take longer to sell in 2020–2023 sales. The study's authors dispute its method.
These are patterns, not a rate. They describe many listings, not one home. Price, condition and marketing matter too.
What would these numbers look like on your home?
Holly Tang or Steven Hou will price it and show what you keep under each choice. Free, no obligation.
Why a low commission can cost a seller buyers
Since August 2024, a buyer signs an agreement that states what their agent is paid. When the seller pays less than that, the buyer owes the rest. An example on a $750,000 sale:
Example figures only. A buyer's agent may ask what the seller is paying, to tell the buyer what the home will cost them. Under NAR rules, a buyer's agent cannot collect more than the amount in the buyer's agreement, so paying more than that adds nothing to the agent's pay.
What changed in August 2024
The studies also found steering. Both conclude that some buyer's agents steered clients away from low-commission listings. Steering breaks an agent's duty to the buyer, and NAR rules in effect since August 2024 bar agents from filtering listings by commission. The studies found the pattern anyway, in data from before those rules.
Three ways a seller can handle the buyer's agent commission
Each one is the seller's choice. We show the numbers for all three before you decide.
State the commission before listing
The seller's agent tells buyers' agents what the seller will pay. Buyers know the terms before they write a purchase offer.
The riskThe seller commits to a number before seeing any purchase offer.
Wait for the buyer to ask
The seller states nothing up front. Each purchase offer says what the buyer wants the seller to pay, and the seller accepts, counters or declines.
The riskBuyers do not know the terms in advance. A buyer short on cash may offer a lower price, or ask for more than the seller planned.
Refuse to pay anything
The seller pays nothing toward the buyer's agent, in the listing or in any purchase offer.
The riskThe buyer still owes their own agent, and may pay it in cash, agree a lower fee, or offer less for the home. Fewer than 1 in 1,000 listings in the 2025 study offered under 1%, so there is little data on how these sales go.
Both figures are before the seller's other costs. Then weigh financing, contingencies and the closing date.
See your net three ways before you decide.
Text or call 908-874-5798. Holly Tang or Steven Hou will price your home and show what you would keep with a commission stated up front, with requests decided one by one, and with none. No obligation.
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- Our own fee is negotiable and agreed in writing before you sign.
- You decide what, if anything, to pay the buyer's agent. We show you the numbers for each choice.
- When we represent buyers, we do not filter listings by what the seller pays. Rules of the National Association of REALTORS® bar it.
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The research in detail
The 2025 national study
Barry, Fried and Hatfield (110 Iowa L. Rev. 1473) tracked listings in 34 large U.S. markets on Redfin from June 2021 to February 2022, when the commission offered to buyer's agents was visible to agents on the MLS. They sorted listings by how far the commission fell below each market's going rate.
Against homes offering the going rate, homes just below it took 15.5% longer to sell, homes lower but still at 2% or more took 16.9% longer, and homes under 2% took 32.7% longer. Homes under 2% were about 75% more likely not to sell within 120 days in a typical market, and drew about 8% fewer page views. In most markets, more than 99% of sellers offered 2% or more.
The Massachusetts study
Barwick, Pathak and Wong (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2017) studied 653,475 listings in eastern Massachusetts from 1998 to 2011. Listings offering buyer's agents under 2.5% were 5% less likely to sell and took 12% longer than listings offering 2.5% or more.
Sale price
The Massachusetts study tested sale price and found little effect on the final price of homes that sold. The 2025 study did not test final price. In its data, homes offering under 2% closed closer to their asking price than going-rate homes that took the same time to sell.
Time on the market
Zillow (2016) found that homes sold almost at once closed about 1% under list price, homes sold after about two months 5% under, and the slowest group 12% under. Zillow did not control for other factors.
When Massachusetts stopped letting sellers reset days on market in 2006, sale prices of affected homes fell about $16,000 relative to Rhode Island homes (Tucker, Zhang & Zhu, RAND Journal of Economics, 2013). A home can also sit because it was priced too high, so these figures are not all caused by time.
Limits
Both main studies use listings from before August 2024, when the commission was on the MLS. Today it is not, and buyers sign an agreement that sets their agent's pay. We found no published study of sale outcomes under the new rules (as of November 12, 2026).
Bright MLS, the listing service for the Mid-Atlantic including parts of New Jersey, reported that homes offering less did not take longer to sell, in more than one million 2020–2023 sales. The authors of the 2025 study dispute its method.
Who still pays
Redfin's agents report that most sellers still pay the buyer's agent. Nine in ten buyers used an agent (NAR 2026 Profile). The findings above are patterns across many listings, not a rate we or anyone recommends.