The Daily Dirt: How the NAR policy changes affect NYC brokers

This Saturday is a big day for residential real estate. 

I’m referring, of course, to the fact that the National Association of Realtors policy changes go into effect. These changes include removing offers of compensation to a buyer’s broker from multiple listing services and requiring agents to have written agreements with buyers before touring a home. 

If you are in New York City, it may be tempting to stop reading after seeing NAR and MLS. But these changes affect brokers in the city, just indirectly. 

The Real Estate Board of New York is not a member of NAR, but was hit with two copycat lawsuits and has since issued new recommendations. Those lawsuits were paused after REBNY opted into the NAR settlement as a non-Realtor MLS. 

In a memo sent to members, REBNY recommends the use of written buyer representation contracts and makes the broker compensation field in its RLS optional. The trade group also amended its Universal Co-Brokerage Agreement in January to bar a listing broker from offering compensation to the buyer’s broker, requiring such offers to come from the seller directly. 

My colleague Jake Indursky reports that the recommendations are largely being viewed as just that — suggestions. In the coming weeks and months, agents will likely need to grapple with these changes becoming industry standards and may not want to go against them, even if they are considered best practices rather mandated by law. 

Speaking of which, the Department of Justice’s antitrust investigation into NAR is ongoing, so more changes could be on the way. Additionally, the final approval of the $418 million settlement against NAR is slated for November.  

What we’re thinking about: Will Gov. Kathy Hochul sign off on the four-year extension of the Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program? Or will she, as requested by the Citizens Budget Commission, either veto a bill renewing the abatement or only approve a one-year extension of the tax break? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com. 

A thing we’ve learned: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday announced a second round of funding for its Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing program, which “provides grants to communities to identify and remove barriers to affordable housing production and preservation.” The agency is making $100 million available in this latest round. In the first round, it awarded $85 million, including nearly $4 million to help New York City update and streamline its application for City Environmental Quality Review Application and develop neighborhood plans for Jamaica in Queens and Richmond Terrace on Staten Island.

Elsewhere in New York…

— A group of inmates at Rikers Island allege that they were left with the dead body of a fellow inmate for six hours due to a “staffing shortage” at the jail. The inmate had hanged himself. In a lawsuit against the city, the inmates describe being in a “state of panic” after a correction officer cut down the deceased inmate but then left him on the floor of his cell for hours. My colleague Christian Bautista found the lawsuit. 

— ICYMI, a state Supreme Court judge on Monday ruled against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., finding that the independent candidate should not appear on the presidential ballot in New York, Gothamist reports. Kennedy plans to appeal. 

— WCBS Newsradio 880 is ending all news programming, after nearly 60 years of broadcasting news in NYC. The station will shift to sports radio.

Closing Time 

Residential: The priciest residential sale Tuesday was $9.8 million for a 3,777-square-foot condominium unit at 174 Duane Street in Tribeca. Holly Parker and Michael Passaro of Douglas Elliman had the listing. 

Commercial: The largest commercial sale of the day was $23.6 million for a 42,997-square-foot, 58-unit apartment building at 4427 White Plains Road, in the Wakefield neighborhood of the Bronx. 

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $6.1 million for a 2,808-square-foot condo at 393 West End Avenue on the Upper West Side. Louise Phillips Forbes of Brown Harris Stevens has the listing. — Matthew Elo