Who pays the buyer's agent in Washington?

So who actually pays?

Whoever the paperwork on that particular sale says pays. The buyer's broker is paid under the written agreement the buyer signed with them; who funds that payment is negotiated along with the price: the buyer, the seller as a term of the offer, or the buyer out of a closing credit the seller agreed to.

The short version for a seller: you are not obliged to pay the buyer's broker, and you may well agree to contribute to it because it makes your house sell. Both of those are true at once, and neither is a rule.

What changed in 2024?

Two things, both from the NAR settlement's practice changes, which took effect in August 2024: an offer of compensation to a buyer's broker may no longer be published through a multiple listing service, and a broker working with a buyer must have a written agreement with that buyer before touring a home, stating a compensation amount that is specific rather than open-ended.

What it did not do is decide who pays. Compensation to a buyer's broker is still permitted and is still commonly funded by the seller; what changed is that it is negotiated in the open, on the offer, instead of being advertised to brokers inside a listing database the seller never sees.

NAR is the national trade association for real estate agents; the settlement was of antitrust litigation about exactly that advertised-compensation mechanism.

Do those rules even apply in Washington?

Some of them may not, and it does not much matter, because Washington reached the same ground by statute at the start of 2024 and its rules apply to every licensed broker in the state.

The settlement's practice changes bind NAR members, the associations, and the multiple listing services that opted into it. The Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which is the one used across this county, describes itself as broker-owned and not-for-profit rather than as an association service, so whether every one of those changes reaches a given Washington transaction is a question about that firm's own memberships, not something a web page should assert.

What is not in question is the statute. Effective January 1, 2024, Washington rewrote its brokerage-relationships law:

• RCW 18.86.020 requires a firm to enter into a written services agreement with its client, before or as soon as reasonably practical after it starts work for them. Buyers included.
• RCW 18.86.030 requires a broker to disclose in writing, before their client signs an offer, any terms of compensation offered by a party or a firm to the firm representing the other party.

Read together, those two do most of what the settlement was reaching for: nobody is represented without a signed agreement saying what they are paying, and nobody signs an offer without being told in writing what is being offered across the table.

What are the three ways it gets paid?

The buyer pays their own broker; the seller agrees to pay some or all of it; or the seller gives a closing credit and the buyer pays their broker from it.

1. The buyer pays. Their agreement with their broker says what it is, and they bring it to closing. Cleanest, and hardest for a buyer who is already stretched on the down payment.
2. The seller contributes. Written into the offer as a term, negotiated with the price like any other term. This is still very common, and it is a choice you make on each offer rather than a commitment you make when you list.
3. A closing-cost credit. The seller credits a sum toward the buyer's closing costs and the buyer applies it as they choose, including to their broker. Watch the lender's cap on credits here; escrow and the lender will tell you what it is.

All three land in the same place on your settlement statement: money out of your proceeds. What differs is how it is negotiated and what the buyer's lender will allow.

Should I offer to pay it?

It is a pricing decision, not a moral one, and it is made per offer with the numbers in front of you.

The honest framing is that a contribution to the buyer's side is money you are spending to widen the pool of buyers who can afford to transact on your house. Sometimes that is clearly worth it and sometimes it is not, and the way to tell is to compare offers as net figures rather than as headline prices. A higher price with a larger contribution can be worth less to you than a lower one without.

Your broker's job here is to put both offers on the same page as net-to-you numbers and let you see them side by side. If that has not happened, ask for it.

How does this work with a 1% listing fee?

They are two separate numbers and they always were. Lorraine's 1% is her own listing fee, for homes in Kitsap County. The buyer's agent is paid separately and is not included in it.

So if you agree on an offer to contribute to the buyer's broker, that contribution is its own line: negotiated with the buyer, disclosed to you in writing before you sign, and separate from what you pay Lorraine. Nothing about the 1% changes because of it, in either direction.

The rest of the costs of a Washington sale are set out one at a time in what it costs to sell a house in Washington, and the fee arithmetic itself is in what a 1% listing fee comes to.